Nehlsen Notebook

The Challenge with Direct Mail

By Nehlsen Staff  8.18.09

The challenge with direct mail is getting the right information to the right person. If you’re sending unwelcome or irrelevant information to an unqualified list, save yourself the time and simply flush your marketing budget down the toilet.

As with email, we all have a junk mail filter. For most, it is subconscious, where we merely dismiss information that doesn’t directly pertain us. For others, however, there is a physical filter in-place (most end-users/decision makers have a secretary or office manager who sorts the mail, ridding it of any “junk ”). A successful direct mail piece makes it past these filters, lands in the hands of the target audience, and drives a very specific call-to-action. Standing out long enough for your message to be received takes a combination of solid strategic planning and great creative. If you know your target audience well enough — know their needs/desires/what interests them — the results can be so predictable, it’s scary.

Another thing to consider is frequency. As with other media, direct mail works best when it is part of an integrated marketing campaign, but in having a regular schedule of mailings, your response rates will ultimately increase. The US Postal Service reported a total mail volume decrease of 18.5 billion letters between October 2008 and May 2009, and USPS management predicts that the mail volume for 2009 will decrease by 28 billion pieces*. The drop in volume should come as no surprise, considering the current state of the economy and the ever-increasing reliance of online-bill-pay and e-mail. And with the number of daily mail pieces steadily decreasing, there is no better time than the present to initiate a direct mail campaign. After all, with fewer pieces of mail in the hands of the target, yours can stand out even more.

* Heidi B. Malhotra, U.S. Postal Service’s Sticky situation, www.theEpochTimes.com, 12 Aug 2009

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