Laugh? I nearly launched another direct mail campaign!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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It’s official! We have transcended the sublime and attained the ridiculous.

A recent announcement from Royal Mail states, “Sustainable Mail has been designed to help you increase the use of environmentally-friendly materials in your mailings, while reducing the amount of mail in the waste stream.” It goes on to explain in its specification section, “Launching in April 2009, Sustainable Mail will help you demonstrate your commitment to recycling, sustainability and reduced waste, while saving you money.”

There is no such thing as “environmentally-friendly materials”; they may be less environmentally-unfriendly but creating ‘stuff’, any stuff, has a depleting effect on resources, from the harvested wood through the huge amount of water required to convert wood to paper to the coal, oil and gas burnt to power the process.

Whilst I’m not unsympathetic that you make this choice because you want to save money, please don’t kid yourself that you’re delaying the inevitable depletion of all carbon based energy sources by taking this step. Surely we can’t be that naïve?

We live in the 21st century, the age of multi-media, multi-platform marketing and advertising. Some statistics may help in illuminating an even more cost effective solution; in 2008 65% of UK households had access to the internet (source: the Office of National Statistics), 85% of UK households have digital TV (source: OfCom) and 96% of 15-24 year olds in the UK have a mobile phone (source: The British Council).

In addition to the statistics, let’s also consider the facts. In the first place, we all already use these other media as part of our sales and marketing activity. In the second place, we all hate those gaggles of junk mail that lands on the mat in the hall and we invariably file them in the circular filing cabinet (and hopefully the one dedicated to paper recycling!) – Readers Digest is a culprit that springs to mind. So why don’t we stop annoying our suspect base with a form of marketing that, to this day, still can’t promise a better return than a 2% hit rate. It has been well established that ‘sticky’, multimedia campaigns are far more effective and, in terms of environmental impact, much more friendly.

If you make any resolution in this financially challenging 2009, let it be to expand the scope of the smart FD’s mantra to “Eliminate, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” – now you’re really saving money. If you want, you can still pay the agencies exorbitant amounts of money to create ad copy, but just PDF it and e-mail it (and if you’re going to do that, why not have a creative person in your own organisation create it in PowerPoint in the first place!). Let the customer decide if he/she wants to burn carbon by printing it off; at least then you’ll truly be demonstrating “your commitment to recycling, sustainability and reduced waste, while saving you money.”

Well, gotta go; I just heard the thud of rainforests in the hallway.