In the age of the Internet, phones that double as computers, mobile apps, email marketing, and of course, social media, the notion of sending direct mail the old fashioned way may seem a bit, well, old fashioned. However, as social media feeds and email inboxes become increasingly cluttered, sending a commercial real estate direct mail campaign to your customers can be a surprisingly effective strategy in your marketing toolbox. How can direct mail give your company an advantage? Here are just a few ways.

Clients Will Actually Receive Your Message

Due to consistent spammers, ISPs such as Google and Yahoo are taking more stringent measures to block unsolicited emails. You may have a huge subscriber list with an amazing offer, but since marketing promotions done via email only reach recipients around 30% of the time, most of your potential customers aren’t even seeing your message. Compare this with the direct mail list, which usually hovers around a 95% delivery rate. You are almost perfectly guaranteed that whatever information you send out is actually reaching your intended audience.

Direct Mail Is More Likely To Be Read

As more personal, as well as professional, communication is done via the Internet, the amount of physical mail being delivered has decreased greatly. Today, the vast majority of people pay their bills via online banking, communicate with family and friends via social media, and get promotional offers in their email inbox. The decrease in volume of items in the mailbox means that your direct mail piece does not have to compete with as many messages to grab your potential client’s attention.

Clients Will Interact With Your Content

As mentioned before, as the amount of accessible information on the Internet increases, the ability of your potential client to tune out your messages skyrockets as well. People are inundated with literally hundreds of emails, offers, status updates, and online notifications. Thus, the impact of receiving a physical object, in the mail, puts your offer directly into the hands of your customers. While people have a tendency to skim over information presented in their news feeds, or delete emails at random, they often spend more time actually reviewing the contents of their physical mailbox. A newsletter may be deleted after just a brief review of the headline, while a direct mail piece may be put aside until later and stay in the office for awhile before being tossed out.

Improved Response Rates for Calls to Action

According to data from the United States Postal Service more than 20% visited the sender’s web site. Direct mail produces pretty impressive response rates in comparison to some other marketing methods.

Sometimes looking towards the future means analyzing what has truly worked in the past. However, it is good to note, that while its effectiveness may not have changed, the expectations and attention spans of consumers have. Direct mail should be exciting and unique, offering your potential clients a great deal, limited time discount, or exclusive savings that they will want to act on immediately. Remember, if used strategically, direct mail is a proven marketing strategy still has a lively part to play in helping you grow and maintain your client base.