The technology world often leads with certain marketing tactics for promoting their brand. Specifically: technology, which could include search engine marketing, social media and a host of other online tactics to promote their brand in the digital space. What is interesting is as postage continues to climb and make it harder to market; Google continues to use direct mail quite heavily. In fact, in the last year at Kolbeco, I have received a water bottle in the mail, a Google hat and a slew of free advertising credits for clients to try Google AdWords. However, one look at them would tell that the AdWords Perth which were given to the clients needed some management also.

Google is a company that is all about data and information. So they get that reaching out to their prospective customer base via technology will only get them so far. They have spent considerable time and effort mailing to agencies and companies that are not using PPC programs. They have been doing this for years and they have unique tracking codes. The point is they can quickly measure response rates and see what is working.

So what should you consider when looking at direct mail? The key to direct mail is the quality of the list first, then the offer and lastly the creative. Google is buying lists, but is also building from all of its local search content to build an amazing database.

A few notes on the Google direct mail pieces. As you can see in all of the pieces that Google sends, the offer is very prominent. As a business follows what Google does, instead of buying products to give away, often the best offer is to allow people to try your product or service for free.

Lastly the pieces all match the Google brand standards that have been created and are highly recognizable. The designs are simple, with clean white backgrounds. Yet notice how the offer stands out with one simple prominent color.

In the end, with today’s digital printing technologies, you too can take advantage of direct mail in the marketing mix without having to print millions.

Often time’s direct mail falls into the mix integrated with all of the other marketing tactics.

Moral of this story, don’t get too caught up in the latest hype and forget what has worked for decades. Remember:  include both traditional and the latest marketing tactics into your direct mail campaign.