Direct Mail Automation: Sending Automated Direct Mail that Packs a Punch [2024]

"Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of extreme importance to a nation. Also, direct mail automation can make eCommerce brands and retailers a lot of money with very little effort."
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War (孫子兵法)

Our in-house translator swears that is true to the original text.

Sun Tzu was right, though.

(We assume that he was comparing traditional direct mail with automated direct mail.)

Traditional direct mail is super slow and limited: campaign setup is time-consuming, there's no good way to track and measure success, and it requires a ton of steps from idea to delivery.

Automating your direct mail—or launching a new automated direct mail program—requires almost zero bandwidth, is easy to track, and is a proven high-ROI strategy.

Let's Kick Traditional Mail to the Curb

The traditional approach to direct mail is tedious at best.

Marketers would develop (or purchase) a list, craft content, shop for a printer, run a massive batch of postcards and—finally—mail them out.

While the process was certainly sluggish and manual, many marketers still send a lot of mail this way because of direct mail's historically high response rate. However, that trend is coming to an end, thanks in large part to the magic of direct mail automation.

At its core, direct mail automation is a way to modernize and streamline traditional direct mail.

Rather than spend hours on end on a single postcard, catalog, or other mailer, marketers can leverage software to send highly targeted, personalized, and triggered mailers efficiently and track results in real time.

What Makes Direct Mail Automation Different from Traditional Direct Mail?

TLDR: Un-manual-ifying direct mail.

Manual as in: writing copy, designing mail, collecting and checking addresses, sending to the printers, mailing it out, getting data six to eight weeks later—rinse and repeat. All this is a lot of work, and unfortunately, that'll be your routine for as long as you're still doing traditional direct mail.

Automating the direct mail process (BTW, some firms commonly call this programmatic direct mail) takes the hassle away, ensuring that the only thing you'll be spending time on is crafting high-level, super engaging campaigns. No more "will this postcard get to the customer on time?"

And it's all possible thanks to these slew of features:

1.  Automated Triggers

Short Version: Automatic, dynamic event- or behavior-based mailing, not spray n'pray direct mail.

Explanation: Triggers using direct mail automation are a lot like cookies in retargeting campaigns. Your target audience comes in contact with your brand on whichever platform, a trigger "senses" this action, and without wasting an ounce of time, immediately sends them an personalized offline response.

For instance, the screenshot above shows a flow in the PostPilot app that enables a brand to convert anonymous site visitors. In this case, when a lead has spent 2+ minutes onsite and has viewed 2+ pages, PostPilot uses a proprietary pixel that attempts to match the browser's information with a physical address. The pixel takes a few minutes for the brand to install, and from that point on, they have the ability to set up retargeting flows.

This feature is called SiteMatch, and it successfully matches browsers to addresses 20–40% of the time.

Direct mail automation platforms (like PostPilot) have these triggers rolled into their capabilities. This code is what differentiate direct mail automation from its flat-to-the-bone counterpart (aka old-school direct mail marketing).

2.  Segmentation

You can buy all the address lists in the world, but without the ability to collect audience data and segment it accordingly, your campaigns will never really take off. In other words, you'll be wasting money on people who'll never convert.

Direct mail automation allows you to use customer data gathered from your digital campaigns to automatically segment and target your direct mail campaigns. That means you'll only be sending mails to highly specific groups of people who're already interested in your offering—not so bad, right?

Whether you want to create segmented lists based on customer demographic, geographical locations, interests, shopping behavior, purchase history, or anything in between, it's all a cinch with direct mail automation.

3.  Real-time Tracking

If you couldn't track and analyze the performance your email or SMS campaigns as they happen, you'd probably go nuts.

Why should direct mail campaigns be any different?

It shouldn't be.

Yet it's what direct mail has historically been like—and it's still the experience for many brands who send catalogs. But with a direct mail automation platform, real-time tracking is a given.

With powerful built-in campaign dashboards, you can make quick, informed decisions about what's working, what's not, and how you can make adjustments to improve campaign results.

No more clunky spreadsheets or matchbacks. And yes, you can track everything—from send status to campaign ROI to coupon usage rates.

4.  Native eCom integrations

Let's be honest. Manually transferring data from eCommerce campaigns into your direct mail platform is far from a cakewalk. Heck, it's a time-consuming, error-prone process that eats into your productive cycle big-time.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of eCommerce integrations available for most direct mail automation platforms to connect to your digital marketing tools.

