I’m a big proponent for breaking down the silos between online and offline marketing and communications efforts.  In fact, finding the value in the physical, or analog was the the topic of a book launch I attended last night in Toronto, for David Sax’s, Revenge of the Analog.  He writes about renewed appreciation for things like print, vinyl records, moleskine notebooks and the like

As a marketing technology company Prime Data knows that donors and consumers have feet firmly planted in both worlds. And we encourage our partners and clients to take a holistic approach that brings everything together.  It seems we are in the infancy of this movement but it is becoming more clear that it is a necessary development.

A few months back I wrote about how bringing together the online and offline components of a marketing campaign amplifies its effectiveness.

In that piece I quoted from an InfoTrends study called Micro to Mega: Trends in Business Communications which surveyed executives and showed the how well different channels performed alone and when in combination with others.

So when I received this link to a new whitepaper from Canada Post based on neuroresearch showing the relationship between direct mail and online marketing I was pretty excited.

Physicality. Data. Connectivity

The paper shows how the right combination and sequence of materials can bring about a result. The authors called this the “connectivity effect.”

What the study showed was that Integrating direct mail with digital actually was better at driving  consumer action that just using one or the other. It found that combining both resulted in:

• 39% more attention
• 10% more brand awareness
• 5% more interest in the brand messaging

The study also found that the sequence of the material also had a profound effect on results.

The sequence of digital and direct mail messages has a profound effect on results. Click To Tweet

For instance going from the digital to print resulted in 40% more brand awareness and 26% more interest in the direct mail message. The overall result was a 3% increase in motivation to take an action based on the material.

Here is a 4 minute video from Canada Post talking about the study and its results. I love hearing data driven marketers talk about the how this all works and I’m sure you’ll find the information excellent – even if the delivery is a bit dry at times.

If your company is interested in creating data driven marketing campaigns that combine detailed tracking metrics from both your online and offline marketing efforts, I want to talk to you. Steve