I never thought I'd say this, but my mailbox is starting to get full again. Brands and agencies seem to be slowly returning to the tried-and-true methods of direct mail. Perhaps our email inboxes are getting too full, or the online world is just getting too cluttered. Or the marketing people have realized that they have been missing an important piece of the marketing puzzle all along. But direct mail is becoming more sophisticated as technology allows for more capabilities. Even if you are going to mail a simple postcard (very powerful!), below are a few trends that you might want to take into consideration:

Direct mail & social media integration

Including a brand's Twitter handle and Facebook page URL is becoming as frequent as the old 800 number used to be. As companies become more creative about how they use social-networking sites for tightly timed discounts, offers, and coupons exclusive to the social-media sites, it only makes good marketing sense to groom your customers and prospects to expect such links in your emails.

Personalized and customized mailings. Improved data capture and database enhancements allow for a more robust body of information about each customer. This translates, with digitized printing, into the abilty to create more targeted and personal messages. Personalisation in itself is not new,but in the coming months we will see it move to a new level, allowing references to your customers' past purchasing behavior and suggested next purchases. Companies who find ways to personalize communications will continue to see a better response.

Using direct mail to drive web traffic

Given all of the above capabilities with customer data, some smart marketers are sending customers not to a company website's homepage,but to customized mini-sites based on the customer's purchasing data. Transaction history and advanced demographic info can direct readers to a very individualized experience.

Marketing automation to cross- and up-sell

Once the province of the major CRM companies (think Salesforce.com),now the ability to automate a multi-channel contact strategy is filtering down to smaller companies with smaller budgets. A well-targeted direct-mail piece might have a call-to-action for an offer that is only available online. Once that customer has clicked to the site, a chain of auto-responder emails is initiated that will hopefully move the prospect further down the purchase decision-making process. Each step the customer takes is recorded in their customer record, to encourage future, even more intelligent marketing activities. The technology has become more sophisticated and less expensive in the last year or so, and it will only get better with time.