Guest blog by Richard Madden, planning director, Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw…
I’m writing this on the way back from a meeting with a prospective client. They are a pioneering online business. They have invested heavily in all today’s cutting edge marketing techniques, from segment-of-one eCRM to social media. Today’s meeting was about exploring an exciting new medium which the brand has never tested before. Its name? Direct mail.
An exception, perhaps. A fluke of that brand’s peculiar evolution, almost certainly. But the fact that such a brand is re-evaluating its channel mix to include direct mail for the first time strikes me as somehow symbolic. Direct mail used to be the only addressable channel. Now its use is discretionary. We have a choice to make. And to make that choice wisely, we need to reflect on the things direct mail can do which email can’t.
Of course, one thing that direct mail can do with consummate ease is to burn through your marketing budget at a rate of knots. There’s no escaping the fact that direct mail is an expensive channel. However, as any direct marketer knows, cost per contact is a relative measure. Relative principally to the responsiveness and value of the audience being targeted. Of course, results analysis should be our absolute guide here. But are there certain universal rules of thumb that point us to audience segments which still prefer to engage with paper mail?
See full article at: Offline interactive: the strange rebirth of direct mail.
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