External advertising campaigns can be daunting. They require an upfront financial investment, advance planning, coordination with operations and acceptance of some risk. Plus, it’s much easier to advertise to owners who already shop at the co-op.

But in today’s competitive environment, co-ops can’t limit advertising only to current owners. To welcome everyone in the community to our table, we need to extend an invitation to folks who haven’t enjoyed the co-op before. And that requires some bravery!

A good place to start is with a direct mail campaign. While many forms of print advertising are becoming obsolete (Yellow Pages, anyone?), direct mail continues to be an effective tactic. In fact, as businesses turn more and more to digital advertising, it can be a novelty to receive an actual, physical piece of mail from a community business. Neuroscience research backs up this phenomenon. Physical mail facilitates deeper emotional processing of the content and helps information to be internalized and remembered more than digital advertising.

The average household receives about two pieces of direct mail per day, but could easily receive 157 emails. And of those, about 80-90% of direct mail gets opened, versus about 20-30% of emails (USPS statistics). Now, this isn’t meant to convince anyone that emails aren’t a smart marketing tactic. Rather, it is meant to show that sometimes it’s worthwhile to pay for a direct mail campaign, in addition to other forms of advertising.

Direct mail is also measurable in a way that many advertising channels are not. By including a coupon or featuring a specific event, co-ops can measure the results of their campaigns based on redemption rates or attendance and determine the return on their investment. NCG offers a spreadsheet tool that helps marketers evaluate the effectiveness of their direct mail campaigns.

To encourage co-ops to take the leap and try a direct mail campaign, NCG offers several direct mail templates and even hosted a contest in 2019 to reward co-ops that used these resources. East End Food Co-op, NCG’s winner of $2,000 toward a future direct mail campaign, was new to this form of advertising.

“Our marketing budget is tight and the cost of direct mailing can be intimidating,” shared Kate Saffin, East End Food Co-op’s marketing and membership manager. “The template and instructions were helpful; basically ready-to-go. The hardest part was choosing the right products.”

While the redemption rates at East End Food Co-op were lower than expected on their first try, the sales generated by this campaign were sufficient to pay for the FREE and BOGO products customers received. Other co-ops saw redemption rates as high as 4% on similar FREE and BOGO product coupons, generating more than enough sales to pay for the printing, mailing and coupon redemptions entirely. (A 3% coupon redemption rate is generally a good measure of success.)

Here is where the risk lies. The effectiveness of a direct mail campaign depends on many factors: timing, design, value of the offer, audience and more. And the only way to know how effective this tactic will be in your co-op’s market area is to try, measure, adjust and repeat. The payoff comes from getting new shoppers in the door and also from the brand familiarity that comes with repeated mailings.

NCG offers guidance documents for direct mail in general and specifically for the “Four Weeks of Savings” mailer (found with the templates in Dropbox and pictured above). Be sure to check out the new Co+op, welcome to the table direct mail templates. These have a fresh new look and feature a single coupon on the back — a great option for co-ops that are trying direct mail for the first time. Budget conscious co-ops can use NCG’s volume discount with FedEx to send mailers through Every Door Direct Mail.

Still not sure about trying direct mail? Reach out to Liz McMann anytime to discuss your questions and concerns, and to celebrate your successes!