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Author: Andrea Golindano

  • How Tactile Elements Can Boost Engagement in Direct Mail Campaigns

    How Tactile Elements Can Boost Engagement in Direct Mail Campaigns

    In a digital-dominated world, direct mail stands out by offering a tangible, sensory experience that online formats can’t replicate. Incorporating tactile elements into direct mail campaigns can significantly enhance engagement and memorability, leading to better response rates and stronger brand connections.

    Here are five reasons that tactile elements in direct mail resonate with prospects, hold their attention longer, and lead to long and loyal relationships.

    1. The Power of Touch in Marketing

    If seeing is believing, then touching evokes a real and emotional association between a brand and the customer that immediately establishes trust and authenticity. Tactile marketing, and the benefits it offers, makes the use of textured paper stocks, special coatings, embossing, or raised ink in direct mail a must for marketers looking to build extraordinary engagements.

    High-quality coatings and finishes add elements of value when used on a direct mail piece so that when a homeowner sorts through the daily mail, it stands out the from the standard assortment of letters and cards. The physical interaction subconsciously stimulates the senses and creates fuller emotional cognitive processing and the customer both pays more attention to a tactile direct mail piece and spends more time absorbing the information it holds.

    Heavier card stocks add weight and authority to direct mail and special linens make pieces feel more premium and sophisticated. With a thorough understanding of their audiences, direct mail marketers can align the materials they use to impart a brand image of naturalness and sustainability or send cues about product durability and quality.

    2. Creative Designs Stand Out

    Most consumers are strongly influenced by visual cues, with more sensory receptors for eyesight than all the other senses combined. Direct mail pieces that include bold colors, sharp and clear images, and different shapes will grab attention and get noticed. Attractively designed direct mail pieces trigger quick judgements, and specific colors can be deployed to spark buying impulses, build trust, and encourage responses.

    Die-cut and unique shapes and sizes also help pieces stand out in mailboxes and distinguish mail pieces from standard sized direct mail envelopes and direct mail postcards. Shapes can be used to immediately convey brand and communicate wordlessly to boost response and open rates.

    An innovative design trend is direct mail pieces that unfold into 3-D popup models of products adding a multi-dimensional element into every communication with customers. Marketers can choose from pop-up cubes and polygon pop ups or pieces that feature movable components. Pop-up mailers can be used creatively as piggy banks, pen holders, 3D maps, or other promotional items.

    3. Textures and Materials Evoke Curiosity

    Consumers pay attention to direct mail that is novel and unique, and one way that marketers deliver one-of-a-kind experiences for their prospects and customers is with velvet touch finishes, embossing, metallic inks, and high-quality coatings. Through the sense of touch, audiences are receiving subtle, yet clear messaging about the product or service being promoted, and when the coating has a luxurious or sumptuous feel it invites exploration and examination.

    Marketers can use special textures and materials to draw attention to important messaging and calls-to-action with tactile touches that make them stand out and draw attention from the rest of the direct mail piece. Embossing or debossing, engraving, and raised ink brings elements that also catch light and attract attention and spot UV coating highlights various features of the mailing piece in interesting, fun, and creative ways.

    4. Interactive Elements Lead to Higher Engagement

    Marketers are making direct mail more fun and engaging with inventive and creative uses of pull tabs and sliders, scratch off areas, three-dimensional elements, and specially textured paper. Mailers are more memorable for audiences when recipients are invited to learn about product specifications, receive personalized discounts, and learn about special promotions with interactive features. Multi-tiered mailers can incorporate special touches like spinners to encourage participation and engagements and turn the opening of a personalized direct mail piece as exciting an experience as opening a special gift.

    Brands are also discovering the potential of direct mail as ways to engage audiences through multi-channel campaigns that integrate the printed mailings with digital and AR content using QR codes and PURLs. In this way, marketers can add interactive games into static messaging and draw customers in with prizes and special offers when audiences engage.

    5. Scented Inks Provided Powerful Sensory Appeal

    Direct mail marketers are beginning to appreciate and seize upon the impact that fragrances have when it comes to making scented pieces much more memorable, and as a result are developing strategies to influence consumers through their sense of smell. Comforting aromas can trigger good memories and feelings, and when those emotions are attached to a brand through scented direct mail, it passes trust and reassurance onto the brand.

    Brands can promote products with instantly recognizable scents like the smell of morning coffee to promote coffee products. Brands can sell cars sending postcards with that unmistakable new car scent or use the smell of fresh-cut grass to sell lawn services. Seasonal campaigns can be built around holiday aromas that stir reminiscences of joyous times and fun experiences.

