In these times of strategic Internet marketing, many would think that a direct mailing campaign doesn’t stand a chance as opposed to e-mail marketing. This is actually far from the truth for quite a few reasons.
First of all, it is more expensive and time-consuming to make up an e-mail list than it is to create a direct mailing list.
Although it is true that it is free to send out e-mails it is also true that most of them will end up in the Spam and never be noticed in the first place.
With direct mailing, the product or service you choose to advertise will actually be seen if not read.
If you choose an attractive envelope or postcard type, most of your potential customers will give your direct mailing a second glance, while e-mails will be lost amongst the hundreds sent every day.
Secondly, an e-mail can never be personalized as much as direct mailing, as much as you try to render it attractive, it is not tangible and the effect is lost through the screen.
People can touch letters, catalogs, or postcards, they can take time to relax a little and read through them in their spare time.
Have you ever stopped to think of the time element? Just imagine you get back home from work and pick your mail up.
What is the next thing you would do? Take your shoes off, maybe prepare a coffee or tea, sit down and relax, and read through your mail.
Your state of mind at this moment of the day is passive, for you are no longer at work, you just want to read through the mail at your leisure you are more receptive than you would be at work or during any other moment of the day.
Therefore you are more likely to open some of the advertising mail you have there with your personal mail.
Now when you’re at the computer checking your e-mails, you’re bound to have many more e-mails to go through than direct mail.
Most of the time you just want to get to the ones you’re interested in. Your state of mind behind a computer is very different from the one you had as you sat in your favorite armchair.
So most of us just quickly scroll through our e-mails deleting all those with subject headings we don’t recognize and most of the time forgetting to go through the Spam.
So although e-mails may at first appear more effective due to the wider range of potential clients they embrace, there are actually many advantages direct mailing can boast as opposed to its more modern opponent.
