Get Buzzed

Have you checked my wife’s mailbox lately? Well, actually it belongs to both of us; it’s just that most of the contents are just for her. Fashion mags, untold product catalogs, solicitations of all kinds, more fancy mags. I always marvel at the printing costs involved, even before you get to postage.

Some have assumed that direct mail, one of the oldest and lowest of low-tech approaches to selling a consumer, is dying a slow death. Predictions of its demise have been fueled by all the excitement over everything-online by an internet-crazed generation called the Millennials.

Hold the eulogy. This just in: spending on direct mail marketing is expected to increase by more than a $1 billion in 2010, according to a study from Direct Marketing Association.

But the total spent and ROI figures are even more impressive to me - $45.5 billion will be spent by savvy marketers this year and they are realizing, according to the report, $15.22 for every dollar spent in 2009. Am I the only one impressed?

Interestingly, e-marketing drives fewer sales than most other marketing channels. By comparison, email solicitations accounted for “just” $26 billion in sales last year. Not chump change by any means, yet still half of what good old fashioned direct mail generates.

So why the staying power of “snail mail” when the cost of postage has risen and the turbo-charged world wide web can reach people in seconds and at far lower acquisition costs?

I think it has to do with a variety of factors, not the least of which is that there are millions of people out there who either don’t own a computer or don’t have an email address. No kidding!

Beyond that, newspaper circulation is dwindling and for those consumers (like me) who like to read about a product or service -- advertisement in hand – they have direct mail to turn to. Direct mail campaigns, like newspapers, also enable marketers to geographically target their campaigns.

Finally, with various new bar-coding technologies, marketers can use customer data to tailor content and personalize the greeting, all the while tracking results. Advantage, direct mail.

Of course, what always needs to be taken into consideration when selecting marketing mediums is the product or service in question, target audiences, budget and of course, the campaign objectives.

The bottom line here is simply that direct mail marketing is far from dead, and despite all the hype about social media leading us into the 21st century, direct mail ain’t going anywhere soon.

Now that we’ve settled that, pass me that Victoria’s Secret catalog!

1 Comment | Filed under: Consumer Division Public Relations Publicity/Promotions