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Here’s a question for you: how does Google advertise Google?

The answer seems obvious. Surely the tech giant uses the internet, the platform of which it’s the undisputed king? Well, of course – Google uses plenty of online advertising to promote its products and services. But Google doesn’t limit itself to a single medium, and one of its other channels might surprise you.

Turns out Google is a serious devotee of direct mail. That’s right – plain, old fashioned paper and envelopes. Here are just a few examples of the many, many successful direct mail campaigns the search giant has run:

• $100 coupons for Google AdWords
• Reminders to verify Google business pages
• Tips for promoting your business online
• News about Google’s latest app releases
• Paper-based calculators demonstrating what businesses can save with Google Apps
• ‘The Web & How to Make it Pop’  – a campaign targeted at executives skeptical of digital advertising, which made use of stunning pop-up art books

And these are just the tip of the direct mail iceberg.  Google is one of the biggest users of direct mail advertising on the plant; it’s a tool that forms a regular part of Google’s marketing strategy.

All of this suggests that direct mail has more of an impact than our SEO-obsessed, social media crazed, mobile-optimisation-addled brains give it credit for. Would a company like Google be channelling so much energy into something that didn’t work?

Clearly, direct mail is a strategy that gets results.

• Mail is perceived as more trustworthy
• People are more likely to read physical mail than email
• It connects your business with a different audience 
• Variable data printing makes it easy to personalise marketing pieces to really seize attention

Think about it: as a real estate agent, it’s all but impossible to get ahold of the email address of everyone who lives in your farm area, making it tricky to accurately target your online efforts at the right people. But you already have their addresses, making it easy focus in on one suburb, or even a particular street. 

Successful direct mail campaigns are precisely targeted: for example, not everyone on Google’s database gets every mailout. Instead, only relevant information and offers are sent to carefully selected customers – those most likely to be receptive to a particular message.

Email has its place, but there are definite limitations:

• Opening rates are dismal. You’re doing well – really well – if 15% of people open your email. Click-through rates are even more pitiful
• Over-enthusiastic spam filters seriously reduce the likelihood of your emails actually reaching inboxes
• Email can be deleted in a split second with the click of a button. Your prospects will do it almost automatically
• There are endless issues with email refusing to display correctly across devices and browsers

This doesn’t mean that you should start bombarding your prospects with generic ‘to the homeowner’ style sales material. High quality direct mail campaigns are what achieve real cut-through; they require a compelling message, a clear call to action, and incentives for your customers to actually do something. As we discussed a few weeks ago, print and digital increasingly work in tandem – many customers will still reach out to you online, but some would never have done so without a physical mail piece to prompt them. And tracking response rates to refine future campaigns is vital – Google’s direct mail pieces include unique ID numbers for this very purpose.

We’ve been experimenting with direct mail recently with promising results. Does your business use direct mail? Share your experiences below: