3 Marketing Trends to Include in Your 2017 Direct Marketing Strategy

As you plan your marketing budgets for Q1 of 2017, it is important to reflect on your marketing campaigns to establish the ones that gave you great results and those that did not, and also identify upcoming trends that you should focus more on.

One thing that most marketers seem to agree on is that the marketing landscape is getting increasingly difficult to navigate. As such, you need to ensure that you create campaigns that are directed at your target market to maximize your advertising budget. Most of the successful marketing campaigns are those that use an integrated approach, combining the merits of online and offline marketing tactics.

Here are some predictions for the marketing landscape in 2017:

1. Increased use of social mediaWhile tech-savvy marketers and entrepreneurs can’t imagine creating a marketing campaign without social media, reports suggest that about 70 percent of businesses are still not active on any social media platform. This is likely to change, with some businesses trying out social media marketing and others increasing their budget allocation for social media.

   To maximize the benefits of social media, marketers should make use of available tools to collect and analyse data from different channels, and then use that knowledge to improve their engagement.

2. Increased use of videoIndustry experts claim that 2016 was the year of video marketing, following reports pointing to the increased success of marketing campaigns containing video content. For instance, a report by Forrester shows a 200–300 percent increase in click-through rate for emails containing video content. Unbounce reports also showed an 80 percent increase in conversion for landing pages with video content. Furthermore, YouTube claims that mobile video consumption doubles every year.

   Marketers are increasingly becoming aware of these statistics and are looking forward to incorporating video into their marketing campaigns.

3. Creative direct mail marketingDirect mail is one of the best forms of direct marketing. It offers many benefits for local businesses and B2B companies, and many will be looking to try out new strategies in 2016, including:

• Oversized mailings via the GTA mailing service – in order to make your mail piece stand out from the rest despite the increased cost
• Use of soft-touch varnish to make the paper feel soft and create an impression of high-profile status – many colleges use this tactic for their viewbooks

Final note

It is hard to predict how big these direct marketing tactics will be, but marketers can definitely expect new opportunities and new challenges in 2017, just as with 2016 and every year before.

Interested in adding direct mail marketing to your advertising mix? Please call our Toronto mailing house at 1-866-486-0423. Troi spells success, one letter at a time!”