In the fast-paced digital world, efficiency is everything. The internet and digital technologies constantly set a new standard for efficiency and automation. One of the main priorities of individuals working in digital technology, such as DevOps teams, is to automate everyday processes and eliminate human labor. This is called Digital Process Automation or DPA.
Automation is becoming a popular trend among businesses for many reasons, mainly because it optimizes workflows and boosts processing efficiency. And it’s also becoming a part of the direct mail marketing campaigns too.
Think of it this way – the more automated your campaigns are, the more time you’ll be able to spend on polishing them and creating even better campaigns next time!
Why Should You Automate Direct Mail?
These are some of the primary reasons and benefits why companies opt for automation in their digital processes.
1. Optimizing User Experience
When processes at the back-end are automated, it leaves developers with more time and resources to focus on the end-user experience of their brand. Boosting user experience should be a top priority for brands, but it often slips through the cracks.
When human error is wholly or partially eliminated from the mix, and companies can save time, they can direct their attention to optimizing the user experience. At the end of the day, customer satisfaction is what will boost customer retention and loyalty.
2. Cost-Saving
Automation is cost-effective and saves companies a lot of time and resources. While human labor is expensive, automation is significantly cost-saving. It’s not entirely free but compared to employing and paying a whole team of workers to do something.
3. Optimizing Communication and Record-Keeping
Automated processes involve digital processes that take human error out of the equation (mainly). Automating data storage and filing eliminates the need for employees to update data on paper manually. Similarly, having an online archive of communication, feedback, and records streamlines collaborations and gives the parties more clarity. Employees can be updated on changes, eliminating excessive back-and-forth and miscommunication among teams.
4. Security
Digital automation also offers security to any information you upload on the internet regarding your brand. Unlike papers and filing cabinets that can easily be accessed, online platforms provide tighter security for your valuable data.
Some common examples of digital and business automation are applications like Trello, Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, GoVisually, etc. Applications and software such as these are created to automate and streamline business processes within an organization.
You probably clicked on this article because you’re on the hunt for some handy direct mail automation software that will significantly optimize operations in your organization. If you work in marketing fields, you probably constantly compete with other brands in the race to have the best, most profitable marketing campaigns.
This can be daunting given how fast-paced the world of marketing has become. There are many tools, plug-ins, and software out there to help you up to your direct mail marketing game and optimize your marketing campaigns. We’ve compiled a list of the best direct mail automation software available on the market in 2021.
These tools don’t simply extend to direct mails themselves; this list is created to help you automate the entire process and optimize your workflows.
Best Direct Mail Automation Software in 2021 and Beyond
So, without further delay, here are the five best direct mail automation software in 2021 and beyond!
1. Earth Class Mail
Earth Class Mail, founded in 2004, is a direct mail automation software. It enables you to manage and deliver your mail remotely. It works as a virtual mailbox that allows you to sit back and let the computers handle the grunt work of opening, sorting, and packing mail. Earth Class Mail also receives your postal mail at a secure mailbox, scans it, and sends it to your virtual mailbox.
This takes out the effort of checking your physical mailbox for mail and sorting through the mail for valuable and useless mail. It also dramatically removes human error from the picture; your bills, important letters, invoices, and documents are all stored online in a PDF form; so you don’t lose out on valuable information.
Earth Class Mail will deliver or forward your direct mail and store copies online. The service also lets you destroy physical documents through its “secure shredding” feature. Earth Class Mail also has an API that allows you to integrate the service with different apps such as Google Drive, DropBox, Bill.com, etc.
Earth Class Mail is not a free service, but it does offer a free trial! Their Personal mailbox plan costs $19/month, while the Premium mailbox, suitable for organizations, costs $79/month.
2. Reachdesk
Reachdesk is another excellent direct mail automation service. It allows you to send out mail and packages to their customers. You can automate and preset the direct mail a customer receives through Reachdesk, eliminating extra labor.
Like Earth Class Mail, Reachdesk automatically processes, sorts, and securely stores mail for you. Their software also offers integrations with your other favorite integration tools like Hubspot, Zapier, Marketo, Salesforce, etc.
The subscription plans differ in pricing, but we would say, for the quality and rave reviews we’re seeing, it might just be worth it! Their pricing varies for each organization’s needs and requirements.
3. GoVisually
GoVisually is an excellent online proofing software. You might be wondering; What does online proofing have to do with direct mail? And we say, everything. Your direct mail will not generate leads without compelling content to make customers want to purchase your products or services.
When you’re finalizing content for your mail, you need softwares that help make proofing easier for your organization. Edits, revisions, updates, comments, approvals can all be done on GoVisually. Every change and revision made to a document or piece of media can be viewed by everyone involved in the process. This makes workflow more efficient, saves time, and optimizes communication within an organization, minimizing miscommunication, confusion, and errors.
GoVisually is not free software. However, it does have a free trial so that you can check out its services. The software costs $20/month for a personal plan and $50/month for a team plan.
4. Hemingway App
Hemingway App is a great writing proofing tool. It works similar to proofing tools like Grammarly. Hemingway helps you edit your content and optimizes how you convey information to your customers.
It will tell you when your sentence is too wordy, has typos, grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and other inconsistencies. It will also give you suitable synonyms and other helpful suggestions as you write. This is an excellent tool to make sure your customers get the best quality of content in their direct mail.
The application has a free version and a premium paid version at $19.99, which has additional unique features!
5. Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is design software that is perhaps one of the best ones available on the market. You can create designs, ads, presentations, edit photos and videos for your marketing campaigns. Your direct mail needs to look aesthetically pleasing and compelling for the customer. This requires some design work that makes it stand out from all the other piles of ads and promotional offers your customer gets from other brands.
You can also proof designs with your team on Adobe Spark with a shareable, editable link. This eliminates back-and-forth between your design team and optimizes edits and approvals.
6. Blueshift
Blueshift is an excellent marketing automation tool that will significantly save you a lot of time and resources. It helps you create omnichannel experiences with their software.
Blueshift has many features such as predictive intelligence, omnichannel orchestration, single customer view, audience segmentation, mobile marketing, contextual chat, website personalization, email automation, technology integrations, documentation, support plans, etc.
The pricing differs according to the features of each plan, so we’re sure you’ll be able to find a plan that suits your organization’s needs!
Key Takeaway
Direct mail marketing has the potential to boost your lead generation and widen your audience reach significantly. To have a successful, profitable, direct mail marketing campaign, you need automation tools to significantly optimize your workflows and eliminate errors from the marketing processes.
So which of these are you most likely to use for your direct mail automation? Let us know in the comments below.
