WHITE PAPER
New consumer & marketer intel reveals how
brands should shift their DM strategies
The direct marketing
revolution 2023
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
2
Multiplying channels clamoring for consumers’ attention.
New media and technology joining the marketing scrum
weekly (or at least it seems that way). All complicated by
an uncertain economic environment, leading brands to
scrutinize their marketing budgets to weed out line items
that aren’t delivering.
Direct marketing, widely considered to be one of the
most cost-eective approaches to generate sales because
it communicates directly with consumers more likely to
buy, is not excused from this inspection.
The picture’s not entirely new, but the stakes feel higher.
“I see clients shifting budget all over the place — not
necessarily decreasing their budget, but certainly
thinking about how they could do dierent tactics,
dierent approaches,” observed Elizabeth Fowler, a
director of analytics for Quad.
In their quest to meet KPIs, direct marketers must answer
questions about how or whether to integrate oine with
online, what role direct mail with its strong ROI but higher
upfront costs should play, the best way to engage younger
generations and many more considerations.
To help brands negotiate this challenging reality,
Quad conducted quantitative research in March 2023
to explore consumer reactions to direct marketing
communications, both print and digital, to tease out
answers to questions including:
• How much communication is too much?
• Is digital fatigue real?
• Do consumers pay attention to multichannel
campaigns?
We also surveyed marketers in four major sectors —
telecommunications, nancial services, insurance and
retail/wholesale — about budget trends, how they are
currently using direct marketing, what they hope to
accomplish with it and success metrics. (See page 14 for
our survey methodology.)
We complemented this new research with related
ndings from the Quad Customer Focus® November
2022 study that analyzed consumer shopping behaviors
and media preferences, as well as third-party research to
provide deeper context.
This white paper pulls together new insights from the
research to give brands the market intelligence they need
and ends with key takeaways to help plan future, even
more eective, direct marketing campaigns.
4 key indings
88% 39%74% 76%
88% of marketers said
their ad budgets had
increased or stayed the
same in 2023
74% of marketers said
direct mail delivered the
best ROI of the channels
their companies used
39% of consumers say
they are extremely/very
likely to respond to an
advertising promotion
when they see it across
multiple channels
76% of surveyed
marketers said digital
engagement had
increased over the
past 12 months
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
3
Outdoor/
Billboard
Marketers across all four verticals
— telecommunications, nancial
services, insurance and retail/
wholesale — are investing in an
array of media for advertising
campaigns, with social media the
most commonly used.
This allocation was fairly consistent
across all four verticals.
Companies’ budget allocation by
channel ranged from a high of 19%
each for TV and social, to 5% for
outdoor.
Making sense of
the media channel
universe
67%
TV
57%
Digital
48%
Direct Mail
47%
Mobile
text/app
44%
Radio
43%
35%
66%
Email Marketing
78%
Social Media
Newspaper/
Magazines
1%
Other
1% Other
Spending by channel
Q: Which of the following media channels does your company
utilize for advertising campaigns? (multi-select)
Q: Thinking about your company’s advertising budget, what percentage of
your media mix is allocated to each of the following channels? (multi-select)
19%
TV
19%
Social
14%
Digital
12%
Email
9%
Direct Mail/
Catalogs
8%
Mobile
7%
Radio
5%
OOH
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
4
Certainly marketers are under
intense pressure to spend wisely and
deliver results, given the uncertain
economy. Yet, the majority surveyed
reported their channel budgets had
either increased or stayed the same
compared to 2022.
Digital advertising saw the largest
year-over-year increase in budget
allocation — at least in part a
reection of the rapidly rising cost
of digital ad inventory.
Direct mail, of course, hasn’t been
immune to rising costs — thanks
particularly to higher postal rates —
but despite that, nearly seven out of
10 (68%) surveyed marketers reported
that their direct mail budget
allocation had either increased or
stayed steady year-over-year. At the
same time, they reported keeping a
close eye on direct mail ROI as they
plan an eective media mix.