    Advantages of the USPS Tactile, Sensory, & Interactive Promotion for Direct Mail Marketing

    The Tactile, Sensory & Interactive USPS Promotion encourages USPS Marketing Mail® and Nonprofit USPS Marketing Mail® mailers to incorporate tactile developments in paper textures and paper stocks, substrates, finishing techniques, and specialty inks to create multi-sensory experiences for households.

    These promotions reward brands and direct mail marketers who deploy high-quality stock that is textured through embossing, foil stamping, or use tactile coatings and colors that provide innovative elements of sight, sound, smell, and even taste on mailing pieces. There are three ways to incorporate scented envelopes and scented postcards into direct mail campaigns that qualify for the USPS Tactile, Sensory, and Involvement postage discount in 2025. These are pieces that provide a manual fragrance release through rubbing or scratching; a manual release of fragrance by lifting a flap; or the automatic fragrance is incorporated into the stock and requires no action from the recipient. Ask your local direct mail print shop for more information about these and other USPS mail promotions.

    Industries Adopting Tactile Direct Marketing

    Direct mail has traditionally been one of the most powerful marketing tools used by industries and is especially effective for targeted local promotional campaigns. These industries have discovered that adding tactile elements to their direct mail campaigns helps their messaging stand out with prospects and customers.

    Direct mail has traditionally been one of the most powerful marketing tools used by industries and is especially effective for targeted local promotional campaigns. These industries have discovered that adding tactile elements to their direct mail campaigns helps their messaging stand out with prospects and customers.

    • Automotive: Tactile mailings engage prospects with that new-car smell or pop-up mailings that resemble the latest car models when opened.
    • Real Estate: Soft-touch coatings, raised inks, and post cards that unfold into 3D neighborhood guides are interactive, informative, and memorable.
    • Financial Services: Banks, credit unions, and investment firms use tactile materials in welcome kits and acquisition mailers to stand out in the crowded financial services industry.
    • Healthcare: Interactive direct mail pieces that include games, puzzles, and other tactile elements help healthcare organizations provide hands-on engagements to reduce complexities around healthcare treatments.
    • Education: Tactile education direct mail lets institutions share unique pop campus map displays and send pieces that have pull tabs to reveal information about programs and campus events.
    • Retail: High-quality coatings and finishes convey sensory messages about products and brand to form emotional connections to attract customers.
    • Non-profit Organizations: Different shape and size postcards are inexpensive ways for non-profits to stand apart from the competition and work within tight budgets.

    Implementing Tactile Elements in Your Campaign

    Your local print shop can provide guidance on new and sustainable stocks and materials to add tactile elements into your direct mail campaigns. A professional print shop will also help you find the most efficient and budget friendly way to add print touches like embossing and soft touch coatings to your mailing pieces.

    Here are best practices to consider when planning your tactile direct marketing campaign.

    1. Always use high-quality materials such as textured paper, thicker stocks, and eco-friendly inks and coatings because inferior substances reflect poorly on your brand the moment your prospect pulls the piece from their mailbox.
    2. Explore special and unique coatings like soft-touch to add an immediate sensory experience that matches the feel of your piece with the message and immediately sets it apart from other mail.
    3. Integrate dimensional elements like embossing, debossing, and engraving to create a 3D look that feels professional to the touch and adds levels of sophistication to your mailers.
    4. Use special inks and print processes to apply raised ink or fragrance-enhanced inks that add a dimension to mailing pieces or entice prospects with pleasing aromas that triggers an emotional response.
    5. Create interactive direct mail that uses pop-up mailers or pieces with pull tabs that align with your brand and engage your prospects in ways that make a memorable impression and provide an experience they won’t forget.
    6. Integrate tactile elements like UV coatings and raised lettering to draw attention to important information and a clear call-to-action that stands out from traditional promotions.

    Tactile elements can transform direct mail campaigns by offering a sensory experience that digital formats can’t match. By leveraging creative designs, unique textures, and interactive features, businesses can increase engagement, enhance brand recall, and ultimately drive better results from their direct mail efforts. Contact a direct mail specialist at Marketing.com to learn how tactile direct mail can improve the impact of your direct mail.

  • 10 Trends to Watch in Payer Marketing Campaigns in 2025

    10 Trends to Watch in Payer Marketing Campaigns in 2025

    As the healthcare industry evolves, payer marketing strategies are adapting to new trends and technologies. This blog explores the top 10 trends shaping payer marketing campaigns in 2025, including personalization through data-driven insights, digital transformation, and the rise of telehealth. We’ll delve into how payers are enhancing member engagement, emphasizing preventive care, and integrating social media and influencer marketing. Additionally, we’ll discuss the impact of regulatory changes, the shift towards value-based care, and the growing focus on health equity. Discover how these trends are redefining the way health insurance providers connect with their members and stay competitive in a dynamic market.

