Sometimes the clever promotional channel is not the newest one. It is the one our competitors have stopped using.
Postal mail marketing is easy to dismiss. Compared with email, LinkedIn or PPC search advertising, it is slow and expensive.
But the mistake is to judge postal mail on the basis of reaching thousands of vague prospects. In many B2B sectors, the priority customer base may be very small indeed. Perhaps there are 50 companies that really matter. At that point, the economics change.
If we have created a genuinely useful piece of content, sending it by post to 100 carefully chosen contacts may cost less than a small trade magazine advert. It may also be more likely to be noticed, kept and passed around.
I’m not suggesting we all reconsider mailing glossy brochures to half the industry. Generic sales letters will still fall into the recycling bin without even a sigh. Postal mail only makes sense when the list is tight and the material is good. But those conditions are exactly where many B2B firms should be strongest.
There is another advantage. Physical mail is now less crowded than the inbox. Email is cheap, but that’s the problem. Everyone can send it and everyone does. A good email can still work, but it’s got to be very good.
A printed piece can and should feel more deliberate. With high-value B2B sales, that can matter. In that sense, mail can work as part of the trendy ‘account-based marketing‘ – at least, just the simple version: identify the companies that matter, create something genuinely useful for them and make sure it reaches them.
If we are spending hundreds or thousands of pounds on advertising to reach a broad audience, why would we dismiss the idea of spending a smaller amount reaching the exact companies we most want? Especially if the content is better, the targeting is sharper and the follow-up is more personal.