We\u2019ve heard it many times: Direct mail is the foundation of any good marketing program. While digital marketing can be an important component of a multichannel marketing strategy, direct mail is the platform on which most digital campaigns are built. Now the experience of one high-end retail chain illustrates how true this is.<\/p>\n
Erik Nordstrom, co-president of the Nordstrom department store, slashed his forecast for sales and profit after the company had a weaker than expected first quarter. But Nordstrom didn\u2019t blame Amazon.com, the changing winds of fashion, or foreign competition. He blamed the company\u2019s reduction in direct mail.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom, a well-known name in high-end retail, has a well-established loyalty program. It has nearly 12 million active customers who contributed more than 60% of sales in the first quarter. However, late last year, the retailer made the decision to move to a digital-only strategy. The result? Disappointing numbers. \u201cAs part of our decision to move to a digital-first program, we eliminated paper notes but later discovered that a segment of our customer base relies on receiving these notes by mail,\u201d Erik Nordstrom said.<\/p>\n
That decision, Nordstrom added, resulted in a reduction in foot traffic at all of the Nordstrom stores since many of its customers rely on receiving their loyalty rewards by mail, something the retailer either didn\u2019t know or hadn\u2019t considered.<\/p>\n
The takeaways?<\/p>\n
1. Direct mail works!<\/strong><\/p>\n Embrace digital communications, but, build those strategies on top of a foundation of direct mail.<\/p>\n 2. Know your customers\u2019 channel preferences.<\/strong><\/p>\n If Nordstrom had been more tuned in to the channels that were most important to its customers, it might not have eliminated direct mail in the first place.<\/p>\n The lessons are clear:<\/p>\n Know not just your customers\u2019 demographics, but what channels they rely on and are most likely to respond to. Know who likes mail, who likes email, who likes social, and target your messaging to different customers the way they like to receive it.<\/p>\n If you love your digital communications, don\u2019t eliminate them. Use digital and print together. In fact, studies show that marketing results are consistently better when you pair them up.<\/p>\n Want to learn more about your customers\u2019 channel preferences so you don\u2019t make the same mistake Nordstrom\u2019s did? Let us help!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019ve heard it many times: Direct mail is the foundation of any good marketing program. While digital marketing can be an important component of a multichannel marketing strategy, direct mail is the platform on which most digital campaigns are built. Now the experience of one high-end retail chain illustrates how true this is. Erik Nordstrom, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-2421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-direct-mail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/34.94.80.94\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}