Direct mail once was the largest component business-to-business lead generation campaigns. Then came e-mail, podcasts and webinars. These days, however, e-mail-weary BTB marketers are rediscovering the power of direct mail, says Carolyn Goodman, president and creative director at Goodman Marketing Partners. Here, Goodman discusses how targeted marketing strategies have given a boost to direct mail, why e-mail dependent BTB marketers have no leads in the pipeline and how agencies and printers can work together.
CT: During the depths of the recession, everyone was so focused on their existing customers. Now that the economy appears to be improving, are business-to-business marketers revving up their lead generation programs again?
CG: Yes, absolutely.
During the recession, the cut backs were exclusively related to costs. And direct mail is a pretty high cost compared to e-mail. Now, I think everybody has woken up, looked in their sales pipeline and realized they have a problem because they have no leads to work on.
The problem was that BTB marketers focused too heavily on sending out e-mail after e-mail to try to generate leads. Well, guess what, the open rates and the click rates are so incredibly low for e-mail, that instead of having 500 or 1,000 leads in their pipelines, they have 10. As a result, the marketing people are asking for more money to do a proper campaign, which means multiple channels with direct mail usually being one of the key channels.
See full article at: Marketing Powers Activate » Blog Archive » Direct Mail in BTB Lead Generation Mix.
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