Notably, nancial services marketers
reported the highest year-over-year
increase in their direct mail ad
budgets — 47% — followed by
insurance, retail/wholesale and
telecom marketers, who reported an
average 26% increase.
Additional context: The ROI
calculation helps explain the
continuing allegiance to direct mail.
Coping with
budget pressures
According to 2023 The State
of Direct Mail Report — which
surveyed marketing executives from
companies in e-commerce, nancial
services and banking, insurance,
health care, and retail — 74% said that
direct mail delivered the best ROI of
the channels their companies used.
By industry:
e-commerce 87%
Financial services 84%
Insurance 81%
Health care 65%
Retail 63%
Among that group of companies, 58%
said they had allocated more budget
to direct mail in 2023 compared to
2022, according to the report by Lob.
Marketers are under intense pressure
to spend wisely and deliver results
31%
24%
8%
37%
Increase
Direct mail ad budget
allocation YOY change
Decrease Unchanged N/A
Q: For each of the categories below, indicate
the YOY change in the budget allocation.
Financial Services
(n=58)
Insurance
(n=54)
Retail/Wholesale
(n=57)
Telecom Services
(n=54)
Total ad budget 66% 5% 48% 13% 42% 11% 65% 7%
Digital ad budget 76% 7% 57% 7% 51% 12% 59% 7%
Direct mail ad budget 47% 19% 26% 31% 26% 25% 26% 20%
Traditional mass media (TV, radio newspaper) 48% 5% 30% 20% 25% 16% 31% 13%
Personalized data-driven campaigns 47% 7% 43% 9% 33% 7% 50% 4%
Automated trigger programs 33% 12% 35% 9% 35% 5% 37% 15%
Budget allocation YOY change
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
5
Retail Products, goods, services
35%
Grocery or warehouse club
34%
29%
Streaming content services
(music, video)
26%
Health care & wellness
26%
Telecom subscriptions
(TV, Internet, mobile, landline
23%
Cosmetic/skincare/beauty
22%
Subscription boxes
(recurring delivery of products)
20%
None of the above
18%
Insurance planning/quotes
(auto, home, life)
17%
Estate planning/wealth advisory
9%
Other (please specify)
1%
How marketers are
deploying direct mail
Brand marketers told Quad that direct mail served several
objectives as part of a multitouch media mix.
Acquiring new customers, creating interest and audience
retargeting were among the most common objectives cited by
marketers in all four verticals.
The top ve actions marketers said they wanted consumers
to take as a result of their direct mail campaigns were:
Visit the website 75%
In-person trac 50%
Shop or purchase 49%
Download a mobile app 44%
Make a phone call 40%
(to a customer call center, etc.)
The Quad research shows that direct mail drives a wide variety of
consumer purchases.
Q: Which of the following
reasons describes why your
company uses direct mail
advertising? (multi-select)
All
Verticals
(n=106)
Financial
Sevices
(n=31)
Insurance
(n=20)
Retail/
Wholesale
(n=28)
Telecom
Services
(n=28)
Acquire new customers
64% 65% 50% 57% 81%
Create interest
55% 58% 45% 64% 48%
48% 39% 35% 64% 52%
Generate leads/sales
45% 45% 45% 50% 41%
Audience retargeting
42% 58% 40% 32% 37%
Introduce a new
product/service
42% 45% 45% 36% 41%
Drive loyalty
39% 35% 40% 43% 37%
Win back customers
36% 39% 30% 36% 37%
Post-purchase cross-sell, upsell
or repeat purchase
32% 39% 25% 29% 33%
Prompt purchase
28% 24% 35% 39% 19%
Build credibility/showcase
expertise
27% 35% 20% 25% 26%
Drive grand openings/
special event attendance
23%
19% 15% 43% 11%
68%
68% of companies said
their direct mail budget
had either increased or
stayed the same in 2023
Q: What types of purchases have you made or
signed up for, prompted by a direct mailer?
