For direct marketers, the print-to-online transition is an ongoing one. Consider the following facts comparing direct mail to e-mail for marketing purposes.
Paper costs
The 20 percent increase in the cost of paper over the past two to three years is being caused in part by higher labor costs as well as higher fuel costs to get wood to the mill, run the papermaking machines and transport the finished product to warehouses and on to printers.
Moreover, many paper mills are making investments to become more eco-friendly, incurring costs to train employees in new processes and procedures. Printing and postage costs are also rising, and additional paper price increases are likely.
E-mail costs
For companies whose customers are largely online, e-mail is a cost-effective replacement to direct mail. For organizations that have a blend of online and non-online customers, it can be a welcomed alternative for e-mail-equipped recipients that also lowers the cost of marketing for the company.
Direct mail efficiency
A direct mail campaign can take weeks to design, lay out, print and mail. Moreover, while deliverability and response are trackable with direct mail, they take time. Undeliverable mail can take weeks to be returned and addresses must be manually removed from a list. In addition, response can take days by postage paid reply.
E-mail efficiency
An e-mail campaign can take as little as a few hours to a few days from concept to receipt, enabling companies to respond rapidly to market dynamics and competitive pressures. In addition, with e-mail sent by an advanced e-mail delivery system, bad addresses are discovered within minutes and culled from a list. Then, marketers know exactly how many recipients opened the message.
With links back to a Web site, purchases can be made immediately and tracking systems can show which pages or items were viewed, providing invaluable customer data for future campaigns.
Green marketing -- direct mail
While many direct marketing firms are instituting green standards in their companies, the direct mail business is under environmental pressure because of the huge amount of paper it consumes and the waste that paper generates.
Green marketing -- e-mail
While e-mail servers require electricity, no trees are destroyed, no pollutants are sent into the air, and no gasoline or other petroleum-based products are used to get a marketing message across with e-mail.
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All About Email Creative
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Let's see now.. a newsletter titled eMarketingandCommerce.com...what are the chances that they could be neutral about email vs direct mail.
The first reply nailed your butt to the wall Barry-old buddy. Your using marketing strategies that concentrate on CPM vs CPS.
I know there are many companies who would love to eliminate the cost and 'all that work' that real mail entails. I've got kids like that too - don't want to do the work, just want the result.
The fact remains that mail works. And when used in conjunction with email - works even better.
Your article on e-mail marketing misses this critical point completely! Consumers need, AND react to, information in different media formats, in different ways. The key to getting a response that leads to a sale and, hopefully, a profitable long term customer relationship, is how compelling and relevant a message it, and what kind of value the offer and the product or service delivers. Looking at media channels in separate "silos" and evaluating one as better or worse in terms of costs and "alleged" environmental issues is the reason consumers are bombarded with un-wanted Spam and e-mail marketing. Short-sighted attempts to track web search and buying behavior, result in consumer indifference, or worse yet, anger.
The time, effort and resources you describe as "drawbacks" to direct mail are really due diligence that all responsible marketers should put into effective database marketing that tracks costs, offers, responses, Return on Investment and Lifetime value (i.e.; both short and long term profitability). All media channels (customer touch-points) should be evaluated to find the optimum frequency, sequencing and value they deliver in terms of customer response AND buying behavior. Picking the so-called "right" media channel does not off-set basic bad marketing.
Finally, the use of re-cycled paper and the positive benefits of our huge, renewable, paper-pulp forests, which is a private sector, profit incented "green" use of otherwise non-agrarian land, means that your environmental concerns are off base. Forests are harvestable and renewable and they off-set global warming; Massive computer systems use huge amounts of non-renewable power and are manufactured from more fossil-fuel plastic and heavy-mining toxic metals than is tracked by any eco-activist group. What we need for this issue is a fair assessment of true carbon footprint.
Sorry to also say that the ideas in your article are rather simplistic and elementary and date back to the mid and late 1990's when everyone was over impressed with a "gee-wiz" "new" electronic age of e-mail marketing. Now that this Century's results can be measured in terms of costs, results and consumer behavior, the more balanced statement being made by open-minded e-mail advocates is NOT the issue of e-Mail vs. Direct Mail, but the issue of when and how to use BOTH in the right combination with all of a company's other marketing efforts.
Yes, e-mail is an effective channel, especially when integrated with all other channels of communication. When making a comparison, do not leave out one of the most important variables; direct mail produces 10 times the conversions of e-mail when tested head to head.
E-mail should not be considered as a replacement to direct mail, but can be very effective when used as part of the overall marketing mix.
