Let's face it, direct mail doesn't have the best of images. The media refer to it as junk, the New Marketeers dismiss it as "snail mail" and alongside email and SMS marketing it can look out-dated and expensive. But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Email and SMS marketing - text messages - are relatively cheap and, to be fair, both have their applications. With just a couple of clicks your message can be sent simultaneously to thousands of inboxes. Great for keeping in touch with your customers, great if you genuinely have something new and informative to tell them.
So why hasn't direct mail died a death? Here are a couple of reasons.
Firstly, direct mail is uniquely suited to testing. Most direct mail campaigns will look for response rates of around 2% or 3%. You can try out your ideas by mailing to a couple of hundred carefully targeted prospects, perhaps for as little as £100 and usually for much less than the cost of setting up an email campaign. If the reponse rates are good, you can roll out the campaign; if you find you've been barking up the wrong tree, regroup, rethink, give it a tweak and test again.
Secondly, the amount of direct mail being received is going down. The less people get the more likely it is to be read. At the same time the volume of email is increasing exponentially. Around 78% of all emails don't even get opened. Some are just deleted but many are sent to a junk folder; their senders blocked forever.
There are many other reasons why direct mail is making a comeback. If you'd like to have a chat about it give Karen Clarke a call on 01736 366244 or email karen@brgdirect.co.uk