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
6
30 28
34
36
57%
Consumer attitudes
Consumer attitudes toward direct marketing
are another reason for the durability of direct
mail as a marketing tool. In Quad’s survey
of consumers, 84% of respondents said that
the direct mail they receive from a company
they purchase from regularly is “extremely
useful” (24%), “very useful” (26%) or “somewhat
useful” (34%) — statistically on par with email
(with a combined extremely/very/somewhat
usefulness of 87%)
Notably, younger generations are the most
enthusiastic about the usefulness of direct
marketing — both in the form of direct mail
and email.
A total of 90% of 18- to-34-year-olds said they
found email extremely/very/somewhat useful,
and 85% said the same about direct mail.
Among 35- to 49-year-olds, 88% reported the
email they received was extremely/very/
somewhat useful, the same percentage that
said direct mail they received was extremely/
very/somewhat useful. These two age groups
reported a stronger embrace of email and
direct mail than older generations.
57% of 18-34-year-olds
said they found direct
mail extremely or very
useful, higher than any
other age group
24
4
3
9 9
23
26
28
41
29
32
3
7
26
Extremely
useful
Very
useful
Somewhat
useful
Not very
useful
Not at
all useful
Extremely
useful
Very
useful
Somewhat
useful
Not very
useful
Not at
all useful
Extremely
useful
Very
useful
Somewhat
useful
Not very
useful
Not at
all useful
Extremely
useful
Very
useful
Somewhat
useful
Not very
useful
Not at
all useful
Extremely
useful
Very
useful
Somewhat
useful
Not very
useful
Not at
all useful
Email %
Overall average
18-34-year-olds
35-49-year-olds
25
33
6
10
9
24
31
3
7
9
26 26
Direct
mail %
Overall average
18-34-year-olds
35-49-year-olds
28
12
14
25
27
20
26
36
34
6
8
10
11
23 21
Text
messages %
Overall average
18-34-year-olds
35-49-year-olds
20
26
18
20 20
15
21
32
25
16
20
13
18
20
17
Phone
calls %
Overall average
18-34-year-olds
35-49-year-olds
28
1616
27
30
19
22
32
28
5
10
11
12
26
20
Social media
messages %
Overall average
18-34-year-olds
35-49-year-olds
Note: May add up to more than 100% due to rounding
Q: Considering a company you purchase from regularly, how useful are
the communications you receive in each of the following channels?
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
7
17
29
34
14
34
38
46
35 35
25
21
16
21
14
21
16 16
18 1818
27
19
18
16
20
19
21
17
10
16
12
13
11
10
13
14
8
6
13
11 11
6
34
19
18
12 12
7
11
10
5
7
99
6
9
8
12
7
10
Retail Financial Insurance Food
Service
Travel Telecom Home
Services
Automotive Health &
Wellness
Consumers hold onto direct mail because they see it as a resource
Consumers also hold onto direct
mail — across all product and service
categories and age groups.
The reason for saving it, according
to Quad’s research, is that consumers
overall see direct mail as a resource.
Additional context: In a world
where consumers are bombarded
with messages 24/7, another
characteristic of physical mail keeps
it popular: memorability. Research
conducted in the U.K. by the global
marketing research rm Neuro-
Insight revealed that mail activates
areas of the brain responsible for
long-term memory encoding 49%
more than email and 35% more than
social media advertising.
Part of the reason for this is that
direct mail is simply more engaging,
according to the study: 33% more
engaging than email and 35% more
engaging than social media — and
engagement drives memory encoding.
“Mail is the touchpoint that people
actually touch,” the Neuro-Insight
report noted. “While it’s getting
harder for marketers to cut through,
the power of touch can make a real
dierence.”
1-2 days Up to a week 1 to 2 weeks 2 to 4 weeks Over 1 Month Discard Immediately
48%
Information I intend to use/follow-up on
46%
Compare prices
42%
Find sales events and promotions
39%
It’s something I can use (address labels, calendar)
36%
Unlock exclusive discounts
29%
Share with friends and family
29%
Browse for new products styles or ideas
28%
Take it to the store to help me shop
26%
Piece was personalized to me
24%
Other (please specify)
2%
Q: How long do you typically keep direct mail you receive from the following categories?
