DIRECT MAIL IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Lin Grensing-Pophal, PCM
Self-Counsel Press
(a division of)
International Self-Counsel Press Ltd.
USA Canada
Copyright © 2012
International Self-Counsel Press
All rights reserved.
Introduction
Back in 1923, Claude C. Hopkins, widely recognized as a great advertising pioneer, wrote in Scientific Advertising: “The severest test of an advertising man is in selling goods by mail. But that is a school from which he must graduate before he can hope for success. There cost and results are immediately apparent. False theories melt away like snowflakes in the sun. The advertising is profitable or it is not, clearly on the face of returns.”
In 1991, I wrote: “Direct mail was the shining star of advertising in the 1980s and promises to continue to be so in the 1990s. It’s the fastest growing form of advertising because it’s measurable, relatively easy to produce, and cost effective.” Fast forward about 20 years and I could probably say exactly the same thing about e-marketing. How the world has changed!
While the delivery mechanisms are different, in reality, the basics of communicating effectively with whoever the target audience might be really haven’t changed very much, if at all. Effective communication is still effective communication, and direct mail — whether in the snail mail environment or online — still benefits from the same tried and true principles that gurus such as Claude C. Hopkins, and later, Bob Bly and Herschell Gordon Lewis espoused and practiced.
When you run a radio spot for your product or service it’s hard to tell exactly how effective it is. When you mail coupons to prospects — whether delivered via snail mail or email — it’s easy to measure the results; simply count the coupons you get back. Better yet, in the digital age, you can tell how many people opened your email, how many forwarded it on to others, how many clicked through to various parts of the message, and (based on their email addresses or domains) who they are!
Truly, the beauty of direct mail is its measurability — the ability for marketers to know, with certainty, the value of the effort they have put forth. That same thing can’t be said about other forms of advertising. While success may be implied, it cannot be explicitly measured when we use techniques such as television advertising, billboards, print advertising, etc.
Regardless of what you have to sell or who you want to sell it to, direct mail (traditional and/or digital-era) can provide a flexible, measurable, and very cost-effective means of delivering your message and achieving results.
Those who are already steeped in the practice of traditional direct mail will find that there aren’t a lot of differences between the traditional and the new-media approach. Those who have not yet dipped their toes into direct mail marketing will be glad to learn that the principles can be readily applied whether they’re developing materials for delivery to a mailbox or a desktop.
It sounds simple enough and it really is. The information in this book will make it easy for you to plan and produce your own direct-mail campaigns, measure their results, and make improvements to subsequent campaigns to generate even better results. That’s the beauty of direct mail!
1
Beginnings and Benefits
Direct mail can be simply defined as mail that is delivered directly to a single, intended recipient. It is direct and it uses the mail. Traditionally, in business-to-consumer environments, this has meant mail delivered to a mailbox. In business-to-business environments, mail is delivered to business addresses, post office boxes, etc., and is often sorted, managed, and distributed by mail rooms. Today it means mail delivered electronically to email inboxes or social media accounts.
Direct mail is a form of direct marketing. Lester Wunderman is widely considered to be the creator of modern-day direct marketing. Wunderman was born in 1920, is still alive as of this writing, and introduced marketers to such innovations as the magazine subscription card, the toll-free number, and loyalty rewards programs. He coined the term “direct marketing” in 1967.
Direct marketing is marketing that is directed at a specific group of individuals and intended to elicit an immediate response (e.g., placement of an order or generation of an inquiry). In fact, the basic requirement for a marketing effort to be classified as direct marketing is that the response be direct and immediate. General advertising, by way of comparison, is designed to convince consumers to make a purchase at some later date. On the one hand, when you watch a commercial for Target, the people who developed the commercial don’t expect you to immediately jump up, get in your car, and drive to Target. Direct marketing, on the other hand, is designed to elicit just such an immediate response.
1. Direct Marketing Techniques
Direct marketing may use one or more of the following techniques:
• Telephone
• Television
• Print advertisements
• Direct mail
• Digital direct mail
• Billboards
All of these are examples of direct marketing efforts that are designed to achieve an immediate (or almost immediate) response from a group of consumers. The following sections discuss these direct marketing techniques.
1.1 Telephone
You’re sitting down to eat dinner when the phone rings. You answer it and, to your chagrin, it’s a telemarketer trying to sell you something. This time that “something” is a magazine that you are really interested in and the price is right. You bite. Some clever businessperson just used telephone direct marketing to reach right into your home and make a sale.
While telephone solicitation, or telemarketing, is not direct mail, it does share one important element with direct mail — the need for a list of individuals who are likely to be interested in what the marketer has to sell. This is not true of other forms of direct marketing, as we’ll see.
Telephone direct marketing has the advantages of immediacy and personal interaction with the potential customer, but many people feel telephone marketing is intrusive and they will react negatively to a phone call. In addition, some offers are too complex to be explained adequately in a short phone conversation. Add to that the movement away from traditional land lines to mobile telephones.
1.2 Television
It’s late and you can’t sleep. The program you’re watching is interrupted by a musical performer from days gone by strumming a guitar and promoting a collection of greatest hits. To order, all you have to do is call a toll-free number now.
Or, you’re watching what you think is a regular program, only to discover that you’re in the midst of a long commercial known as an infomercial. The infomercial idea is not new; only the name is. The 30-minute commercial actually emerged in the 1950s. As programming time became harder and harder to get, the Federal Trade Commission outlawed these commercials. Now, however, with the renaissance of cable networks, they have become a staple of the airwaves.
Television direct marketing offers the strong impact of both visual