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Direct mail to go way of Dodo?

Posted in Direct Marketing, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs March 28th, 2008 by Branwell Johnson

DM Pack The debate about paper DM becoming a dinosaur in the face of email has been hotting up for a while now but when a DM guru like David Miller weighs in one has to pay attention.

Miller, one time chairman of Ogilvy Direct, says “Digital is driving the re-invention of direct marketing … we should all be immensely grateful that digital is accelerating the death of direct mail.”

Well, as he has just launched a digital DM agency, he would say that wouldn’t he? But equally there are vested interests who want to talk up traditional direct mail from creative departments to printers – and the Royal Mail.

The issue is whether a well designed and attractive piece of paper DM is still picked up and read by consumers. Mad.co.uk regularly features impressive DM packs in its DM Weekly bulletin and we are constantly impressed by the ingenuity and execution – but it’s no good if it all goes in the bin unread. Conversely, how email fatigued are you and how many badly designed email marketing messages are arriving in your inbox?

To me, it’s all down to the targeting . If I am made to feel special and part of an exclusive club with the DM communication I’m more likely to pay attention, whether its email or traditional. A lot of car brands do seem to rise to the challenge, as do airlines who value premium customers. To revisit that age old adage from Marshall McLuhan “the medium is the message” and clever marketer will choose the right approach to deliver the call to action. Won’t they?

To read other blogs by Branwell Johnson, editor of mad.co.uk, click here!

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Tags Direct Mail, David Miller, Ogilvy Direct, DM packs

Comments (2)

grimble’s comment is....

The death of printed DM would be particularly welcomed by those of us who live in France, where letterboxes groan under the weekly onslaught from the big supermarkets and retailers…

This week is typical:
60 page leaflet from LeClerc
64 page leaflet from Champion
36 pages from Super U
a disappointing 16 pages from Lidl
20 pages from EcoMarche
8 A3 pagesfrom Vive le Jardin
12 pages from Point Vert
16 pages from InterSport
8 pages from Cash Affaires
This (plus the usual fliers, 4 page leaflet from Opel cars etc etc) is what arrives here every single week. French consumers clearly enjoy leafing through spread after spread of bog-standard groceries - just be thankful that the Big 4 in the UK never caught onto this marketing channel!

Posted April 2nd, 2008 at 11:50 am

Ben Allan at TILT’s comment is....

I think that offline DM is now being realised for its power to drive traffic online and anyone predicting its demise may be speaking too soon.

And with retention from online acquisition sometimes reaching an all time low of 20% - it is finally coming to light that the true value of digital has been overestimated. It’s about time then, for growth in digital marketing to reach a plateau, as marketers find that offline media channels are heavily driving online acquisition.

Whilst marketers were throwing entire budgets away on digital activity, online tracking was improving day on day. And this is why marketers have started to question the validity of their online results and indeed whether the performance is down to offline driving consumers online.

Yes, the tracking process for online is still in the early stages of development – but it will play an important factor in measuring the effectiveness of online and offline working in tandem. This will result in brands trusting the channels they invest in to deliver healthy ROI, rather than risking their sales peaking and troughing depending were the current media trends are.

Savvy marketers now view online as a communication path in addition to the phone, face to face and post, rather than a one-stop-shop for advertising. Tracking and analysis can only improve – and throughout 2008 and into 2009 I reckon we will see a rebalance of media spend as offline channels are apportioned their true worth

Posted April 11th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

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