Have you ever had an experience where you start to explore a concept and all of a sudden everyone seems to be talking about it? While we put together this issue the world suddenly turned into a whirlwind of information about direct mail. It is exceptionally strange to be reading about targeted marketing when you are being, well, targeted!
Direct mail is certainly an important topic in our industry. It is a printed, tangible medium that is able to overcome the dilemma of measurability. Add intelligent data collection and personalization and you have potential for some great results. This month’s lead story, written by Edith Sevigny-Martel, explores direct mail from a variety of perspectives including the agency, marketer and printer point of view. Particularly interesting for small business, is Canada Post’s Smartmail Marketing program. It is an example of how intelligent direct mail campaigning is becoming more accessible. On the whole however, the process of getting personalized direct mail out, and collecting information back, is still a bit of a black box.
The key to success from direct mail is accessing that black box. The return on investment on simple mailers is not as strong as its highly cost effective digital marketing counterpart. In a recent study released by Primir titled, Trends and Future of Direct Mail Through 2020, direct mail indicated high response rates (second best after telemarketing), however because of the cost of production and mailing, the cost per acquisition (CPA) of a campaign is not as impressive. The report also indicates that there are industries, such as retail, moving away from traditional mail. And then there is also the problem of mail being generational, with older consumers being more responsive—thus the future prognosis being less optimistic. We argue however, that direct mail campaigns with the appropriate data collection and targeting, could be a lucrative sweet spot for printers, and an effective tool for marketers. Our industry is taking this head on. Ryerson’s GCM program is dedicating its speaker series to the topic of big data. We will be sure to follow up with a report from the event in our next issue.
