How banks can embrace ‘Amazonification’ with direct mail, then boost its power with technology

Imagine this scenario: You’re hosting an event at your house after a busy week of work and family, and you haven’t had time to run errands to prepare. Instead, you order ahead for a few key items that you pick up at an Amazon locker – and the products you chose were easy to select thanks to glowing customer reviews. You then cut out a bunch of other errands the day of with Amazon Fresh grocery delivery. And you didn’t even need to write a list – Alexa had compiled your comments throughout the week on what you were running out of, and she even added recipe ingredients from your plan for the party.

These days, Amazon is not only an online shopping resource, but a lived experience that creates seamless brand experiences for consumers. The retail giant has undeniably redefined consumer expectations across industries, and banking is no exception.

Some of these expectations are challenging for banks to deliver on amid stringent regulations. For example, consumers take for granted the ability to interact with a brand across multiple channels, and they expect updates from those interactions to be shared across touchpoints, from the grocery-store check-out to an ATM to a mobile device. But financial regulations limit these capabilities.

Fortunately, a surprising tactic is emerging to reset banks’ competitive edge for fostering consumer relationships: individualized experiences delivered to the mailbox.

Powerful connections in a digital era

The increase in digital marketing investment seems to fly in the face of marketing principles and trends in consumer sentiment.

Even if a brand can push through by outbidding the competition on digital channels, it has become challenging to stand out from the noise to make authentic connections.

In 2023, the average person was exposed to 10,000 display ads each day as they’re using the internet (siteefy), received 121 daily emails (Campaign Monitor), and had 1.75 email accounts (Prosperity Media). The deluge created by this proliferation of “targeted” digital media makes the physical mailbox a safe space. Receiving a piece of direct mail at home feels more personal and relevant to the recipient, especially since the average person received only one piece of marketing direct mail a day in 2023 (Statista).

Even in today’s digital world, direct mail creates meaningful moments with consumers in a way no other channel can. Direct mail is tactile and is received at home, which creates a more personal experience that improves brand recall. When integrated within an omnichannel strategy, direct mail heightens consumers’ engagement and emotional response to the brand.

Supercharging direct mail with technology

We all do this – you get a piece of mail from a bank, and you examine it. And you ask yourself, if I wasn’t in the marketing business, would I open this?

A piece I recently received really got my attention. I noticed right away the product was connected to my recent search behaviors – off to a good start.  It used my name, my address, and referenced my relationship with the institution. Sadly, that’s where the good news stopped. (The two calls-to-action – a generic phone number and a generic URL – were cumbersome and failed to move me along my purchase journey). There was no QR code, no specific department phone number, not even a vanity URL. Nothing that would have moved me closer to the bank’s desired action.

Today, tools like Flowcode make it easy to add specific, custom codes to any piece of direct mail. That simple solution would have changed this moment of friction into a seamless integration for any consumer. This is just one of many ways technology has transformed direct mail’s capabilities in recent years.

Cutting-edge technology offers innovative ways to measure and optimize direct mail for the greatest impact. These advancements include:

• Deep insights for authentic connections: Data analytics isn’t just for digital channels. At Quad, our core dataset features 260 million consumers, mapped to a resilient identifier – their physical home address – and coupled with additional data and contextual insights that can be activated across any media channel.
• Direct mail optimization: There was a time when optimizing direct mail meant sending out a campaign, waiting weeks to track the results, adjusting the strategy, and trying again. Today, data-informed tools mean that marketers can treat direct mail just like email with rapid testing of different messaging approaches before pieces are printed or shipped. This is a powerful way to uncover impactful combinations for messages, images and colors.
• Trackable responses: The strategic implementation of direct mail enables brands to track consumer responses and make a more direct connection between a specific campaign and its contribution to a marketing program, while collecting clear attribution information, first-party data, and more. The use of a signature QR code for the call to action is one example.

Direct mail creates authentic connections with bank consumers

The “Amazonification” of consumer expectations has transformed how brands engage. Banking faces unique challenges in meeting those consumer expectations – and staying ahead of agile fintech startups – while also navigating stringent regulations. A timeless pillar of omnichannel best practices, individualized direct mail is now getting the attention it’s due as an impactful way for banks to make authentic connections with consumers and meet their expectations while rising above today’s digital marketing cacophony.

Todd McNab is Vice President of Client Strategy with Quad.