Q: For which of the following reasons
have you saved a piece of direct mail?
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
8
The importance of
multiple touchpoints
7%
15%
Q: How likely are
you to open a piece
of direct mail that has
coordinated messaging
with a personalized email
or social media ad?
Q: How likely are
you to respond to
advertising promotions
multiple media channels
like: email, an online ad
and a direct mail piece?
Q:
having personalization
follow you across multiple
channels and devices for
a seamless shopping
experience?
18%
39%
21%
7%
16%
20%
39%
24%
No marketer wants to — or should
— concentrate spend in any single
channel, no matter how eective.
Consumers, especially ones you’re
seeking to acquire who don’t know
your brand, need multiple touches,
Quad’s Fowler noted.
“When you’re prospecting, you don’t
really know how that consumer is
going to respond, so that needs to be
a coordinated multichannel eort.
You see me in your mailbox, and
you see me in social, then if you hit
the website you get retargeted via
display,” Fowler said. “So we target
consumers across channels.”
This is particularly eective when
combining oine and online
touchpoints. Direct mail integrated
with complementary messaging
through digital channels bolsters
awareness and response. “We are
taking one touchpoint direct mail
piece and then giving them [the
consumer] an additional eight to 16
touches through digital channels to
surround that direct mail piece and
drive response,” Fowler explained.
Quad’s new research supports
the value of multichannel
communications. Thirty-nine
percent of consumers said they are
extremely or very likely to respond
to an advertising promotion when
they see it across multiple channels;
the tally rises to 78% across the
extremely/very/somewhat likely
responses.
And consumers like it when
multichannel communication is
personalized across all the channels.
Among consumers surveyed, 44%
said they are extremely or very likely
to open a direct mail oer when it
is coordinated with a personalized
email and social media ad; again, the
tally rises to 78% when “somewhat
likely” responses are added.
15%
16%
18%
33%
18%
Extremely Very Somewhat Not very Not at all
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
9
All
Verticals
(n=106)
Financial
Services
(n=31)
Insurance
(n=20)
Retail/
Wholesale
(n=28)
Telecom
Services
(n=27)
Email marketing
65%
68%
70%
64%
59%
Social media
58%
58%
75%
46%
59%
Display ads
(images, video on a website)
48%
52%
35%
57%
44%
Retargeting and remarketing
36%
32%
30%
36%
44%
Mobile
(SMS/MMS)
35%
35%
30%
32%
41%
Video marketing
34%
32%
45%
18%
44%
Search engine marketing
(SEM)
33%
29%
30%
25%
48%
Digital signage
30%
26%
35%
21%
41%
Podcast
18%
13%
30%
11%
22%
Sponsored content
(native ads)
17%
10%
30%
14%
19%
None- stand-alone
5%
3%
0%
11%
4%
10
25
20
33
13
26
24
34
14
17
28
44
5
29
12
26
42
37
47
42
36
43
35
44
40
54
34
36
Receiving direct mail prompted
action and interaction with other
channels for about three-quarters
of those surveyed in the November
2022 Quad Customer Focus
®
study.
Marketers who use direct mail
recognize the importance of
multiple touchpoints, with email,
social media and display ads
the most commonly integrated
touchpoints across all verticals.
Visited a website Visited a store Made a purchase
Researched a
product online
Shared the information
with someone else
Scanned a
QR/Flowcode
None of these
Total adults N=1094
18-34-year-olds
35-49-year-olds
50+ year-olds
Q: Which, if any, of the following actions have you taken
after receiving a direct mail ad in the past 30 days?
Q: Which of the following tactics do you integrate
with your current direct mail marketing strategy?
