Unlocking the Power of Personalized Direct Mail: Bridging the Gap Between Brand Building and Performance Marketing

In today's rapidly evolving marketing landscape, the challenge of balancing brand building and performance marketing poses a major headache for marketers. The rise of data-driven strategies prioritizing measurable returns could overshadow the slower rewards of growing brand equity and loyalty overtime. In the past, marketers have considered these marketing strategies to be mutually exclusive, but this is far from the truth. Not only can performance marketing and brand building coexist in a company's marketing mix, they can actually benefit one another and help each other thrive. Reconciling these competitors could hold the key to unlocking the full potential of companies' marketing campaigns, and personalized direct mail could be a powerful tool to help marketers achieve this.

Brand Building and Performance Marketing Do Not Counteract Each Other

In the past, there has been a common misconception that performance marketing and brand building cannot be successful in tandem. However, marketing thought leaders have recently found success in establishing brand equity metrics that can help companies reap the benefits of both performance and brand marketing strategies. Bridging the gap between performance marketing and brand building requires a shift in perspective towards metrics that capture the influence of brand positioning on financial growth through increased leads, sales, and engagement. Rather than viewing brand building and performance marketing as rivals for budget allocation, companies need to see the two as complementary components of a cohesive marketing strategy. This highlights the importance of revamping brand metrics that can quantify the impact of brand-building efforts on performance marketing KPIs such as clicks, response rate, and engagement.

Quantifying brand equity as a KPI, much like conversion rates or cost per clicks, creates a direct connection between long and short-term objectives—ensuring marketing campaigns reinforce, rather than undermine, carefully curated brand identities while still driving measurable impact. Integrating measurable brand equity with performance marketing ensures long-term brand perception and immediate sales are aligned. A unified approach seeks to optimize both objectives, acknowledging the symbiotic relationship between brand building and performance marketing.

How Can Personalized Direct Mail Link Brand Building and Performance Marketing?

As marketing efforts continue to focus heavily on digital and data-driven strategies, it may be time to include an additional tool in their marketing toolkit: personalized direct mail retargeting campaigns. Direct mail could be the common thread that connects brand building and performance marketing without compromising their respective strengths... and here's how:

With help from a platform like NaviStone, companies can retarget unknown website browsers with a piece of personalized direct mail delivered right to their mailbox. These website browsers will not be getting a one-size-fits-all postcard; rather, they will receive a postcard that is specific to their browsing habits. This is how intent data can enable personalization. By leveraging intent data, brand and performance marketers can deliver hyper-targeted direct mail campaigns that speak directly to individuals' preferences and desires. This alone debunks the misconception that brand building and performance marketing cannot work together to achieve marketing success.

Personalized direct mail appeals to the personal connection created by successful brand building and the measurable results derived from performance marketing. When a potential customer receives a personalized postcard from a brand, this builds brand equity by creating a personalized experience between the brand and customer. Businesses can tailor their direct mail campaigns to appeal to consumers' personal preferences, behaviors, and desires. Whether it's addressing recipients by name, referencing past interactions, or offering tailored incentives, personalized direct mail campaigns create a sense of relevance and connection that builds brand awareness, equity, and loyalty. Read more about the Psychology of Personalized Direct Mail here.

In addition to building brand awareness and loyalty, direct mail retargeting provides comprehensive customer data for marketers. With both traditional performance marketing metrics and updated brand equity metrics, marketers can easily identify and analyze the effectiveness of direct mail marketing campaigns.

Direct mail retargeting indeed remains a powerful tool for marketer's, offering a personalized and tangible way to reconnect with potential customers. By seamlessly integrating this strategy into the wider marketing spectrum, businesses can harness the immediacy of performance marketing while nurturing the enduring benefits of brand building. In this era defined by technological prowess and creative innovation, savvy marketers hold the key to unlocking their company's boundless growth potential.