Everyday our inboxes seem to get a bit more cluttered with email messages and digital call-to-actions that it becomes hard to even notice them, let alone respond to them.  New studies from the DMA show that direct mail is at least skimmed or read by over 85 percent of its recipients, this number is steadily increasing from the past five years.  Whereas, according to Print is Big, email open rates have been on a steady decline over the past ten years, with email response rates decreasing by 57 percent since 2003.

Aside from the fact that your brand’s message is more likely to be read and responded to by  your core audience, other advances in technology such as database marketing and Variable Data Printing make it possible to personalize your post cards and mailers just as you could personalized an electronic message.  Additionally, by segmenting your database, you can reduce your overall cost of marketing by only sending relevant messages to certain portions of your target audience that will most likely be interested in responding to your mailing’s call-to-action.

Direct mail can be highly targeted, it cuts through the clutter and with today’s technology the overall cost of production can be reduced as well, but in addition to all of these benefits, there is one that stands out from the rest.  In a consumer research study is was shown that over 60 percent of people preferred — and liked — receiving direct mail over any other form of brand-to-consumer communication, coming only second to the printed version of their daily newspaper.

Digital technology is fantastic.  It allows us to communicate quickly and has instant gratification, but when combined with offline messages, your brand not only increases its messages reach, it also increases the frequency in which a message is seen by your core audience.

How are you using direct mail in your marketing mix?

Timothy Freeman

President

Print & Graphic Communications Association