Ignoring the people who condemned it, advertising mail still has a bright future ahead of it. More than 93% of French households have a mailbox and the vast majority check it several times a week. Suffice it to say that advertising mail remains the medium par excellence for close relationships with customers.
For more than ten years, the BALmétrie audience study (carried out with the Ipsos institute on behalf of the ACPM) has published the official results of the mail media in France. These data confirm that, despite the digitalization of uses, the craze for advertising mail is far from over.
Do consumers read their advertising mail?
Every week, nearly 90% of French people continue to read at least one advertising letter. Plus, they don’t stop at just reading. Indeed, faced with the saturation of digital messages, physical mail records an excellent conversion rate: around 45% of those surveyed indicate that they have gone or intend to go to a store following this reading, and more than 30% of recipients of addressed mail visit the brand’s website or application. Advertising mail therefore represents a major issue in the omnichannel purchasing journey.
What interest does addressed mail generate?
The interest generated by this media is closely linked to the offers of good deals, reduction coupons and samples inserted in commercial mail. The major advantage of advertising mail lies in the fact that its reading is chosen and desired by the recipient. It is not imposed intrusively, as is often the case with advertisements on screen or television. Anchored in the daily life of the French, it enters directly into the heart of homes, where everyone can consult it as they wish or during their moments of relaxation.
Advertising mail: mail to build customer loyalty?
This is a letter sent by name by a company to its customers. Its objective is to create a lasting close relationship with them. It offers customers, to thank them for their loyalty, gifts, vouchers or invitations to private sales. Loyalty mail allows the company to differentiate itself by creating a physical and caring connection with the customer, thus encouraging them to maintain their trust in the brand. In addition, advertising mail does not venture into mailboxes just any day of the week: it is integrated into a planned calendar (start of the week, commercial highlights) so that the customer, guided by the dates of offers, goes to the store or online to take advantage of them.
How are clients selected?
Most of the time, the company sends these letters to customers registered in its database or holders of a loyalty card. It gradually enriches this data thanks to the different points of contact.
So, to avoid sending offers randomly, it must define a precise strategy. It identifies the customers to target, the message to send to them and the right time to do it. Finally, she personalizes each communication in order to make it more relevant and optimize its effectiveness.
What content?
The content depends on the brand’s strategic objectives: either encourage the customer to come to a physical point of sale, or lead them to the e-commerce site. In this sense, the company selects targeted promotional offers, such as discount vouchers or exclusive privileges, to maintain the link with its customers. Some brands have become specialists in personalized attention, such as sending birthday cards accompanied by a gift to be collected in store (like major houses like Damart, Guerlain and many others).
What are the benefits for the brand?
In general, these letters are very appreciated. Indeed, they correspond to personalized offers on popular brands, and the content of the messages meets the concrete expectations of the people who receive them. The brand gains notoriety, credibility and sympathy, because it knows how to forge a regular and tangible link with its customers.
But who are the people chosen?
When you go to the checkout or buy on a merchant site, the brand often offers you the opportunity to join its loyalty program to benefit from certain advantages. You then provide your contact details and purchasing preferences, which feed the company’s database.
However, the company doesn’t just send the same messages to all its customers. On the contrary, it crosses several criteria, such as age, birthday, gender or purchase history. It can thus better target its communications and offer more relevant offers.
What is the behavior of customers who are fond of new technologies?
Against all expectations, consumers who are very active on the Internet and on social networks are particularly receptive to paper mail, which they perceive as a tangible and rewarding break from the saturation of mailboxes. Likewise, the cross-sectional audience data shows a strong complementarity between the media: major consumers of audiovisual and digital media remain excellent readers of letters and printed advertising.
The tandem: Print advertising, partner of the web and television in a few figures:
- 76% of heavy television consumers read at least one printed advertisement every week.
- 74% of major press readers read at least one advertising leaflet every week.
- 70% regular radio listeners and heavy web users read at least one printed advertisement every week.