    Trend 1: Personalization and Data-Driven Marketing

    Patients and providers increasingly expect personalized engagements. As a result, payer marketers must enhance and customize communications and make every message more relevant using artificial intelligence (AI) data-analysis insights. Incorporating AI language models, machine learning, and deep learning lets marketers build foundations of trust and drive timely decision making from the launching of marketing campaigns through important enrollment periods and at every point in the member relationship. Marketers can track performance and analyze patient, provider, and policymaker treatment preferences and gain insights into cost-effective individual patient risk factors to improve care and produce better health outcomes.

    With a deeper understanding of patient and provider needs, marketers can more efficiently allocate resources and streamline communication operations. It’s possible to realize a better return on investment (ROI) with targeted promotions that elevate the customer experience and help simplify the often-complex healthcare world. Examples of personalized marketing campaigns included tailored health reminders around important dates, customized educational content, refined digital experiences and online interactions, and determining preferred methods of communication to improve service. AI-personalized and data-driven marketing lets you reach the right person with the right message at exactly the right time.

    Trend 2: Digital Transformation

    To improve communications with customers, payer marketers are adding engagements through digital platforms into marketing campaigns and customer outreach strategies. With digital friendly platforms that allow for better and faster integration of key patient and provider data, marketers are reaching customers through the channels they frequent and trust for information gathering and decision making. Consumers are becoming more comfortable with digital engagements and happy to provide information for tailored messaging that delivers immediate value and can help manage treatments.

    Digital platforms open two-way channels of communication and provide levels of interactivity with customers with individualized web portals for data-driven engagements that increase customer retention. Marketers can speak to customers remotely and directly to address their concerns about pricing, privacy, and payment, and to differentiate their product from competitors. Easy to navigate websites can be especially important during intense enrollment periods and websites can be used to promote in-network providers, telemedicine options, and cost-savings tips. Marketing on mobile apps can improve healthcare literacy for customers, integrate tracking and monitoring capabilities, and offer virtual consultations for members who have limited access to healthcare services.

    Trend 3: Increased Focus on Member Engagement

    Payer marketers must always explore ways to minimize marketing costs while maximizing the impact of every communication. A key trend taking shape is a shifting focus to produce relevant, personalized member engagements that place an emphasis on member retention to save money across the board. This is where marketers can use member data to help payers engage in more robust and proactive care management. Members can be offered convenient choices and flexibility with targeted messaging that focuses on treatment, education, assessment of needs, and that provides high levels of service during every interaction.

    Using member data, marketers can gain insights into the best way to reach out to members with customized care programs based on predictive models for member sentiment and concerns. Payers can offer incentives like gift cards and free and discounted wellness programs at health clubs for members. Health behaviors, nutrition tracking, and other beneficial lifestyle changes can be encouraged with mobile apps. Marketers can play a vital role in creating educational content and membership strategies that enhance member healthcare outcomes, increase their engagement across all marketing channels, support quality of care initiatives, and reduce costs.

    Trend 4: Emphasis on Preventive Care and Wellness

    Marketers are playing a vital role supporting efforts by payers to reduce long-term healthcare costs and promote healthier lifestyles for members and customers. This reflects a shift in the healthcare industry to value-based care and treatment models that improve the quality, value, and the efficiency of patient care while keeping healthcare costs down. Targeted communications delivered through a mix of traditional and digital marketing channels can keep members engaged. Clear, simple, and accessible text messaging, emails, and mobile apps encourage fuller participation in wellness programs and can offer nutritional guidance.

    Payer marketers are creating strategies to encourage preventive care and early intervention to reduce incidences of chronic disease. Educational brochures and videos prevent more serious and costly health issues. Integrating AR through QR codes can provide 3-D product information and demonstrations. Marketers improve member engagement with omnichannel communications and by leveraging AI predictive models to proactively improve retention rates. These strategies identify high-risk members to improve medication adherence and empower them with personalized options to make informed decisions about their healthcare. They could include financial incentives, gift cards, and other rewards for fitness activity and nutrition goal achievement or offers of courses and self-directed programs that focus on weight loss, exercise, and good sleep patterns.