Direct mail prompts action
“ Mail is the
touchpoint that
people actually
touch. While it’s
getting harder
for marketers to
cut through, the
power of touch
can make a real
-Neuro-Insight
60%
60% of consumers say they
are extremely/very likely to
respond to an advertising
promotion when they see it
across multiple channels
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
10
Digital engagement
Consumer engagement snapshots
Note: Among 214 advertisers using digital media
including search, display, video, email marketing,
mobile text/app, web display/video and social media
3%
Increase Decrease
over time
About
the same
Don’t
know
Q: What has been the trend
towards digital engagement
among your target audiences
during the past 12 months?
76%
20%
1%
Despite anecdotal reports of
consumers turning away from digital
interactions —sometimes attributed
to burnout after a digitally dominated
life during the COVID-19 pandemic
— Quad’s research found little
indication of that among marketers
from the four verticals, or from
consumers.
Asked what the digital engagement
trend among target audiences had
been during the past 12 months,
76% of surveyed marketers said it
had increased over time and only
3% said it had decreased. That
included 82% of marketers in nancial
services, 76% of those in insurance,
71% in retail/wholesale and 74% in
telecommunication services.
Consumers surveyed about their
use of social media platforms during
the past 12 months also generally
reported increases, though the degree
of increase varied between platforms
and among age groups.
A signicant portion (46% to 34%) of
all age groups reported increased use
of Facebook. But 20% of both 18- to
34-year-olds and 35- to 49-year-olds
reported using it less — higher than
the average across groups.
Consumers who said they were
spending less time on social media
gave a variety of reasons.
Reasons respondents gave for using
social media less included: “I just got
bored,” “Just haven’t been using it as
much,” “Just stopped,” “I’m just over
social media.” Life stage reasons also
played a role, with “less time” and
“less spare time” some of the most
common.
Facebook Twitter Instagram Snapchat TikTok Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp YouTube
43 16 35 5 26 11 18 45 36 10 29 26 24 14 19 44 40 7 16 37 22 17 24 37 15 11 20 54 21 9 14 57 50 9 33 8
Switched to a
new platform
Too many clickbait
posts or videos
Negativity/mental
health/digital detox
Its initial novelty/
relevance ceased
Privacy
concerns
Increased
distrust
33% 29% 28% 27% 22% 19%
Q: What are the main reasons for your decreased usage of (social media)?
Q: In the past 12 months, has your usage increased, decreased, or
stayed about the same on the following social media platforms?
Increase Decrease About the Same Do Not Use
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
11
What’s
next?
Marketers struggle with measuring ROI
Brands face a dizzying array of
variables they need to parse to
determine how to get the best
return on spend. To name a few
of the most basic:
• What are you selling? Does it
have an average item price of
$100-$200? Or $25-$50? This
aects whether you can aord
a higher cost-per-acquisition
(CPA) tactic.
• What are you trying to do?
Find new customers? Maximize
current customers? Reactivate
lapsed ones?
• How do you measure ROI? Or
do you measure it? The ANA’s
2022 Response Rate Report for
direct media is based on 323
qualied responses, but only 137
of them were complete because,
the organization noted, “a large
percentage” of the sample did
not share response rate averages
when they took the survey, and
that there were few responses
to many of its ROI questions. It
added that the ROI percentages
included in the report reected
“extremely small bases.” In Lob’s
2023 The State of Direct Mail
Report, only about a third —
34% — of marketers surveyed
said they were able to measure
direct mail ROI; 64% were not.
Here are some recommendations for
how to put any confusion aside and
create eective direct marketing
campaigns:
Coordinate your direct marketing
channels. That seems obvious,
but often in-house teams and/or
outside agencies operate without
visibility into what’s happening
across all channels. For one thing,
this creates a major challenge to
accurate measurement. For example,
say a digital agency launches a two-
week campaign and reports a great
response in search trac, which it
takes credit for because of last-click
attribution. But it turns out that the
digital campaign took place during
the two weeks after the catalog
dropped. How much of the response
was due to digital tactics and how
much to the catalog?
The other reason to integrate
channels is to create a seamless
customer journey by coordinating
touchpoints and reinforcing
messages. This drives the consumer
behavior you want and helps build
strong customer relationships.
