Direct Mail: Your Extra Salesperson

Here is an easy way to add an extra salesperson to your marketing staff: develop an ongoing direct mail marketing campaign. While the goal of advertising is to create brand awareness and a connection with potential buyers, direct mail marketing aims to motivate a prospect to take action and complete a transaction. A carefully planned and executed direct mail campaign can do just that.

Today more companies are turning to direct mail. According to research conducted by IBISWorld and published in its October 20,2012 report Direct Mail Advertising in the U.S., direct mail is expected to grow 1.4% annually in the next five years. This is in contrast to the 1.2% contraction direct mail has averaged since 2008. Part of this is due to incentives provided by the United States Postal Service (USPS), such as direct mail that includes QR codes and Every Door Direct Mail.

In its 2011 Channel Preference Study, Epsilon Targeting found that direct mail is the top choice of consumers for receiving brand communications, even among 18-34 year old's. Other interesting findings include:

• 26% of U.S. consumers and 30% of Canadians said direct mail is more trustworthy than email;
• 50% of U.S. consumers and 48% of Canadians said they pay more attention to postal mail than email;
• 30% of U.S. consumers said they're receiving more mail that interests them compared to a year ago, and just 50% (down from 63% in 2010) said more information is sent to them in the mail--including marketers are improving targeting efforts;
• The perception that reading email is faster declined among U.S. email account holders to 45% in 2011 (from 47% in 2010), suggesting clogged in-boxes are draining time.