I have been reporting for some time that direct mail volumes have declined dramatically in the past five years, and that as a result the opportunities for getting enhanced response rates have risen greatly.

Now the news comes that TNT and Royal Mail (the two huge rivals in the postal service) are looking to work together on some marketing ideas in order to get volumes back up.

My own view (which of course counts for nothing when one is considering giants like Royal Mail) is that the one thing that really boosts sales is getting the language right. Conversational approaches to selling which deal informally with the topic in hand always seem to do particularly well.

In writing this I am reminded of an issue that arose four or five years ago, when I bought a copy of the DMA’s book of award winning direct mail. About 30% of the pieces that were included were funny. And yet only about 1% of all direct mail that goes out is funny.

Humour is one of those areas that works very well for me, and yet hardly anyone goes for it. I wonder if the new TNT/Royal Mail approach actually considers this, and starts encouraging us to be funnier in our writing.

Of course there’s nothing very amusing here – but you could always have a look at www.blog.toppled.info where some of the old Toppled Bollard stories are being (slowly) republished. They were generally good for a laugh.

If you would like to talk about conversational styles in direct mail, or indeed about the use of humour, or come to that any other approach, do give me a call or drop me an email.