Being inconsistent does the
opposite. Twilio’s 2023 The State of
Customer Engagement Report found
growing consumer frustration with
inconsistent digital experiences:
51% said they had been frustrated
with brand interactions online over
the past year, up from 46% the year
before.
Don’t spend money that you
don’t have to. If a given customer
is a consistent catalog responder,
investing in other media to target
them is likely a waste of budget.
Other customers and prospects need
more than one touchpoint. “Who are
you targeting with your direct mail
tactics, who are you targeting with
digital ads?” asked Quad’s Fowler.
“Are you reaching people who are
already your customers when you’re
supposed to be acquiring new
customers?”
Using the right tactics goes back to
what you’re trying to accomplish,
who you’re trying to reach. Staying
focused on the ‘who’ is more
important to success than oer,
format, etc., Fowler noted.
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
12
Focus on incrementality, not
attribution. As Albert Einstein said,
“Not everything that can be counted,
counts.” John Puterbaugh, Ph.D., VP
of Advanced Media and Innovation
for Quad, cited that when referring
to the challenges associated with
attribution. “The aspiration is trying
to give credit where credit is due,
but in reality, there are so many
variables, so many things to try to
measure and understand. A lot of
people have spent a lot of money
trying to gure out what set of data
points give you the full picture and
have been unsuccessful.”
Sinan Aral, the David Austin professor
of management, marketing, IT and
data science at MIT, called it “a
fundamental confusion between
correlation and causation” in an
article published in the Harvard
Business Review in 2021.
Incrementality refers to lift — getting
people to buy or do something,
prompted by a specic stimulus, that
they wouldn’t have done without that
interaction. Aral cited the well-known
examples of Procter & Gamble and
Unilever reducing digital spend in
2017 and 2018 yet experiencing gains
in organic sales growth.
What produced the increases, Aral
said, was a shift from a narrow focus
on frequency as measured by clicks
and views which was delivering
diminishing returns, to a focus on
reach — the number of consumers
they touched.
Leverage marketing automation
technology to drive direct mail.
This is catching on throughout
the direct marketing industry.
Take Salesforce as an example.
Plugging direct mail campaigns into
the platform’s customer journey
management feature transforms
them from scheduled to always-on,
streamlining workows and holding
down costs. “You can deploy direct
mail just like you would deploy
email,” Puterbaugh observed.
He pointed to one Quad client,
Kasasa, a nancial services rm that
helps small banks and credit unions
oer competitive products and
market them to consumers. The
company is using Salesforce to trigger
online and digital content as well as
direct mail postcards [see below].
Personalization matters, and
good data make it cost-eective.
Consumers’ appetite for
personalization hasn’t waned. In the
2023 Twilio customer engagement
report, 60% of global consumers
said they would quit a brand if their
experience wasn’t personalized. That
includes 75% of Gen Zers.
80% of consumers
who scanned their
Flowcodes in one
retail campaign
volunteered their
email addresses
and consulting company
that helps smaller, local
and market competitive
banking products. But
their direct mail services
weren’t scalable, requiring
manual list management that
institutions, which struggled
Quad implemented
JourneyMail™, an app for
Salesforce that provides
templates to easily
customize DM pieces with
personalized images and
could complete campaigns
the system automatically
triggered direct mail pieces
in reaction to email and
other channel engagement
activity.
Using the new system,
Kasasa scaled run size by
80,000 pieces, giving clients
and personalized direct mail
program. They’ve expanded
print capacity and improved
speed to market, going
from monthly runs to weekly
while cutting postage costs.
“With Salesforce and
JourneyMail™, we can
identify the right consumers
with tailored messaging and
create real marketing returns
before,” said Keith Brannan,
Kasasa.
80%
What does
all this mean
for direct
marketers?
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
The direct marketing revolution 2023 White Paper
13
In Quad’s March 2023 survey, more
than a third of consumers said they
would share personal data to receive
tailored oers for health care and
wellness, footwear and skin care and
beauty products.