    Trend 5: Regulatory Changes

    Payer marketers continue to implement robust systems to protect patient health information (PHI) and maintain compliance with HIPAA and other federal and state regulations and legislation. It’s vital that marketers regularly update data security measures to defend against cyber threats and allocate sufficient resources to align goals with regulatory requirements. Navigating the regulatory landscape can be challenging, but it’s crucial both for organizational integrity and to protect patients and members from the criminals who want to buy and sell their information for profit.

    There are several strategies they can adopt. Building a team of healthcare law experts that can develop compliance policies, establishing and conducting PHI handling training for employees who routinely handle this information, and implementing dynamic data protection measures are important first steps. To remove human error from the equation, there are automated data handling solutions that manage documentation and have features such as audit trails and encryption to maintain data safety and confidentiality. These systems can be integrated with different applications and easily be scaled as needed to handle workflows during busy enrollment periods.

    Trend 6: Use of Social Media and Influencer Marketing

    The impact of social media as a marketing channel for payer marketers and healthcare payers has been growing as a significant means to connect with consumers, manage member interaction, and use influencer marketing to increase engagement with targeted audiences. The ability to reach specific demographic groups with relatable micro- and nano- influencers helps build trust between payers and patients. They can establish credibility and authority when presenting what are possibly complex health topics and increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, and generate qualified leads.

    There are large segments of the population, particularly Gen Z and millennials, who search social media for brands and authentic content that share their values and offer relevant experiences. Marketers are incorporating social media SEO practices to enhance the effectiveness of their messaging, and to build a vibrant communities and presence on social media platforms. Payers can engage consumers on platforms like Facebook, X, and LinkedIn with direct interactions to build trust and share valuable health information that promote health services. One example of a healthcare organization embracing social media is the Mayo Clinic’s Social Media Residency Program that trains staff members how to use social media effectively within regulatory constraints and create engaging content and manage communications with patients.

    Trend 7: Integration of Telehealth Services

    Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth is changing the way patients can access care and how payers can engage with their customers for comprehensive monitoring of health conditions. It lets healthcare organizations reach underserved areas and overcome geographical and infrastructural barriers to care. It allows them to optimize the potential for more frequent interactions and to track issues like medication adherence, monitor vital signs. Healthcare professionals can provide medical advice at convenient times of day without the need for time-consuming and costly office visits. It falls to payer marketers to create digital marketing strategies that optimize SEO and social media platforms and paid ads to reach new patients when they’re searching for telemedicine options and providers.

    Marketers can proactively emphasize the advantages of telehealth for patients and implement AI-powered messaging to focus on specific patient segments. Strategies address the unique needs of different demographics across the care spectrum. They can create compelling educational content such as blog posts and articles and case studies of successful experiences to demonstrate telehealth effectiveness. Social media drip campaigns keep health organizations top-of-mind and can be developed to help people deal with flu or other disease outbreaks and understand condition- and symptom-related terms in real time.

    Trend 8: Focus on Health Equity and Inclusion

    As health systems work to extend care to underserved areas and reach marginalized individuals, payer marketers are developing campaigns that distribute information through multi-channel promotions for data-driven and community-based initiatives. Marketing strategies address disparities in health care based on economic, social, or environments factors. They’re able to leverage the outreach and impact of social media and online platforms to share health information and create multilingual high-quality print and digital content to engage diverse audiences. They emphasize services such as telehealth and local community outreach programs, sponsorships, and events like free cancer screenings and health fairs.

    Marketers establish connections between vulnerable populations and organizations by providing relevant content using data analytics to identify and address barriers to care and improve access to healthcare. They play a key role in promoting follow-up care with preventive health reminders, medication reminders and vaccine notifications. Marketers spread awareness and build trust with engagements at every touchpoint of the relationship. By segmenting and using data-driven insights, pay marketers can create personalized marketing approaches that foster a sense of individualized treatment and attention.

    Trend 9: Value-Based Care Models

    With a greater focus on value-based care models of healthcare delivery, payer marketers are developing strategies that place an emphasis on educational content that contributes to improved health outcomes and leads to lower treatment costs. Patient-centered marketing relies on a coordination and leveraging of print, digital, and social media engagements that help individuals understand the benefit of collaborating with their healthcare provider to craft more personalized and goal-oriented solutions than traditional approaches. Just as value-based care models take a holistic approach to create personalized treatment plans, marketers incorporate and integrate personalized omnichannel marketing to highlight the importance of preventative services and disease management to patients.

    Marketing campaigns centered around value-based care often use patient success stories and case studies to build trust and demonstrate effectiveness. They optimize the significance of data analytics to track patient relationships and enhance their experience with informed messaging that highlights cost savings and other benefits of these programs. With tailored messaging, marketers can leverage the data for more timely, relevant, and personalized outreach with email campaigns, patient website portals, social media apps and ads, and print media. Promoting and inviting wider participation by patients can lead to healthier behavior and lifestyle modifications and greater value for all.

