Why Targeted Direct Mail isn’t Junk

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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If you work in direct marketing you might be keeping a low profile at the moment. Following the Royal Mail’s decision to abolish the limit on unaddressed mail, people are angry about the prospect of torrents of junk mail flooding through their letterbox.

Judging by the outcry, it appears that unaddressed mail is about as popular as traffic wardens and the Ebola virus. People see it as an unwanted and intrusive abuse of their attention, and that cutting down trees to print pizza flyers and insurance leaflets is an environmental crime. In many people’s eyes, all direct marketing falls in the same pigeon hole as printed spam.

But there’s a big distinction between unaddressed mail and the targeted campaigns sent by modern direct marketers. Unaddressed mail’s aim is simply to spread its advertising message as widely as possible. Direct mail, on the other hand, is far more advanced and precisely targeted.

Targeted direct mail is more relevant


Direct marketing has evolved a lot since the days of delivering the same message to as many people as possible. Now the game is about personalisation, segmentation and relevance.

If you own a sportswear company, for example, it’s now possible to send customers brochures that are customised to match their buying history and interests. Personalising direct marketing, in this way, means it’s more relevant and offers a higher conversion rate than simply sending the exact same brochure to every customer.

The fact that you’re only sending people messages they’re interested in also means you’re vastly reducing waste, in both expense and paper.

Targeted direct marketing offers the introduction to digital


There’s a simple reason why businesses of all types continue to use direct mail: it works. Despite all the fuss over Facebook and Twitter, surveys show that people prefer to receive marketing messages in print. This means direct mail can act as the ignition for integrated campaigns by introducing your offer and directing people to your website.

Integrated print campaigns are particularly effective when you take advantage of personalised URL (PURL) technology. This enables you to include a website address in your direct mail featuring the customer’s name e.g. http://www.thinkbda.com/davidknowles" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

People love to see their own name in print, and will be curious to see what’s on their personally addressed website. Once they’ve landed, you can then capture valuable nuggets of data on page views, record entries and mouse clicks, which are all fed into your database. This data can then be used to make future campaigns even more targeted and relevant to your customers

So, if you work in direct marketing and become embroiled in the junk mail debate – stand your ground. Targeted direct marketing is more relevant, personalised and effective than its unaddressed cousin, and doesn’t deserve to be placed in the same coop, let along the same pigeon hole, as ’junk mail’.

[DirtyHarry]

Targeted Direct Mail is JUNK, end of.
Make the mistake of ordering a one-off pizza from Dominoe's Pizza, expect a lifetime of "Dear pizza lover" shyte.