It might be hard to believe that, even in this day and age, direct mail still has a purpose. After all, with the current move to digital, it might be shocking to learn that direct mail marketing has a place.
You might have heard the usual criticisms of direct mail: high front-end costs, low returns, and wasted paper. However, here are nine good reasons why direct mail marketing is beneficial to fulfillment businesses:
1. Higher Response
While e-mail marketing can be engaging, it’s hard to get clients to respond to e-mail marketing pieces. On the other hand, a recent Direct Marketing Association study revealed that there’s a 10% to 30% greater response to direct mail than e-mail.
2. More Trustworthy
If you’ve watched the news lately, you’re likely aware that many people don’t trust electronic information, thanks to the amount of hacking and personal information leaks. This has created a real concern about privacy and individual rights, even when it comes to something as basic as connecting with links on an e-mail marketing page. Direct mail, however, doesn’t have this sort of issue, so there are no issues with trusting and sharing personal information when using it.
3. Higher Delivery Rate
Despite what you may have heard about mail services, most direct mail lists are over 90% deliverable. Compare that with e-mail, where only 50% are deliverable and a lot of it, thanks to Google’s algorithms, is treated as spam. In lieu of these technical restrictions, direct mail can reach people more successfully.
4. No Inbox Overload
There’s a lot of e-communication these days; some might say too much, as many inboxes get flooded. And let’s face it, a lot of those e-mails are deleted without being read. With direct mail, that’s not the case; while people do throw away direct mail as well, recent Epsilon studies show that over 70% of people go through and inspect their mail in hopes of finding new discounts or promotions. This means people aren’t as apt to toss direct mail out as quickly as they do e-mail.
5. Less Competition
With so many companies jumping on the e-mail marketing bandwagon for their fulfillment services, direct mail marketing is seeing a lot less competition. Whether it’s a handwritten letter or a paper greeting card, some people enjoy receiving a direct mail promotion simply because it’s become so uncommon. This creates a new form of appeal for direct mail.
6. The Personal Touch
Electronic material suffers from the age-old stigma of being “cold,” much like a lot of other technology. And as nice looking as electronic marketing material can appear, it is also mediated information; this isn’t helped by the fact that the sheer amount of it can often cause people to feel alienated. On the other hand, people tend to respond better to personalized direct mail that showcases interesting things they may wish to purchase.
7. More Selective
It’s hard for direct e-mails to target specific audiences the way you want. However, direct mail lists allow you to do just that by, as the name implies, directing your mail to those clients that would be interested in your products or services. And if you have segmented mailing lists, those can still help to push marketing pieces to the right people.
8. Safety
There are concerns about using electronic media, and with good reason: viruses and identity theft are becoming common problems. If this is a major concern for you, know that direct mail marketing is a safer alternative. While not flawless, direct mail means you don’t have to worry about some of the safety problems that come with the use of technology, particularly matters concerning personal information.
9. Action Generation
As noted, even if it doesn’t register as spam, a lot of e-mail marketing winds up being deleted from inboxes as fast as it got there; people just don’t like reading it, while they may show a preference for direct mail. The data supports this: according to statistics, 12% to 23% of people followed up on direct mail they received versus nine percent following up on an e-mail marketing piece. This information speaks for itself regarding how direct mail generates action from the public.
While there’s nothing bad about e-mail marketing, there’s still something to be said about direct mail. It has a potency with people that want something “real” in their consumer media.
Need solutions to your product fulfillment problems? APS Fulfillment, Inc. has the knowledge and services to make your direct mail and product fulfillment ventures more successful. Contact APS Fulfillment, Inc. by e-mail at [email protected], visit their web site at www.apsfulfillment.com, or phone at (954) 582-7450.
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