Let’s Bring Direct Marketing Back!

So here’s the question: has the old-fashioned direct marketing technique, sending brochures, catalogs and postcards to customers’ physical mailboxes, gone the way of the dinosaurs? That’s what a lot of us hear. The internet is here to stay and old-fashioned mailings … well, what’s that?

A lot of people feel that way. But I’m not so sure.

I have to ask the question: is it possible that right now is the best time to engage in direct mail? Is it time to bring direct mail back?

Think about it. What’s in your mailbox these days? Not very much, if it’s anything like mine. Not only has much marketing gone online, but so have bills, newsletters, donation requests … all the things that used to clutter up our physical mailboxes.

Yesterday when I looked in mine I found one lonely bill. And I have to say that if a flyer had been there, I would have looked at it!

One of our clients told us recently that response to their January direct mailing is the best that it has been in years, and that’s in the middle of a recession. Think about that: they got that response because no one else was there.

So maybe it’s time to come back into direct mailing while the competition is elsewhere. It’s not a complete marketing plan, but it’s an important component of one.