Is Direct Mail Marketing Dead?
Depending on who you talk to these days, some folks seem to think that junk is as dead because the dodo
. Rising postage rates in addition to a struggling U.S. Postal Service, shrinking mail volume, and rising paper costs have all led several businesses to abandon mail and turn to email or online selling instead to acquire and retain customers.
However think twice before you abandon ancient mail. For a few, using old-fashioned mail remains the best marketing strategy.
Direct Mail as Promoting Strategy
Several folks believe that direct mail should be considered a selling tactic, a technique to succeed in customers. Unsolicited mail will conjointly be thought-about a strategy.
Consider these attributes:
?It's stealthy. It flies under the radar. Competitors cannot easily track and monitor mailing activities. They will peruse your website, sign on for your email lists, and monitor your online activities much more easily than they can see your spam efforts.
?It gets attention. As a result of the quantity of mail has declined, new catalogs, offers and well-crafted unsolicited mail stand out from the crowd.
?It's tangible. Several folks like to carry a mail piece in their hands.
?It gets past the gatekeeper or the spam filter. True, individuals still browse their unsolicited mail over the trash will, and you still have only some seconds to grab their attention. However compared to automated spam filters and blocks on the most important email list serves, you've got a better likelihood of getting a mail piece in front of a customer than you do an email if you've got no prior relationship with the customer.
?It's measurable. It's accountable. With every dollar spent on mail, you'll directly attribute sales, client acquisition, and over time, the lifetime worth of a customer.
Several customers still prefer mail to email. With the prevalence of malicious pc viruses and spam emails bordering on pornography, the management, immediacy and tangible pleasure of receiving a brand new junk mail catalog or provide through the mail remains a draw for many people.
Scale back Prices
Several firms stay skeptical, especially given the costs of sending a large-scale mail piece. There are several ways that to scale back the costs.
?Use postcard mailings instead of packages. Postcards are inexpensive, get attention quickly, and can be equally effective.
?Review U.S. Postal Service guidelines for mail pieces and be positive to structure items for maximum discounts. This includes size, format, and weight requirements.
?Search for opportunities to group your mailing with others to attain postal discounts.
?Use lighter papers to save postage.
?Keep your lists scrupulously clean.
?Combine mail with email for a one-two punch and higher response rates.
Spam is not dead. It's fallen a touch in popularity, except for corporations who very wish to stay their promoting activities under the radar, it remains the simplest strategy to promote products and services while not saying their marketing efforts.
seventy four). The Evolution of Marketing
Selling certainly has its roots in massive and expensive campaigns meant to succeed in as several people as possible. This type of 'mass selling' helped develop company branding however was utterly 'product centered' and treated all customers as if they'd the identical desires and buying preferences. Compare this to what the direct promoting people are currently doing with target selling, relationship selling, permission promoting, event-based mostly selling and even location-primarily based marketing.
It's interesting to work out how these completely different strategies really evolved.
Mass Selling - The goal here is to reach the biggest variety of people and 'hope' they have interest in your product/service. Mass selling uses mass media such as TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, etc. This sort of promoting is (was) characterized by huge budgets, national campaigns, and very very little actual information to measure selling efficiency.
Direct Selling - Mass marketing was flipped around when direct selling started directly contacting customers (using junk mail, telemarketers, etc). This new evolution (around 1960) also was the start of test-promoting to measure the effectiveness of various advertising campaigns.
Target Promoting - Soon once computers became widely used, marketers began gathering knowledge on who was buying their merchandise and why. This led to targeting their promotional ways directly towards customers who are most likely to buy their product. This market segmentation divided up customers and prospects in keeping with their demographics, age, income, etc.
Relationship Promoting - Many businesses realized that it was just as profitable to 'sell a lot of to every client' as it absolutely was to 'sell to additional customers'. This led to (around 1990) promoting that communicated with customers 'as people' with tailored info geared towards their unique shopping for experiences and preferences. Clearly this requires heaps of data on client behavior patterns, profiles, etc. that helped launch the development of latest business CRM applications and marketing automation tools.
Permission Marketing - As shoppers began to induce bombarded with email spam, many businesses realized the advantages of spending more time selling to customers who have specifically shown interest in your product/service and (effectively) have given you permission to plug to them (during a method they wish to be marketed to)! This can be most ordinarily done when shoppers join up (i.e. offer out their email address) to download product information or receive a newsletter. The importance of having smart client data to personalize your promoting is essential since these prospects will remove their permission anytime (by opting out).
Event-Primarily based Selling- Imagine someone just supplied their personal data and downloads info about a brand new vacation resort. This event triggers an marketing automation tool to send out a targeted promotional supply that's customized, timely, informative, and useful. Everyone potentially wins. The buyer gets one thing they were actually looking for - once they wish it! This kind of marketing is heavily Web targeted and depends on good automation tools.
Location-Based mostly Marketing - Now that cell phones have Web access AND they have embedded location devices (i.e. GPS locators), we have a tendency to can expect to work out mobile advertising based on location. Of course this can additionally be personalized and permission-based mostly however imagine you're leaving work for lunch and you receive a text message with 'a pair of-for-1 lunch deals' at restaurants in your immediate area. Over time the system conjointly realizes you favor Chinese over Mexican, etc.
Take-aways from this promoting evolution ...
?Mass Marketing is moving to Relationship Marketing
?Few Large Campaigns are moving to Several Customized Campaigns
?Product Focus is moving to Customer Focus
?Short-Term Revenue is moving to Long-Term Customer Loyalty
by: Kimberly
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