Marketing Mistakes

Offline marketing is not seeing a resurgence in the past few years because it’s always been there. However, more and more marketers are starting to realise the power of offline marketing channels such as Direct Mail and Inserts for their superior conversion rates and long-term customer value. When included as part of an omnichannel strategy, offline marketing can be a significant source of revenue. That’s great news! Let’s start using offline marketing campaigns! But there are pitfalls you can fall into, especially if this is the first time you are dipping your toe into offline marketing. In this insight post, we will explore the most common marketing mistakes marketers can make when running offline marketing campaigns.

Not using offline marketing channels

The first and most vital mistake that marketers can make is not including any form of offline marketing within their campaign strategy. As we said, more and more marketers are now realising the power of offline marketing and are starting to include a greater proportion of offline campaigns within their overall marketing strategy. Offline marketing can play a vital role in customer retention, prospect conversion and brand awareness.

How to fix this: Include offline marketing within your campaign.

Pick the right channel

Choosing which offline avenue to stroll down can be tricky as there are lots of routes that can accomplish very different tasks. For example, programmatic mail can help market to your current customers. Partially addressed mail has a proven track record of converting prospects. Inserts are perfect for brand awareness and reaching a whole new demographic. As marketers are most familiar with Direct Mail, this seems to be the ‘go to’ channel. But this may not be the best for your end goals.

How to fix this: Speak to an offline agency (such as us, nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and ask what channel might be best for that particular campaign. Plus don’t be afraid to try different avenues, be sure to always measure your results though.

Timing

Timing can catch out most marketers who are running their first offline marketing campaign. Offline marketing is not as instant as its digital counterpart. Therefore many marketers don’t leave enough time to plan, produce and deliver the campaign.

How to fix this: We recommend working out your landing date and allow five weeks for planning, production and fulfilment.

Artwork

Designing artwork for digital differs massively from designing for print. Here are the top artwork mistakes and how to correct them.

No Bleed: Digital ads don’t need bleed. However, even the most advanced printers drift by a fraction over long runs. How to fix it: Give yourself at least 5mm bleed around the edge.

Low Resolution: Screens only need a resolution of 72dpi as this is the maximum most screens can display. Print, however, is only limited to what your eyes can see. Therefore most digital marketers provide their artwork at 72DPI. How to fix this: Supply your artwork at 300 dpi.

Wrong Colour Mode: Screens use a combination of Red, Green and Blue to produce all the colours you see. When you are producing artwork, it makes sense to create it in RGB colour mode. However, printers use CMYK. If you send your artwork into a printer in RGB, the colours can look off. This is not ideal for brand consistency. How to fix this: Choose CMYK colour mode when creating your offline artwork.

Dirty Data

Sending an email to the wrong contact can be annoying; sending a mailer which has an upfront cost and better chance of converting to the wrong person, is a waste of money. Getting your data cleansed and checked ready for a mailing campaign is vital to the success and bringing down the cost of the campaign. Having clean data is at the centre of all Royal Mail incentives and can play a massive part in reducing the overall cost.

How to fix this: Clean your data every three months and just before every campaign.

Not measuring offline results

With the plethora of digital metrics available at your finger tips, it may seem like an impossible task to measure the impact of an offline campaign as there are not as many analytic tools. How can you separate sales that have come from the campaign and organic sales? What was the overall impact of the campaign? What was the ROI of the campaign?

You can use simple techniques like using personalised codes and track the usage. But, what if the person ordering didn’t use a code when they should have? Your perceived ROI may be lower than it actually is!

How to fix this: Use a matchback report to accurately (to the penny) track every sale generated by your campaign. To do this, you create a spreadsheet that consists of all the send data and your sales data and then match them up. Remember to use fuzzy lookups to ensure you are capturing everyone, including people who have spelt their name or address slightly different to what you have in the send data.

Not using offers

This isn’t specifically just for offline marketing campaigns. Using offers can have a massive increase in converting. It works particularly well for enticing people back to your brands. The offer can be anything, money off, free gifts, free dispatch, buy one get one free, the list is endless. What is specific to offline marketing is people not using all the tools to draw attention to the offer. You only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention, so making the offer eye-catching is imperative.

How to fix this: The first step is to use an offer if you are not already. Secondly, draw as much attention as you can to the offer. Make sure it’s in a prominent place on the front of the piece. Also, using spot vinyl can make your offer pop off the page. Another successful technique is to make the offer removable. Put the offer on a perforated part of the mailer. This promotes in-store traffic, and with the offer in a purse or wallet can help serve as a constant reminder of your brand.

Marketing Mistakes Conclusion

In our 25 plus years in the offline marketing world, these are the marketing mistakes that we have come across most often. Our goal here at PSE is to make offline marketing as easy as possible. Let us handle your next campaign, so you don’t make these marketing mistakes. Call us on 020 7022 9825 or fill in our contact form here.

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