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Direct Mail Growing in Popularity Among Young People?

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le November 1, 2011 – 3:45 pm

dans Database Marketing, Digital & Social Media, Direct Mail Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Integrated Marketing, News & Trends

According to survey results published in the Direct Marketing Association’s 2011 Statistical Fact Book, 18 percent of young people between the ages of 22 and 24 say they will respond to direct mail. That’s up from numbers published last year.

How could this be? Direct mail is often seen as an old (and not so sexy) marketing channel. Why are direct mail postcards, catalogs, and other mailed print formats increasing in popularity—especially among young people—when activity on digital, mobile and social media platforms are thriving?

They don’t want their friends to know their really, really personal business.

Last year, a study conducted by ICOM, a division of Epsilon Targeting, found that a lot of people between the ages of 18 and 34 preferred to receive certain marketing communications via direct mail rather than through online media. An overwhelming percentage of those surveyed wanted messages relating to personal care, food or cleaning products, medicine, and sensitive health products to be delivered via direct mail.

I think that people recognize the fact that most things posted online, or exchanged via email, are not necessarily private. Even if profiles are restricted and passwords are strong, there’s a chance that someone or something can potentially gain access to personal details and preferences. Sure, this can happen with direct mail too. But online, if sensitive personal information is exposed, the audience that could have access to it is potentially much larger (and content is searchable online).

Better targeting and deeper, more relevant personalization

Gone are the days where marketers can get away with distributing mass mail featuring generalized messages. Consumers today demand personalization and, above all, relevancy. Past surveys by organizations like the Winterberry Group, Prospectiv, and the DMA highlight that the top factors in driving response rates included timing, relevance and personalization of marketing message.
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Social Media: It Doesn’t Reach Everyone, Particularly the Wealthy

Posté par Jamie Klemcke le August 18, 2011 – 2:32 pm

dans Digital & Social Media, Direct Mail Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Marketing Strategy

There’s no denying that as marketers, we’re heavily influenced by the social media bandwagon. While it’s still hot, companies in nearly every industry are focusing their budgets on it, to use the power of Facebook, Twitter and online networks to get their message out to customers and prospects. Be cautioned: social media is not a numbers game, nor is it one that reaches all consumer audiences.

An article in Luxury Daily reports that 50% of our wealthiest populations (the top 10% of affluent U.S. individuals who make up 35% of all U.S. income; individuals with a minimum net worth of $828,000 and an average net worth of $3.1 million) don’t engage with social media at all.

Although the United States is still considered to be in a recession, the Center for American Progress’ Prosperity 2050 study claims that the very rich are growing in Read More »

5 Resources for DIY Small Business Marketers

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le August 16, 2011 – 7:06 pm

dans Digital & Social Media, Marketing Technologies, Mobile Marketing, Production & Printing, Small Business Marketing

Small business owners and entrepreneurs brave enough to take the do–it–yourself approach to advertising and marketing—tackling everything on their own from website development and management to lead acquisition, customer retention and more—are finding that things are getting complicated. The growing importance of integrating digital, mobile, and social media elements within the marketing communications mix is just adding more pressure on top of an already full workload.

Simply keeping up with marketing trends, emerging technologies, and communication strategies is hard enough. Luckily, there are plenty of resources available that the DIY marketer can use to make their job a bit easier.

Here are five helpful resources for do–it–yourself marketers:

Many small business marketers and entrepreneurs are turning to easy–to–use and often free web content management systems—like Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla, among others—to develop and maintain a company website or blog. Often, setting up a small business website or blog is as simple as picking a template; users just plug in their content and go.

Basic knowledge of certain programming Read More »

Quality Over Quantity, The Importance of List Management

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le June 22, 2011 – 2:45 pm

dans Database Marketing, Direct Mail Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Marketing Strategy

Quite a while ago I read an article that described the list woes of a mail-order gourmet brownie company. They ran into some issues trying to effectively manage and grow their mail catalogue distribution lists. Because the majority of their business, or all of it, depended on responses to their catalogues, the company decided to expand their customer mailing list by acquiring multiple purchased lists from an agency. The rapid growth of their mailing list caused them to increase catalogue production and, as a consequence, increase costs associated with their direct marketing campaign. The tough part for this company, though, was that they didn’t see a correlating increase in response rates. After investing all this money, the responses were not sufficient enough to recuperate the growing cost of catalogue production, let alone producing any bump up in profit.

So, what went wrong? A lot of people assume that if you increase your marketing campaign’s reach, the ratio of responses should grow at the same rate. Statistically, this theory might be true if you’re talking about something like playing the lottery – the more you play, the more chances you have to win. Unfortunately, this rule doesn’t apply in direct marketing. Success isn’t necessarily dependent on quantity, but rather on quality of your marketing message and the relevancy of it for the people that receive the message.

Proper list management is an incredibly important part of a successful and effective direct marketing campaign. The effort of reviewing and refining your mailing lists should be constant and should hold just as much importance as things like defining your marketing message or balancing your budget. Read More »

Direct Mail Design and Best Practice

Posté par Cynthia Fedor le June 13, 2011 – 7:58 pm

dans Direct Mail Marketing, Direct Response Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Production & Printing

DirectMail

Great direct mail design has the ability to capture a recipient’s attention, get them to read and process content, commit to the message, then execute a specific call to action. Although there is no secret formula for direct mail design that will guarantee 100% participation from all recipients, there are best practices marketers should follow to increase brand visibility, response rates, and overall ROI.

First, know the target audience and determine the end goal.

Before starting to develop direct mail copy and design, the following should be clear: What are the characteristics of the target audience and what is important to them? Knowing details about the target audience will help determine the appropriate tone to use for copy, which images should be included, and how to structure ideas in a way the target audience will understand. Also, the more detailed a marketer can be when identifying qualities and characteristics of their audience, the better the opportunity to refine the message for specific segment groups. For example, a real estate agent directing a postcard to potential home buyers can segment that broad group into specific categories – investment purchasers, renters, first-time home buyers, expanding families, etc. Each of these segments would have different motivating factor for purchasing a new home; therefore, the message should speak directly to those issues.

Just as important is clarifying the goal for sending a direct mail piece. What is the intended outcome of the piece? Is the intention of the message to inform, provoke an action, or just to promote awareness of the brand? Whatever it may be, there should only be one main idea represented on each direct mail piece. Marketers may only have but a few seconds of the target audience’s attention; therefore, marketers need to choose one goal and drive that point throughout the direct mail piece. Read More »

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