These days when people think of direct marketing, they think of email. Direct mail – that is mailing via the post – is seen as old fashioned and hopelessly expensive.
And yet…
Direct mail is making a comeback.
This is happening for several reasons, and here are a couple that you might like to consider:
1: The volume of direct mail being received both by businesses and consumers is down. It is now around 20% of what it was five years ago. So, as people receive less direct mail, the chances of each piece being read is much greater than it ever was.
2: Direct mail is uniquely placed for experimentation. Because most campaigns are looking for a response rate of around 2% or 3%, it is quite possible to test the campaign by mailing out 250 items, to see what happens. The cost of this is usually around £120 – which is far less than the average email campaign.
3: Direct mail gets much higher response rates that email. So if we look at the £120 spent on a direct mail test run, we might well find that we get our needed response rate, and then can roll the campaign out to the full mailing list of say 5,000 or more, thus making a far greater profit than can be made through an email campaign. Even when the trial doesn’t work, it is more than likely to get some response, so the actual loss goes down to £40 or £50 – and it is quite possible to try the experiment again.
4: While direct mail’s overall volume is going down, email’s is on the up, and response rates are getting to be hard to maintain.
5: On a cost analysis it is generally the case the direct mail gives a better return on investment than email. Not always, but quite often.
If you have left direct mail behind, or it is no longer central to your way of thinking about marketing, you might like to revisit it. One way to do this is through the article, “The 5 Ways of Doubling Direct Mail Response Rates by Being Different”. It is free, and it is at…
If you want to talk about any of this, do call Hamilton House on 01536 399 000.
Tony Attwood