While it is clear that email campaigns are an important part of a direct marketer's tool chest, it is also very clear that it is not an effective replacement for direct mail and catalogs. Extensive, well documented testing in many businesses shows that each medium has its place, strengths and weaknesses. I doubt that any merchant running well executed direct mail campaigns, particularly those with catalogs, is ready to rely most heavily on email.
Let me add a couple of points:
-From an "efficiency" perspective, the email medium is cheap to implement, and this is the cause of its INEFFICIENCY in response - there is far too much email with lack of substance and relevance, desensitizing consumers and causing even well-targeted messages to miss their mark.
-Developing efficiency with direct mail takes experience, planning and is not in expensive. But, the result is well worth the effort as both a retention and an acquisition medium.
-Understanding the effectiveness of demand generation vehicles when there is a mix of media (email, direct mail, paid and natural search,...) is challenging. It is easy to overstate the impact of email if email frequency is high and demand allocation rules are not in place. Again, with some experience and care, the picture can be unraveled, giving a marketer a solid foundation for developing the most effective marketing mix.
I don't think print is transitioning to online at all. The previous commnetators make very good points.
There is something very personal about having a well crafted personalised letter in your hands, to physically read. That's why companies - and top direct marketers - still spend millions on direct mail campaigns. If they didn't work I'm sure they'd have ditched them.
Your premise reminds me a little of when e-readers appeared - some people predicted (and are still predicting)the demise of books. Books are still very much around. I have an ereader, but I rarely use it.I buy books.
As has been mentioned, it's the building of a relationship and focus on the customer/prospect through several touches with them that makes a campaign successful not the mail alone.
Email can and does live alongside direct mail and many like to have a mix. I know I do. Email has both pros and cons... like anything. It can be impersonal and of course it's very easy to hit delete without even reading. Add to that the sheer volume of spam, irrelevant email we get, a personalised direct response letter stands head and shoulders above e-mail. That means it's worth every penny.
In terms of returns it's completely possible to track response of a direct mail these days... and surely it has to be thought of in terms of ROI, cost benefit rather than simply cost?
At the end of the day and at the risk of repetition, I don't think it's an either or, but an appropriately used mix based on knowledge of your audience.
Nicky
http://nickyjameson.com
http://copywritingstudio.com
I don't think there has to be either/or -- not one type of media is better than the other. Each has its use. Direct mail will never fall away... email is more popular because of the cost savings, but I think it is very over-used. Especially magazine newsletters.
This article wasn't well written... I can do a direct mail campaign and get better responses than an email campaign, however I use both. Like the first commenter said, it is about integration.
Have to agree with the first commenter about offline and online people. Most of us are both, and more.
You haven't discussed results -- and direct mail usually has a broader reach and generates higher response. Those are two important considerations for most marketers.
And in terms of green-ness . . . we seem to think that electrons are "free." Remember there's a physical side to the ephemeral-looking Internet. All those servers aren't carbon neutral. If you've ever upgraded your monitor, you know that getting rid of the old one is a nasty business. It's incorrect to say, as you do, that electricity doesn't send pollutants into the air. I'm pretty sure that a lot of electricity in this country is still generated by coal.
On the other hand, you don't mention that paper is a renewable resource. Recycling paper is easier than recycling computers. And while trees are growing, they're helping out our environment.
I'm not saying that we should stick to direct mail and eliminate email. I'm saying that you've taken a surface approach to this and it's much less obvious than you've made it sound.
Your article seems to miss the whole point of integration, and the first hint is when you imply that a company has both "offline and online" customers. Who is offline? I haven't met them yet. But online people are still people who like to hold messages in their hands, turn pages of catalogs, get personal thank-you cards, receive colorful gift coupons with their name on them, and pass items along to family and friends and take their own sweet time to read in-depth messages. Obviously anyone who doesn't use email is crazy, but it seems to me that any business who doesn't know how and when to drop a campaign-coordinated and fully-integrated direct mail piece is missing the forest for the trees.
The statement that a mailed piece takes weeks to develop is simply false. It takes only hours now. Here's one company that does it well.
http://www.quantumdigital.com/direct-mail
The synergy factor alone is enough that both are viable channels that are better together than on their own.
The article was well written. The fact that e-mail marketing will rule the world probably isn't the case. E-mails are a great way to market, however you will not replace direct mail. People in our society ages 35 and up are use to paper. I know we are becoming more environmentally conscious but the facts still remain and habits are hard to break. If there is a sale with a map on it or coupon or a business letter of interest with contact info, it get's printed off anyway. Direct mail will always be around and will always be effective. If you don't think so, go check the mailbox today! A combine marketing effort of both forms of communication is the way to go.
Respectfully yours,
Steve Amella