Is Direct Mail Dead?

I saw a recent report in Ad Week that was discussing the decline and eventual death of direct mail. You can read the story here. I found the arguments that the writer made accurate, but it made me wonder if there is still a role for direct mail in our digital world.

The article says that the economic circumstances are certainly adding to the issues and that direct mail may bounce back somewhat after the economy improves. It said most marketing managers were focused on digital channels to get their message out because it was lower cost.

A few questions...

1. Is it really a lower cost?
2. Is it as effective?
3. Is there a role for direct mail in this digital world?

Let's start with the first question, is it really lower cost. From the perspective of having to print and pay for postage, yes it is certainly cheaper. However, in direct mail you used to always be able to purchase lists and hence always had someone you could mail to. With email marketing you must develop a list. I know there are services out there that allow you to use their lists, but this has a ton of disadvantages which I will discuss in a future post. Therefore, when you factor in the cost of developing a list, paying for copywriting, and set up, as well as distribution it is far from "free" or even cost effective. Is is cheaper than direct mail, yes, probably, but I wouldn't call it low cost. Now since we know you have actual hard costs and those aren't probably as low as we believe they should be we come to the next question.

Is it effective? Because everyone today wants to get into the digital marketing game everyone has some type of newsletter or promotional email mailing. Many of us subscribe to those. Add this email on top of the tons of messages you normally get everyday and if you are like most people you have waaaay more email than you can reasonably keep up with. Now keep in mind this is the email you said you actually wanted. What about the email that comes that you don't care about? The point is that we all get so much email and our attention is focused in so many directions that I am not sure email marketing is always super effective, at least most email the way it is currently executed.

Before someone writes to me and says "hey, you are an email marketing guy" don't misunderstand me. I believe email marketing can be very effective, but it must be done very well, be branded, have superb copy, and be very well executed with a great list. We are simply too short on time to react to email that isn't well put together. Therefore, to summarize you need the following...

• Branded Email
  
  
• Email Marketing Lists
  
  
• Email Marketing Copywriting

Now the last question, is there a role for direct mail? As people move to digital from direct mail there will be more opportunity to have your mail you do send stand out more. Because people will be getting less mail the mail that does come will probably get more attention, seems logical, right? Well, I would use direct mail to drive people to my web site where I would then use excellent copywriting to get them to take action. I will argue that my direct mail coming in a less crowded space and being augmented by my online marketing efforts will actually outperform a pure digital marketing campaign. Someday I will find someone to pick up this challenge and we can see who is right. In the meantime this is a strategy I am not ready to toss to the curb just yet and my clients will still be getting the benefit of it.