The benefits of direct mail and why it’s still relevant

Some marketers argue that direct mail is dead, but I differ. It has its benefits, and it’s still relevant – here’s why.

With near constant, rapid advancements in technology captivating the imaginations of affiliate marketers, advertisers, and small business owners each year, some can’t help but wonder – is direct mail dead? Have the fundamental principles of marketing itself, which is some ways was built on mailings, been chewed up by tech Darwinism?

Absolutely not, and here’s why: while the rise of the Internet age has swept away the relevancy of entire industries, it’s left the advantages of classic marketing intact, at least for now.

First, there’s still a sizable margin in direct mail. It’s cheaper than ever to assemble a mailing campaign today, measure and quantify the results, and reap the boost in customer interest and loyalty for your brand. Easy desktop publishing software, like Microsoft Word, Publisher, and Power Point, allow you to create postcards, flyers, brochures, and mailers on the fly, with virtually no skill or time necessary.
And despite the death kiss email marketing was once destined to deliver to mailing marketers, plenty of recent surveys conclude that people still open mailers, while largely ignoring email solicitations.

Direct mailers are still effective. They reasons for its continued legacy as a premier marketing tool for advertisers and businesses are the same reasons for its popularity 25 years ago – it’s personalized, targeted, and tangible. Mailings are the only visual, tangible, and physical marketing asset, all rolled into one attractive package. Consumers are always more likely to remember something they can touch, feel, and physically keep on hand versus something virtual.
What’s more, with direct mail, we’re not throwing darts against a big white wall and hoping a few will hit the mark. That offers flexible and accurate targeting of your audience – by age, gender, geographic, demographic, state, city, neighborhood, and much more – leading to a higher probability of conversion.

Direct mail allows us to track our results immediately. Admitting, online advertisers and affiliate marketers will line up to poke holes in this argument, but hear me out. For as powerful as a well-managed Google Adwords campaign is when combined with Google Analytics, the effectiveness of mailing is just as easy to track, but without the bugs, errors, and false positives of computer algorithms.

Programs like Google Analytics are notorious for tracking all website hits, even if they’re not real hits, but rather the result of some third-party interference or glitch. Small business owners have never had these issues with direct mail. If a customer walks into your store with a coupon in hand you mailed out, they didn’t make a mistake…your mailer worked.

Quantifying the return on your campaign is as easy as tracking the sales or leads that come in from your mailings, and dividing that by the cost. That’s it, period. If you know you sold $300 worth of product from a mailing, and the mailing cost $100, you’ve made a 300% return on your investment.

Look, the bottom line is that direct mail is still effective, cost efficient, and a smart addition to your overall marketing campaign. It’s scalable in terms of reach, and you’re in control of the message you want your customer to visualize, read, and feel. So don’t be too quick to write it off. As long as the postal service is in business, you can be too.

Mark Molina is a home business owner who blogs about home based business opportunities, internet marketing and how to make money online. http://markmolina.com