But personalizing direct mail costs
more. Marketers need to get a higher
response rate or order value to justify
it, and the key to that is making
personalization meaningful enough
to drive response.
Unfortunately, many marketers admit
to feeling they don’t have the right
data to personalize. In some cases, the
data is there, but it’s not organized
properly, Fowler said. In others, they
need testing to help identify the
right things to personalize—imagery,
product, oer, etc. Testing enables
eective personalization.
Jump on the QR/Flowcode
®
bandwagon. Incorporating QR
or Flowcodes into direct mail
pieces is a highly eective way to
coordinate and integrate print with
digital channels. It also enables
personalization and the capture of
rst-party data.
This is how it worked for one outdoor
equipment retailer that wanted to
drive trac to its new store in a
major metro area. Every piece in the
initial 50,000-piece mailing carried
the same substantial oer plus a
Flowcode (a type of QR code) unique
to the individual recipient. To claim
the oer, recipients scanned the
code and entered their email address,
capturing that piece of rst-party
data. (A QR scan is a top-of-funnel
intent signal that provides immediate
response data that in this case was
60% of global consumers said they
would quit a brand if their experience
wasn’t personalized.
Original Target List Scans by Location
Puterbaugh compared Flowcode
scans to click-through rates. As with
other digital engagement vehicles
(e.g., email links, digital ads, social
content), you need to consider
both the click-throughs and the
conversion rates. QR codes have very
high conversion rates compared to
most other mobile response vehicles.
Acknowledging that scan rates are
typically lower than CTRs — though
often at or above programmatic
display ads — Puterbaugh noted that
their conversion rates are higher.
“If you make the eort to scan
something, you complete the action,
so they end up performing better
than digital tactics.” He noted that
of the 3,500 people who scanned the
Flowcode in the outdoor equipment
retailer’s campaign, 80% gave their
email address.
Making sense
of the media
channel universe
Consumer
attitudes
Coping with
budget pressures
The importance
of multiple
touchpoints
How marketers
are deploying
direct mail
Digital
engagement
tied to each individual.) The scan
data gave the brand greater insight
into what types of people on the
original mail list engage, so the mail
list can be optimized. Individuals
can be retargeted digitally or by
mail, with trackable, personalized
oer codes and coupons.
Research
methodology
The Quad quantitative consumer and marketer research
was conducted in March 2023 via online surveys. The
of a representative sample of the general U.S. population.
The marketer panel size was 223, consisting of C-level
executives including CMOs and marketing leaders from
companies with 100+ employees and at least $5 million
in annual sales revenue. The respondents came from four
verticals:
· Financial services 58 or 26%
(includes banking, credit and loans)
· Telecommunications 54 or 26%
(includes landline, internet, mobile, streaming, TV)
· Insurance 58 or 26%
· Retail/wholesale 57 or 26%
About Quad
Quad (NYSE: QUAD) is a global marketing experience company that helps brands
reimagine their marketing to be more streamlined, impactful, exible and frictionless.
Quad’s strategic priorities are powered by key competitive advantages that include
integrated marketing platform excellence, innovation, and culture and social purpose.
The company’s integrated marketing platform is powered by a set of core disciplines
including business strategy, insights and analytics, technology solutions, managed
services, agency and studio solutions, media, print, in-store and packaging.
Conclusion
In a budget-conscious world,
ensuring you maximize your return
on investment involves nding a
balance between online and oine
strategies and a need to be careful
not to over-rotate to one or the
other. Consider using solid test-and-
learn tactics within and between
channels.Make sure you’re working
with a direct marketing partner that
can help you with balanced online
and oine strategies.
Quad works with literally thousands
of marketers, including American
Express, Citi, New York Life and
U.S. Bank. We help brands reach the
front door, discover more sustainable
solutions, bring teams together and
put your budget where it matters most.
Most importantly, Quad sees your
marketing as more than a journey —
it’s an experience. And our people
can make it an extraordinary one.