    Trend 10: Omnichannel Marketing Approach

    Omnichannel strategies allow for more touchpoints between healthcare providers and patients, enabling patients to engage on multiple platforms of their choice, which in turn leads to improved access to care. Through a seamless coordination of marketing platforms and quality content, marketers can enhance and personalize the patient experience with consistent messaging and a mix of offline and online communication. An integration of multiple channels leads to wider brand awareness and enhanced patient satisfaction with information that is relevant, timely, and customized to build trust and reinforce the brand. It lets marketers reach patients at every stage of the sales and marketing funnel as well every step in their relationship with a healthcare provider.

    With a robust through-channel marketing platform line Marketing.com’s Dot™, marketers can develop cohesive omnichannel marketing strategies that both interact with patients through websites and social media and handle sensitive PHI across every marketing platform. The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio uses its website as a comprehensive resource of detailed information about conditions and treatment options, patient stories, and an online symptom checker and successfully integrates the site into omnichannel strategies for a holistic approach to patient marketing.

    By implementing these payer marketing strategies into customer and patient relationships, you can create more meaningful connections between members and healthcare organizations, contribute to improved health outcomes, and ultimately drive business growth while enhancing the overall healthcare experience for everyone. To discuss ways these trends can improve your payer marketing, contact a Marketing.com marketing expert.

  • Leveraging Direct Mail: How Colleges are Personalizing Outreach to Boost Enrollment

    Leveraging Direct Mail: How Colleges are Personalizing Outreach to Boost Enrollment

    If you’re in charge of student enrollment for an educational institution, you know that student recruitment has become increasingly difficult. You might begin reaching out to high school students as early as their sophomore or junior years and you’re always developing strategies to attract international students, graduate students, and adults looking to gain knowledge for career advancement.

    To stand out, you know that your school must continually innovate and explore ways to stand out in the crowded marketing place. You segment prospects by geographic and demographic data, degree programs, and other factors to create campaigns that appeal to and attract a diverse and broad population of students. Direct mail lets you personalize every communication and connect with every one of your prospects as an individual by incorporating precise data into postcards, letters, and each piece of printed marketing content you send them.

    Even in a digital world, direct mail can dramatically increase the number of students enrolling in your institution and expand the ability to personalize the relationship at every step of the journey.

    Direct mail personalization is a powerful student recruitment tool for several reasons:

    The Power of Personalization Connects Immediately

    Optimizing personalization in enrollment marketing communications with prospective students is essential to begin a relationship today. Fortunately, direct mail gives educational institutions memorable ways to connect that other channels can’t. Variable data printing (VDP) lets colleges and universities customize each mailed piece with content, photos, graphics, and other material that’s shared along the relationship and adds greater relevancy to each contact with the student. VDP allows for impactful, small batch printing that elevates the data known and shared by the prospect along the journey into content that they find useful and uniquely created for them.

    Here’s one way your school’s admissions department could begin their direct mail outreach with a student. Send an oversized postcard with appealing photos and content that stands out among the household mail knowing that a prospect lives in-state and what their financial aid requirements may be. The student connects to the school website through a QR code on the card and shares information that helps the school learn that the prospect is interested in a STEM curriculum. With an introductory letter signed by the school president, your school introduces itself, touts its affordability for in-state students and its ranking as a STEM school, includes a brochure with images corresponding to STEM programs, and a link to a PURL where the relationship can continue to develop through both online and offline channels.

    Segmented Direct Mail Campaigns Leverage the Right Data

    Direct mail is useful when educational institutions segment audiences and provide more relevant information to potential students with content patterned to fit their academic interests and aspirations. Schools can inexpensively cast a wide net with segmentation based on geography, demographics, and other factors and using VDP still personalize each contact. As the relationship continues, so too does the ability to progressively fine-tune every subsequent printed piece the student receives for an even more impressive impact.

    In this case, your school could decide to segment recruitment marketing efforts between undergraduate and graduate students. Each group has specific characteristics that set them apart from the other, and, using VDP technology, images are inserted that reflect specific course content, engaged faculty and students, and first-rate facilities specific to their course of study. The department can send direct mail invitations for on-campus or virtual open houses or link direct mail pieces to user generated digital content that establishes credibility and builds community. As the relationship develops and prospects provide more data through digital and social platforms, every subsequent mailed piece moves them closer to enrollment.

