Direct mail marketing has waned in popularity in recent years simply because digital marketing is so much less expensive. However, direct mail is not dead. In fact, it presents a unique opportunity for brands.

While people’s mailboxes used to be filled with direct mail pieces, they now receive just a few direct mail pieces per day. As a result, they’re far more likely to look at those direct mail pieces, which means the mailbox is a perfect place for your B2B cannabis brand to stand out and get noticed.

The secret to make B2B direct mail marketing work for brands that want to connect with cannabis license holders across the supply chain is to understand today’s direct mail marketing is very different from what marketers were doing just a few years ago. 

Following are five things to keep in mind to be a successful B2B direct mail marketer.

1. Use a High Quality List

Your direct mail marketing success is directly affected by the quality of your mailing list. That means you need to invest time and money into creating a targeted list that includes valid, current information. 

Every piece of direct mail you send to an invalid address is lost money for your business. Therefore, only send to contacts whose information you gather yourself or through a trustworthy provider such as the Cannabiz Media License Database. 

2. Personalize Your Messages

A generic direct mailer sent to tens of thousands of people is unlikely to drive an adequate return on investment (ROI). Personalization is key to getting the best results, but it can be expensive if you don’t have a solid strategy.

To make personalization affordable and effective, focus on niche audiences rather than individuals. Segment your audience into buyer personas and create a different version of your mail piece for each persona. Swap the images, text, or offer in your mailer to appeal to each niche audience. 

For example, when you build your mailing list in the Cannabiz Media License Database, you can segment by license activity, license status, employee role, and much more to create personalized campaigns for specific audience segments.

3. Offer Something of Value

Direct mail is more expensive than most digital marketing investments, so it’s important to offer something irresistible to recipients in order to motivate them to take action. Consider offering a discount or freebie, and be sure to match the offer to the audience based on your list segmentation.

Always include an expiration date for your offer to create a sense of urgency. Recipients should have to act now to get the special offer, not weeks from now. Otherwise, they’ll put the direct mail piece aside and forget about it. 

Unlike email marketing where you can send reminder messages without spending a lot of additional time or money, direct mail reminders come with big price tags. Make your offers time-sensitive to get the best results.

4. Include a Tracking Mechanism

Your direct mail investment should be trackable so you can calculate your ROI and determine whether or not it was successful. Therefore, be sure to include a special code recipients need to provide when responding to the offer to get the discount, freebie, etc. 

Alternately, you can include a special URL or QR code in the mailer that recipients have to use to take advantage of the offer. The only way people should be able to get that special URL or QR code is if they received the direct mail piece so you can track the results accurately.

5. Leverage Postage and Production Discounts

There are many ways you can reduce your postage and production costs to make direct mail affordable for your business. Work with your printer or postal facility to ensure you’re getting the best per piece postage rate. 

For large mailings, your address file can be formatted in specific ways to get special postage discounts, and your mail pieces can be delivered directly to bulk mail facilities rather than to your local post office to get additional discounts.

Production costs depend on a variety of variables, but a guaranteed way to reduce costs is by choosing a more affordable format for your direct mail pieces. In recent years, postcard mailers have increased in popularity while envelope mailers and self-mailers have decreased in popularity. 

This makes sense as postage and paper costs have been on the rise. In addition, recipient behaviors have changed. People are used to reading communications very quickly in digital formats, and those preferences have spilled to offline communications as well. 

As a result, postcards with succinct copy that include a digital response mechanism (e.g., website, unique URL, QR code, and so on) are becoming more common.

Key Takeaways to Make B2B Direct Mail Marketing Work in the Cannabis Industry

B2B direct mail marketing can be very successful for brands targeting cannabis license holders. The key is testing to learn what works with your target audiences. Mailboxes are less crowded than ever, so shifting some of your marketing budget to direct mail could help your brand get noticed and boost sales.  

Ready to get started? Schedule a demo to see how you can use the Cannabiz Media License Database to build your direct mail marketing lists.