Direct Mail Impact Intensifying with Digital Age Information Overload

Written By Ted Grigg

Advertisers have always had to cut through the clutter to succeed. But with growing email volumes, PPC, mobile marketing, and now social media, getting attention in the morass has never been more challenging.

DMCG Results

Direct mail thrives in this environment because it has less competition, enjoys unprecedented targeting capabilities, and enjoys greater prestige due to its perceived higher cost of entry than many digital opportunities. (See Print Media Centr's 8 Reasons Mail Succeeds in a Digital Age for expansion on this subject)

It only seems logical to think that there must be a limit to the new social media outlets and consumers' ability to participate in the social media discourse with unlimited growth. Could facebook be feeling the first twinges of this contraction? The answer is that there is a limit.

For the direct marketing practitioner, it's always been about relevance, selling with benefit oriented content, credibility building, brand reinforcement and ROI. The Internet presents the direct marketer's dream of expanding CRM, building loyalty and selling to one prospect or customer one at a time by leveraging their likes and dislikes. But these contact points as a whole must deliver short and long term profits for both the advertiser and the provider.

In a recent email, Ken Cole, a search consultant, coach and publisher in the direct marketing space says this about social media and other fast growth digital strategies.

Bottom line: Use your social media strategies as one more tool in your kit, but not at the expense of abandoning a useful mailing strategy. Cheaper and faster doesn't necessarily mean more effective. 

This comment does not mean that either Ken Or I see direct mail as a solo channel. On the contrary, direct mail works best as a mix in any multichannel campaign. Always find a way to tie in Internet support (or other traditional media such as radio and DRTV) to a landing page with the ability to respond online and by inbound phone.

In fact, social media should be coordinated and staged with any paid advertising. All channels work together to engage prospects and custmers as well as to enhance the brand.

Have you, dear reader, seen advertising programs and channel selection take on the flavor of a popularity contest as opposed to an iterative process that "tests into" successful advertising programs? 

Your thoughts?

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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