    Customized Content Speaks Directly to the Prospect

    Educational institutions use direct mail to customize every interaction with a prospective student into a unique communication that only the prospect will receive. Direct mail can be used to drive students to tailored online content with QR codes and PURLs where schools can continue to receive data to support recruitment efforts, answer enrollment questions, and provide reminders of next steps. Using AI-powered analytics tools, schools analyze student data to determine next steps based on online activity like browsing or can track event signups that might result in a personalized letter from a department head.

    If your educational institution wants to increase international student enrollment, consider using geo-targeting customization to print and send materials to specific regions. VDP allows for multilingual personalization and small batch print runs with dynamic print versioning and font flexibility so that every communication is language-appropriate and still personalized to reflect academic and campus interests.

    Interactive and Engaging Print Formats Stand Out

    The tangible elements of direct mail and emerging and exciting, innovative print technologies let educational institutions create physically captivating print pieces that attract immediate attention, stand out in both the crowded digital and print worlds, and create unique, memorable experiences that digital and social media alone cannot match. Every printed communication becomes an invitation for prospects to interact with elements like scratch-off games and promotions, exploding pages that open to feature colorful, dynamic imagery, or pop up mailers that morph into fun and unique forms and shapes when received. Direct mail can also bridge the gap between physical and digital with QR codes that connect to videos and augmented reality (AR) experiences.

    Innovative ways to give students a tangible reminder about important dates include sending a fun, mascot-inspired or 3D campus map that pops up when opened and is timed and coordinated with email reminders. The mascot popup can also contain QR codes to link students to online forms, FAQ videos, and personalized pages.

    Direct Mail Integration Improves Digital Channel Performance

    It’s no secret that the students your educational institution wants to attract spends a lot of their time in the digital realm. However, it’s a crowded world of emails, SMS messaging, and social media ad and platform interactions that students move in these days. That’s why impactful and timely direct mail marketing and correspondence, with its tangible elements, helps cut through the digital clutter and become the gateway to videos, PURLs, and other important online content that gets noticed.

    Your educational institution can use direct mail to engage prospects with QR codes and send them to personalized websites where the student can engage with videos, faculty webinars, and meet other students. Using an automated, multichannel marketing platform, your school can monitor the prospect’s progress through the enrollment process and send print mail reminders of important dates for events and registration material completion.

    Direct Mail Automation Creates Efficient Follow-Up Strategies

    The ability for educational institutions to automate data analysis and trigger follow-up communications through multichannel marketing platforms makes direct mail an important way to get conversations started and to keep communications flowing. QR codes and PURLs on printed material can link to landing pages that allow schools to track engagement and prompt personalized responses that are relevant to the student’s stage in their enrollment journey. Direct mail can drive students to social media platforms that they trust, initiate multi-touch follow-ups that can include phone calls, voice mail, and text messages, and retarget students with relevant social media ads.

    Summer melt is a common phenomenon faced by educational institutions, a period when it becomes more difficult to engage with students. Direct mail proves especially effective for keeping lines of communication open and acting as a way to break through the many distractions a student faces after graduation. The ability to personalize the invitations you send to campus events and school tours and stay connected with follow-up email campaigns, phone calls, and texts can strengthen bonds between accepted students and schools.

    Direct Mail Personalization Collects Data for Measuring Success

    Direct mail has always been appreciated as one of the most effective marketing channels for delivering personalized print materials like postcards, brochures, catalogs, and even school swag into the homes of prospective students. When educational institutions integrate their direct mail campaigns into a multichannel approach, they can track and achieve metrics like conversion rates, click through rates (CTR), and return on investment (ROI) with a through-channel marketing platform like Marketing.com’s Dot® to quickly understand and adapt to their prospect’s behavior and measure the success of the campaign.

    With the vast amount of student data that your educational institution has available, you’re able to effectively segment targeted audiences based on program interest, geographical location, and demographic information. With strong calls-to-action, you can incorporate QR codes, PURLs, and phone numbers to determine the mailer’s effectiveness by tracking visits to unique landing pages, knowing when QR codes are scanned, and determining call duration and call volume.

    Case Studies of Personalized Direct Mail Student Recruitment Success

    Here are three real-world examples of how personalized direct mail campaigns integrated with digital and social media marketing increased prospect awareness and enrollment.