Weaving automated direct mail into your current marketing stack allows you to create punchier, more holistic campaigns without completely upending your processes. You can rest easy knowing your tools are talking to one another—literally.

The best part?

These eCommerce integrations improve the experience for your recipients with more relevant, personalized, and timely sends (here's to sending seriously cool physical cards in half the time).

3 Undeniable Benefits of Direct Mail Automation for DTC/eCommerce Brands

It's absolutely critical to leverage other unsaturated channels to reach your audience in ways digital alone can't.

Number one on that list?

Yep, it's automated direct mail.

Here are ways automated direct mail can be beneficial to your campaigns:

1.  It Breaks through the Digital Clutter

Customers crave authenticity.

And 57% feel truly valued when they receive direct mail. Those deeper and authentic customer connections eventually lead to brand affinity. And we all know just how crucial brand affinity is to the sales process (hint: it's the engine that keeps everything moving).

You can send emails and texts, and you can throw money into acquisition/retargeting ads until you're blue in the face.

But if you aren't thinking out of the box, your outreach efforts are bound to fall at the first hurdle. Automated direct mail lets you build deeper, unfiltered connections with customers by using highly relevant, personalized physical cards that purge their heartstrings and leave them in utter awe.

Get this:

A lot of your prospects have never received an item of direct mail from a brand before. So, to them, it is actually real surprise and delight.

2.  It's Super Interactive

Direct mail, on its own, is an incredibly interactive channel. Now imagine what automated direct mail can do.

With the best direct mail automation software, designing your own bespoke, highly interactive cards becomes a total breeze. Better yet, every card is printed on premium quality card stock for a lasting, delightful impression.

I mean, c'mon. Check this out:

The end result?

More eyes on your marketing. Your ROAS and engagement rates shooting through the roof like they're on steroids.

3.  There's Not As Much Competition

You know it. We know it. Everyone knows it—digital marketing is saturated.

And you know what that means?

A prime opportunity to get noticed through channels that are not inherently digital. Direct mail is one of those—and it's probably the least saturated of all.

Remember that most people will at least skim through their mail before binning it, and a colorful, creative, personalized piece of mail has a much better chance of standing out in someone's mailbox than your website does on Google.

Thing is, people don't expect physical cards, and they aren't subjected to the same distractions when looking through physical mail as they are when they're online. So your chances of getting your message across with direct mail are substantially higher.

Direct Mail Automation Best Practices: 3 Tips to Boost Your ROAS & Engagement

1.  Target the right audiences

Even if you've figured out everything else, your ROAS won't move up one bit if you keep sending your mailers to the wrong market and/or segments.

So before you rush to create a bunch of cards, carefully consider your target market.

Choose the metrics for which you'll segment your audience (i.e., demographic, shopping behavior, etc.), then drill in on the specifics. After all, customers respond far better to a targeted message that gives them exactly what they're looking for as opposed to a generic message that hardly speaks to them. Do your due diligence.

2.  Test different RFM segments

"Know thy customer like the back of thy hand" is one of those marketing sayings that never seems to lose its mojo.

A proven way to put it into practice is through RFM segmentation—an approach that allows you to divide your target mailing lists based on recency, frequency, and monetary values.

Different RFM segments will inevitably perform differently. So it pays to test them accordingly and on the go. A/B testing can be an invaluable tool in this quest. As always, look at what the data tells you after you test our new RFM segments. Observe which campaigns were successful and which were not. This will consequently help you plan your next campaign and avoid drawing blanks on your loyalty and CLV goals.

3.  Make it unique and memorable

Think about yourself as a recipient—is your mailer doomed for the trash, or will it be passed around, kept at your prospects' desk, and maybe even shared on social media? Be sure to create something you can proudly put your logo on and one that's unique to your brand's look and feel.

Get Automating with PostPilot

PostPilot was made for savvy eCommerce marketers like you—marketers who ready to take direct mail tactics to the next-next level and are ready to incorporate automation into their strategies.

PostPilot is like Klaviyo + Meta for direct mail—direct mail automation software that helps you send perfectly-timed promotions and create memorable moments that increase customer loyalty and boost your bottom line.

Stop leaving LTV and incremental profits on the table and start sending delightfully personalized on-off triggered campaigns instead—all in literal minutes!

The best time to try PostPilot was yesterday; the second-best time is now:

• Check out some direct mail examples designed by our superstar in-house design team.
• Read a direct mail case study or two, to learn more about how leading brands are automating their mail with PostPilot