Direct Marketing Trends for 2022

Posted on by Aaron.Weeks

Author: Camille Lehmann, Senior Marketing Specialist

The new year brings new direct marketing trends and continuations of ideas that advanced in 2021. Like the beginning of last year, 2022 gets its start in an advertising saturated society with technology at the fingertips of nearly every consumer. In such an environment, knowing how to stand out to the right consumer at the right time, is a necessary skill for differentiation. Below we’ve rounded up five direct marketing trends for 2022 for you to ponder as you plan your marketing strategies:

1. When it comes to words, less is more

Want to catch a consumer’s attention in the mail? Don’t overload it with unnecessary text that crowds the mail piece. You only have a limited amount of time to entice the consumer to act. If the consumer perceives that it will take too long to read the piece, you may have just lost your chance for them to get to your Call to Action. Provide enough to get your point across, but don’t leave the consumer drowning in words.

2. Combining Digital and Print

While both digital and print advertising have their own advantages, together, they make the ultimate power team, especially in the wake of the phasing out of third-party cookies. Whether it’s using QR codes or pre-in-home-date digital ads, the addition of digital to print will become more popular as marketers get creative to increase ROI. Nahan’s solution to this is Direct Mail Companion™, used to create a seamless message before, during, and after your direct mail or catalog in-home date, leading to greater response and higher ROI.

3. Augmented Reality

Marketers can harness the power of Augmented Reality (AR) to layer computer-generated dimensions onto a real-world setting. Consumers can use their hand-held technology to view direct mail and catalogs with AR to view how certain products would look in a space. Utilizing this technology gives consumers a memorable and enriching experience that is hands-on.

4. Targeting by Challenge and Not Demographic

What prompts consumers to pursue a service or product? Most often it is a need that they want to fill and they believe that a specific service or product will fulfill that need. Instead of only looking at consumer targeting by age or geographic region, including the segmenting of your target audience by unique challenges and/or behavior may return more favorable responses and make messaging feel more personal.

5. Use of Informed Delivery

When consumers use Informed Delivery from the USPS, they are able to see ahead of time the mail pieces they are receiving each day. Not only are they aware of what is coming, but they are also able to interact with the mail pieces by clicking on the images and view offers from the business’s website. According to the USPS, by September 2021, nearly 43 million users had registered for Informed Delivery and that number is expected to grow throughout 2022.

Author Bio: Camille Lehmann is our Senior Marketing Specialist and has been on the Nahan team since January 2020. Camille is responsible for assisting in Nahan’s marketing strategies and goals. She graduated with her Masters of Science in Marketing with a specialization in Project Management in 2020. In her spare time, Camille enjoys visiting new coffee shops and restaurants with friends, playing tennis, and finding new Pinterest projects.

Augmented Reality and Catalogs

Posted on by DigitalTeam

Author: Ken Anderson, National Sales Executive

After the year we’ve had, perhaps you feel 2020 has had us trapped inside an Augmented Reality program.  I know I do! 

What is Augmented Reality (AR)?

To keep it simple, it’s the melding of the real world around us and a computer-generated world.  It’s not The Matrix, Mr. Anderson….

Mostly Augmented Reality has found its place in games and with increasing power of mobile devices and fine-tuned software, it’s getting better with each passing day.  Who knew kid’s games could increase the value of your catalog and bring more customers to your door, physically or virtually?  Augmented Reality will help increase interaction with your catalog and loyalty to your brand.  It can be as elaborate or as simple as you want it to be. 

Using AR with Catalogs

In the early days of AR, the designer of the catalog would have to embed QR barcodes; those little square black and white things of “beauty” that went so well with the fine products you’re selling.  Today, AR will work with image recognition which eliminates the need for QR codes. (Don’t worry if you love them, you can still use them).  The advantages of image recognition is that you can make changes to product information up to and beyond the press date.  You can control the information on the back end of the Mobile App and change it to meet your ever-changing needs.  This ability may even increase the shelf life of your catalog and allow you to move inventory that may be moving slower or alter an offer that has moved a product faster than you thought it would.  That’s a problem most companies need a little of these days.

As AR continues to advance, customers utilize AR to try on clothes, shoes, hats, glasses, and more to see how great they look in your products.  AR will allow them to see how that couch will fit in their family room or how patio furniture will make their back yard perfect for the staycation they’re planning.  Do you sell products that need to be assembled?  Use image recognition and AR to launch an assembly video.  As a dad, I would no longer have to pretend I know how to assemble the new purchase, because secretly the instructions are confusing to me, I can watch the video.  Who wouldn’t love that?

Print brings results, far more than any other channel.  Digital enriches the experience.  Why not combine the two for increased brand loyalty, increased interaction, increased shelf life, and increased sales?  That’s a lot of increases everyone will love. Interested in learning more? Check out our marketing services page!

Bio: Ken Anderson is a National Sales Executive on our Sales Team. Ken has decades of print experience and has ink stains to prove it. He is a father of four and is an avid outdoorsman.