    1. A Texas university used a direct mail piece that expanded to 4 times its mailing size when opened. The piece contained a stunning assortment of photographs that captured the vitality and community of the school and a QR code that connected to a personalized website. It resulted in 26 percent more applications than the previous year.
    2. Facing a decline in new student enrollment, a small northeastern US college spearheaded efforts to increase enrollment, particularly among female students, with a direct mail campaign to increase open house visits and drive prospects to the school website. The mailers were personalized to direct prospects to video content that highlighted the school’s features. The campaign resulted in an increase of 40,000 new users visiting their website.
    3. A liberal arts college sought to increase both the quantity and quality of their prospect inquiries by highlighting the school’s small class sizes and low student-to-professor ratios. The institution set a coordinated, multichannel campaign in motion with personalized direct mail. The result was record-breaking enrollment.

    By implementing personalized direct mail outreach into your student recruitment efforts, you can see significant increases in your institution’s enrollment numbers. Contact a Marketing.com direct mail specialist today and start making your student direct mail personal.

  • Key Trends in Print Marketing We’re Watching in 2025

    Key Trends in Print Marketing We’re Watching in 2025

    As we enter 2025, print marketing continues to evolve, blending timeless appeal with modern innovations. At Marketing.com, we’re closely following these key 10 trends that are shaping the future of print.

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    1. Personalization Gets Hyper

    Businesses are creating hyper-personalized marketing campaigns with a more strategic use of consumer data supported by innovations in variable data printing (VDP). Personalization strategies are moving beyond merely placing names in salutations. With VDP, companies can alter every print piece to include photos and graphics that resonate with demographics and lifestyles of recipients, make purchasing suggestions based on past buying behavior, and produce individualized catalogs that highlight products based on known personal preferences and order history.

    VDP also takes personalization beyond the realm of direct mail. Ecommerce businesses are developing stronger connections with customers by creating unique, customized product packaging that adds fun, distinctive, and memorable elements to unboxing events. Loyalty programs are enhanced when businesses include personal touches with special messaging and rewards that leave a great impression. Local marketing becomes more impactful when content is changed to reflect regional, cultural, or even language preferences.

    2. Eco-Friendly Printing Solutions

    In 2025, brands and marketers will continue to embrace sustainable print practices and turn to eco-friendly, biodegradable materials to reduce waste and meet the increasing demand from environmentally minded consumers.

    Fortunately, it is becoming easier and more affordable for businesses to adopt energy-efficient practices, that include heat-free printing and UV printing technology, and purchase recycled and responsibly sourced paper, card stock, and other substrates. The result is new and innovative printing procedures that use less water and reduce waste, environmentally safe inks derived from natural sources that replace potentially toxic substances, and resources and packaging made from recycled or sustainable materials.

    It’s important that businesses communicate their commitment to sustainable practices to their prospects and customers. Eco-friendly symbols and certifications on packaging and labels can highlight green practices and graphics and images can educate consumers on best disposal methods.

    3. Interactive Print Media and Augmented Reality (AR)

    Consumers are seldom without a smartphone at hand. Brands and businesses have seized on this and are adding interactive elements to print media, like augmented reality (AR), QR codes, and video-in-print technology, bridging the gap between print and digital content when printed images are scanned with a phone’s camera.

    This opens up entirely new opportunities for brands to extend the user experience with 3-D models, animations, and virtual worlds. Integrating interactive print media into product launches lets consumers go behind the scenes to learn how a product was made. Every printed piece can take on an entirely new personality as product catalog pages become virtual dressing rooms or an interactive auto brochure photo leads into an exciting test drive along a scenic route.

    Interactive print media also provides extended shelf life for printed materials. The digital content can be swapped out to change with new promotions or seasonal ad campaigns while the product packaging or direct mail piece remains relevant.

    4. High-Quality, Low-Run Printing with On Demand Printing

    High-quality, low quantity print on demand (POD) capabilities give businesses of all sizes the flexibility to create and distribute marketing materials quickly and offer unique branded merchandise to their customers without upfront inventory investments. POD is an ideal solution for e-commerce businesses that offer custom apparel or accessories and want products printed in small batches or to expand their product range without a significant inventory investment.

    Marketing.com’s e-commerce technology allows a customer to order both virtual (POD Items) and physical (pre-printed and promotional items) items seamlessly within our platform.”

    — John S., General Manager

    POD will also continue to be a resource for highly personalized marketing mailings and corporate gifting, and businesses in the real estate, hospitality, and education sectors use POD for event-specific marketing materials. With high resolution color accuracy and the ability to use POD on a wide range of materials, it’s possible to produce memorable t-shirts, sweatshirts, decorative items, water bottles, and tote bags quickly. When integrated into fulfillment and shipping, POD lets businesses get merchandise out the door and into the hands of their customers faster.

