Online Taking over Direct Mail

Jul 14

Traditional media still rule in most companies’ budgets. But the day is coming when that may no longer be true.

For example, Jeff Brooks makes the point in his fundraising blog “Direct mail: news of its death may be premature” that direct mail is changing, but that it is far from dead. He says:

“Online is coming up behind it. Fast. Nearly every nonprofit fundraiser is now raising meaningful amounts of money online. Even if they aren't trying very hard.

So you need to be thinking ahead. As a response medium, direct mail is losing ground to online. That change is likely to accelerate in the coming years. If you aren't getting good at raising money online now, you may find yourself suddenly in a world of hurt in the not-too-distant future.”

I believe that most of us in the direct marketing field concede that online is here, it’s growing fast, and we need to inculcate our deep knowledge of what makes people respond into this emerging medium.

The rise and fall of various media normally causes no alarm to direct marketers. Direct marketing strategists are media agnostic. We routinely test in and out of media.

But here’s the rub. Do you think companies really care that you know how to make traditional media work? I contend that most companies do not see the intimate relationship between the direct marketing strategy and their desire to leverage the online medium.

Highly experienced direct marketing strategists, however, believe that online was made to order for direct marketers. Online represents the ultimate opportunity for CRM and one-to-one marketing. It embodies the ideal interactive medium direct marketers have dreamed about for years.

So what’s the problem? Here’s part of what I wrote to Jeff Brooks in response to his blog (with a few edits).

The productive copywriters in direct marketing and fundraising cut their teeth on direct mail and other traditional media.

Does their hard earned knowledge in traditional media make them obsolete now that online has become the media with tremendous expansion opportunity? Are these proven and experienced direct response copywriters really in the best position to help nonprofits or companies as a whole maximize the power of online marketing?

I think most organizations would say that they would prefer to hire someone with 3-5 years of pure online marketing experience rather than the proven direct response copywriter with 15+ years of experience who has little hands on experience with online marketing.

That seems to represent hiring managers’ typical mindset not only for copywriters, but at one degree or another, they also apply this philosophy to all direct marketing functional areas.

Your take on this?

Ted Grigg

What Ted does best is increase response by beating controls, applying multiple channels to target markets, profiling customer databases and generally improving sales results using deep direct marketing principles. Regard Ted as your personal “think-tank” for your direct marketing planning and strategy development. After analyzing several hundred million dollars of direct response testing in all channels, he brings with him the knowledge accumulated from seeing what tends to work and what does not. Having worked on both the agency and client side of direct marketing, Ted understands the unique challenges faced by agencies and their clients. Agencies need to sell themselves and deliver sales results. And clients not only require results, but need ideas they can implement while focusing on tracking response using a relational database. If Ted brings nothing else to the table, by profiling customer databases and creating response propensity models, he quickly becomes the clients’ expert on their own customers. His formal training includes a BA from Abilene Christian University and two years of graduate work at Texas Tech University. For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, Ted developed a revolutionary direct mail format that beat most standing direct mail controls for this company. He also generated more profitable business for this firm by expanding compiled list circulation of less than 10% to more than 30% of total direct mail circulation within a year. (Insurance business generated by direct mail demonstrated higher persistency than customers coming from other media such as print and DRTV.) Ted’s plan and implementation of Medicare lead generation campaigns for over 60 regional and national HMO/PPO organizations combined multiple channels that surpassed some sales projections by as much as 60%. Additional industry experience over the last 30 years includes B2B or B2C for finance, securities, home security, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, government, technology, nonprofit, retail, transportation, communications, and multiple categories in the services industry. As the founder of Wyse Direct (a division for Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, OH), he successfully launched and branded a new technology product for Seiko-Mead by supporting a nationwide sales team with a predictable flow of qualified sales leads. While a VP of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, Ted acted as the direct marketing strategist who refocused the agency’s culture to attract new commercial and fundraising accounts. At the time, Grizzard was essentially a direct mail fund raising production operation. His leadership and team building effectiveness prepared Grizzard for the eventual Omnicom acquisition and Grizzard’s successful integration into Omnicom’s large group of advertising agencies. An independent DM consultant, Ted continues to write numerous articles and conduct webinars on direct marketing techniques. He also wrote The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan — A Step-by-Step Guide publishing it through Executive Enterprises in New York City. During his youth, Ted was raised in Lille, France with his missionary family attending French schools becoming fluent in reading and writing French. Away from the job, Ted is a computer geek, blogger and science fiction buff!

http://www.dmcgresults.com

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