The Complete Direct Marketing Lens

Direct mail as a medium has had surprising resilliance over the years. Marketers rely on it consistently ... but if the context is wrong and the mail doesn't work, it could be that some marketers begin mistrusting the medium (instead of themselves).

FACT 1 - Direct mail has NEVER declined in the past 50 years. The Universal McCann Study confirms that by contrast, in the last half-century, radio has declined in just seven of those years. Daily newspapers experienced 8 years of decline or slow growth. Consumer magazines, 8 years. Business Magazines, 9 years. Broadcast TV (developed in the 1950's) came closest to Direct Mail at just 3 years. So Direct Mail has never even slowed down, let along count it among the disappearing. Instead, direct mail usage has increased each year over the last 50 years!

FACT 2 - During the economic downturn of 1990-91 when the GDP grew by just 1.3%, direct mail grew by 1.5%. All other media declined: Daily newspapers -14.6%, Consumer magazines -11.6%, TV -8.5%.

FACT 3 - Not even price increases in postage and paper have slowed the growth of direct mail. In years of postal increases, DM increased an average of 4.4% and with paper increases, DM grew 4.6%.

FACT 4 - Direct mail's share of total advertising expenditures in 1960 was 19.0%, in 1980 it was 17.5% and in 2000 it was 22.2%.

FACT 5 - The most recent decade compounded annual growth rate for direct mail when adjusted for inflation has been 1995-2000 at 6.4% and from 2001-2005 at 6.6%.

Contextual communications are by definition 1:1 communications. They play to the customer's ego, imply that he or she is important enough to warrant that extra touch on your part. In a word, they get favorable attention for your message much the same reason that you are likely to pay more attention to someone who calls you by your name than you would someone who essentially says, "Hey you!"

A fast summary of an excellent webinar by Harte-Hanks and Forrester Research. The gems I picked up included:

-- The proliferation of new media devices like iPods are changing consumer behavior in ways that marketers must learn how to capitalize on.

-- The average tenure for a Chief Marketing Officer these days is less than 24 months. This is not a cushy job and leadership carries its perils.

-- Database marketers point to a common set of pains, one of the main issues unresolved is the enterprise coordination of a customer contact strategy.

-- C-level folk do not seem to trust customer data and trust even less what the data says. That's a biggie for all of us in direct marketing.

-- With complex products that require extended sales cycles, you need a strategy that includes "dialogue marketing" to help educate prospects one step at a time.

-- It is harder than ever to find qualified marketers with the range of skill sets and the experience to effectively do direct marketing. Which is a fact that makes the people at Harte-Hanks smile a bit because they're loaded with these people and look forward to more companies outsourcing dm to them.