    5. Tactile and Sensory Appeal

    With everything in the marketing world seemingly digital these days, people will continue to treasure the special way printed materials feel to the touch, especially when special coatings, embossing, and textured finishings are used in the print process. Special inks can transmit comforting scents that trigger warm feelings and pop-up elements can add unique and fun 3-D visual appeal to flat surfaces for memorable experiences.

    Tactile elements can also include an assortment of shapes and sizes that make envelopes and postcards stand out in mailboxes and colors that trigger emotional responses. They turn regular pieces of marketing material into sophisticated and luxury engagements that leave lasting impressions.

    6. AI Driven Workflow Automation

    As is the case with many aspects of our lives, AI will grow in importance through the new year in helping print projects become more efficient. AI offers benefits to simplify print workflows and manage all aspects of scheduling, managing inventory, and analyzing processes in real time. The benefits for their customers include improved print quality, faster turnaround times, and the ability to streamline the proofing process to eliminate costly mistakes.

    AI can analyze vast amounts of data quickly and give brands and marketers insights to identify potential cost savings by accurately predicting inventory needs and personalizing messaging and appeal with AI-powered design tools. AI print solutions can predict production flow based on customer behavior to help businesses identify areas of cost optimization that translate to print project cost-saving measures.

    In terms of the finished product, AI delivers consistent color accuracy, precise cutting and folding, and exact applications of ink and coatings that result in reduced waste and let brands adhere to the sustainable operations their customers increasingly demand from them.

    7. Growth in Packaging Solutions

    Business will continue to explore new ways that printed packaging of products can play in creating better customer experiences, both throughout the shopping process and during unboxing events. Integrating emerging smart technologies with print gives them opportunities to engage and educate customers and even provide confidence to consumers that package contents have not been compromised or damaged.

    Brands can include QR codes on packaging that let shoppers access important information and explore products through AR-enhanced product visualization to make more informed decisions. These codes and other interactive print elements make it possible for businesses to show how products are created and share other valuable content without cluttering the package and reducing its visual appeal. E-commerce businesses can personalize packaging with unique designs, messages, and special inserts to add a tactile experience to what up to that point is a purely virtual transaction.

    8. Direct Mail Enhances Local Marketing

    Innovations in print are giving brands and marketers new ways to optimize direct mail campaigns, especially for hyper-local messaging that seizes on advanced data analytics and direct mail friendly USPS promotions.

    Brands are increasingly tailoring messaging and targeting prospects in geographic areas, communities, and even specific neighborhoods determined by demographic and consumer data. They’re able to engage with households using interactive print technologies and with content that is relevant to their needs. As brand direct mail strategies continue to evolve, they’ll have the ability to make every direct mail piece feel more personal and every recipient feel special.

    In 2025, USPS promotions will support brands engaging in local direct mail campaigns that leverage traditional print and digital to increase engagement rates and promote new products. These include the Integrated Promotion, Continuous Contact Promotion, First-Class Mail Advertising Promotion, and Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) Promotion. 

    9. Increased Focus on Print Data Security

    As cyber threats grow more sophisticated, and government regulatory agencies respond with stricter data security measures, brands and businesses are becoming increasingly vigilant about secure print environments and how they handle private personal data.

    In 2025, new privacy laws will come into effect in several states and more legislation may be one the way, placing a priority on compliance with existing laws and global privacy standards. Among the regulations companies handling private personal data must comply with or face often sever penalties are the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other US state-specific privacy laws.

    For companies active in the healthcare sector, compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) will continue to be necessary to avoid penalties and fines.

    10. Printing Innovations Create Multi-Channel Opportunities

    Print marketing will become even more crucial role for initiating multi-channel marketing campaigns that place the customer experience front and foremost. Print adds tactile and emotional connections to digital and interactive marketing content that people remember and enjoy. It will continue to be a marketing channel that gives digital advertising credibility and that consumers consider trustworthy, and provides tactile, physical experiences that digital alone cannot match.

    Print drives consumers to digital channels through a seamless integration using QR codes or designated URLs while grabbing attention with strategic design and deployment of colors that form emotional connections.

    Print remains a vital component of any multichannel marketing strategy, and by staying ahead of these 2025 print marketing trends, your business can create tangible, meaningful connections in an increasingly digital world. Marketing.com can show you how to connect the dots in your multi-channel marketing and guide you to success. Contact us today.


    During my career over the last 40 years, commercial printing businesses have evolved from being process oriented manufacturers to solution providers. Historically, commercial printers described themselves as sheetfed, web offset, rotogravure, or digital printers. In today’s market customers are buying end-to-end solutions not manufacturing processes. This industry evolution has driven innovation and created exciting opportunities.”

    — John S., General Manager