Nonprofit group ForestEthics recently published their third annual list of ‘Naughty and Nice’ direct marketers. The list focuses on sustainable practices in direct mail/catalog marketing and highlights who’s doing a great job at thinking green and who’s not.
The list ranks companies based on four categories:
- Where the materials came from to make the paper
- If the supply chain, from forest to paper mill to printer, is FSC certified
- How much post-consumer recycled material is used to produce direct mail pieces
- Effort taken to reduce overall paper waste and consumption
Patagonia, Williams-Sonoma, Victoria’s Secret and Dell were among the ‘greenest’ direct mail marketers, receiving a prancing reindeer (that’s good) in every category. Companies that earned a lump of coal (that’s bad) in every category included Sears, Neiman Marcus, Eddie Bauer, Capital One, Chase Bank, Citi and American Express. You can see the complete list here.
I don’t understand why some direct marketers are still sending out 100-page catalogs and un-targeted direct mail. With great technologies now available—digital printing on demand, prospecting tools for targeting a precise audience type, eMarketing for companion marketing, etc—there’s no need to waste money or our natural resources.
Direct marketers, don’t be afraid to talk to your vendors, printing and fulfillment houses included. Work together and come up with green, targeted solutions for your advertising and marketing plans that will ultimately save you money and offer a better return on investment. Best of all, you’ll be able to ensure that you won’t be getting a lump of coal in your stocking from Santa next year!
Posté par Eric Welch le December 5, 2008 – 2:27 pm
As I was scanning the headlines this morning, enjoying a tasty room-temperature Monster MIXXD energy drink, I came across an article in DMNews about a non-profit health organization which has found email to be more effective than direct mail as a means to increase its web traffic:
As a nonprofit organization, TNA needs to make the most of its budget to keep its communications program running smoothly. Having originally used direct mail to reach members, TNA recognized the need to move to email to be more cost efficient.
Now, one might be inclined to think this would be true across the board. Perhaps an indication of an emerging trend, a massive swing away from ponderous physical mail pieces towards the zippy 1’s and 0’s of electronic messaging. But riddle me this: If email is indeed more cost efficient and better at driving web traffic, why is direct mail still around and going strong? An article I found at FundRaising Success had this to say:
The challenge for each organization is to create a strategy that best reaches its membership goals. This means constantly testing the most effective use of online leads while continuing to utilize the known benefits of traditional direct mail campaigns.
What’s this? Could it be that a combined strategy of direct mail and email marketing might get more results than either method on its own? We at QuantumDigital already know the answer to that one, but we’d love to hear your comments and opinions. Share with us!
Inside Direct Mail published an article this month titled, “Ways to Design Successful Postcards.” I have to agree with many of the points they mention, even if it would have been nice to get some actual customer case studies or statistics. However, the main point I wanted to comment on really had nothing to do with the artile per se’ but with a comment that one of the executives makes under section 8. “While they [postcards] work gangbusters for promoting specific offers and channels you’re probably not going to be able to sell a John Deere tractor using a postcard.” I’ll let you hunt down who made this particular comment.
Ha ha, sorry I just have to laugh at that one. I just so happen to know that one of the largest equipment manufacturers that sells tractors and variations thereof does so by sending personalized postcards – thousands of them every month using an online account. Even though this article, John Deere Dealers Get DM Site, is dated I do know this program is still a successful program today. I can’t comment much further on that, but as you can see from these articles you can definetely sell tractors by using direct marketing… including postcards.
John Deere was featured in DMNews on multiple occasions this year. One article highlights a 3-touch direct mail postcard campaign, “Showcasing Creative Solutions: Postcards Help Milk a New Market.” The approach as highlighted in the article:
Approach: John Deere and McCullough Creative created three postcards that were mailed in quick succession in early November to 18,000 targeted names. The look of the postcards was “a little bit off the beaten track for us,” says McAvoy, referring to the use of brightly colored illustration and humorous copy. She went on to say that the goal was to create something that would “jump” out of the mailbox and be memorable.
Now I will support my argument by saying that the campaign was very targeted, meaning they had an exact profile of those prospects that would most likely respond. They mailed more than one postcard with a targeted message, the postcards included an offer and they followed up with a telemarketing initiative. All very good marketing and business practices in order to see a return on investment.
So in closing, this is a good example of doing a quick Google search before making a grand statement that will be quoted and thus live on forever.
Maybe I’ll comment more on postcard design next week.
Have a good one.
