Death of Direct Mail

In this post-digital age, the former darling of the direct marketing ball, mail, now sits forlorn with a blank dance card, writes creative consultant Simon S Kershaw, a former creative director at Craik Jones, in Brand Republic 27th May.

But all is not lost. As the throng pursues more fashionable prospects - podcasts, tweets, fanpages - mail may yet find its own happy ending.

I wouldn't be the first to see direct mail is best as the high-end and highly-targeted medium, par excellence - a million miles away from the bad old days of credit card carpet bombing and fundraising by formula. In fact, at its smartest, direct mail is not the victim of the newer media, but their partner or sometimes their procurer.

A recent multimedia campaign for Waitrose confirms the theory. ‘A shared love of food is the egg-yolk that binds it all together’. Not the first supermarket to go the celeb chef route, at least the advertising has a twist, employing uber-perfectionist chef Heston Blumenthal in tandem with the schoolmarm's schoolmarm of cooking, Delia Smith. Pairing these contrasting characters on telly makes for a good old-fashioned product demo - how to make rhubarb and ginger brulee, for example.

But imagine that you're a MyWaitrose member or food journo and you get this lovely package in the post - not just the recipe, but ingredients and serving dish! You wouldn't need much encouragement to get blogging and posting once your pud had settled a bit. Like footy-fans and fashionistas, foodies can bore for England on their chosen topic.

Here at BP and Au we have the facilities to carry out your mailing and e-mailing campaigns.

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Current comments (2)

Comments

Comment left by Travel Dialogue on 9th June 2010

Maybe you’re right – but only partly. You have missed the distinction between proactive marketing and information seeking.

People are increasingly seeking information online and i-pads will add to its portability, affecting books and newspapers.

Direct mail and e-mail allow marketers to present their propositions to consumers – and both work if the proposition is relevant, ie: targeted. Mail order companies know that catalogues prompt new sales from known customers even though many purchases are transacted online.

There is growing evidence that mass (cheap) e-mailing – where it isn’t spam filtered out – is being increasingly seen as intrusive and irritating by consumers and is therefore just prompting a quick click of the delete button. Direct mail volumes are certainly decreasing as e-mailings have increased, although the decline is slowing as some marketers are partially returning to the ‘mail marketing’ medium and a less cluttered ‘letterbox’ space.

Horses for courses I think.

Comment left by Ekim on 4th June 2010

Disagree.

Direct mail is a dying medium just like printed journalism. (source - The New York Times admitted it themselves)

The old argument of someone wanting to have something tactile is void now that digital platforms like the tablet PC, iPad etc have been launched.

Paper is going the way of chalk and slate which spells the inevitable end of newspaper print houses, magazine and direct mailing.

Why have tons of paper books laying about when you can have thousands on a handy, slim and portable ipad/tablet pc?