Why Mail Is Still The Best Way To Communicate With Customers And Prospects

By Author: Keith Bax
Total Articles: 3764
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Direct mail is a proven, cost-effective way to get your messages and offers into the hands of potential customers. Mail should never be disregarded in favor of email, or any other direct marketing methods; it stands well on its own, and can be a powerful complement to other communications media.

In fact, it seems like every day our clients ask us, "Why should mail be a part of our marketing communications strategy?" Our answers may surprise you.

Clients often tell us "I get a ton of mail at home. Every day, I sort my mail over the trash can or recycling bin, and frankly, I throw most of it away. If I want to reach people with mail, I have to think that I'm going to be wasting money. Do people really pay attention to their mail? Doesn't everyone we want to communicate with have access to the Internet?"

Our clients are also concerned with the environment. "Mail uses paper, and paper comes from trees. Doesn't mail have a major negative impact on the environment?"

Then there is the privacy concern. "What about discarded mail? Aren't there bad people out there who want to go through my trash, and try to ...
... steal my identity?"

Finally, there are people who say "No one really wants unsolicited mail. Shouldn't recipients determine what they should receive in their own mailbox?"

These are all legitimate concerns. However, most of them are exaggerated, and do not have much basis in fact. Please continue reading, and we will explain why these rationales against using mail are simply not worth worrying about.

Not everyone is online. As difficult as it may be to believe that not everyone you want to reach is online, consider that many businesspeople are not sitting at their desks parked in front of their computers all day long. People in manufacturing, transportation, construction, health care, or field service are frequently not at their desks, and away from the office for much of their day.

Even some people who are on-line much of the time prefer mail. Studies have shown that C-level executives are more likely to respond to direct mail than any other communication medium.

Mail also permits people to see your messages and respond when it's most convenient for them. Even if your target audience is online during the workday, many folks prefer to read their mail during their down-time after work. After a long day at the office, they would rather not have to sit in front of their home computer to receive your offer.

People enjoy receiving mail. According to the Direct Marketing Association, both GenX and GenY people indicated that 75% of their mail was of immediate value to them, and 64% said that they had purchased something online after receiving an offer in the mail. Postcards, in particular, get read nearly 42% of the time, based on data from a 2007 USPS study. That same USPS study found that over 80% of recipients read their mail before deciding whether to keep or discard it, and that fewer than 10% of recipients said they objected to receiving any type of unsolicited mail.

People pay attention to their mail. Despite the fact that 78% of mail is opened over the trashcan or recycling bin, hardly anyone discards a bill, or other piece of mail that they perceive to be important, valuable, or interesting. A recent Pitney Bowes study found that 31% of recipients are unlikely to discard unopened mail. In fact, as more marketing communications go online, recipient mail boxes are becoming less cluttered, allowing each piece of mail an even greater opportunity for being read!

Most email today is SPAM. Less clutter in your mailbox probably means more clutter in your inbox. According to a MAAWG study in 2007, it is estimated that over 80% of the world's email is SPAM. As easy as it seems to parse your mail over a trashcan, how much easier is it to identify a large number of unsolicited emails, select them, and hit the "Delete" button without batting an eyelash?

Mailing data is cheap and plentiful. Purchased email lists have the potential to reach only about 40% of the total business-to-business audience, and even fewer business-to-consumer recipients. Plus, the average email address goes stale after 6 to 8 months, due to changes in ISP's, job changes, and residential moves.

Purchased mailing lists, on the other hand, tend to be cheap, plentiful, and up-to-date. These lists can be diced and sliced in any number of ways to meet just about any criteria based on demographics, industry, job function, or ZIP code location, to name just a few.

Trees are a renewable resource. No one will dispute the fact that paper manufacturing kills trees. However, because most consumer waste paper today is recycled, and because nearly all of today's paper manufacturing is based upon renewable and sustainable forestry practices, the wood and paper industry has actually created more forested land than it has used. Today, there are nearly 1 trillion cubic feet of trees grown specifically for wood and paper manufacture, almost 10% more cubic feet than in 1997. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more trees are lost to agriculture and land development than any other factors.

Very little post-consumer paper ends up in landfills. The EPA estimates that only about .04% of non-hazardous landfill volume results from post-consumer paper waste.

Mail is good for the economy. What many people don't realize is how much value mail contributes to the economy. A recent Congressional report noted that mail leads to the production and sale of nearly 1 trillion dollars in goods and services. Mail supports the creation and maintenance of approximately 9 million jobs in the public and private sectors of the economy, and represents about 9% of the U.S. GDP.

Mail is not a good source of personal information. A vast majority of U.S. mail is Standard Mail. By law, Standard Mail cannot contain personal information that can be related to a specific individual. According to the FBI, most identity theft occurs as a result of consumer credit card transactions. Most "dumpster diving" ID theft comes from un-shredded personal checks and other confidential financial documents.

Mail is paid for by the sender. Unlike other media where the recipient pays to receive the service, the cost of mail is borne by those who send it. In fact, the entire postal system is supported, if not underwritten, by the individuals and companies who send mail through the USPS. Restricting the amount or nature of mail allowed into the postal system would have a significant negative impact on the US economy.

Effectiveness of mail is easy to test. By integrating mail with the internet, marketers can quickly and efficiently test their ideas, and invest time, money, and other resources into only those campaigns and messages that yield the best results. By combining a personal URL (p-URL) and a modest incentive offer in their mailed communications, marketers can measure response rates of various offers or messages in real time. Eliminate risk from your direct mail processes by testing, and then up-scaling successful messages and offers.

Mail WORKS! Direct mail is a proven, cost-effective way to get your messages and offers into the hands of potential customers. Mail is most definitely NOT "old-school", and should be an integral part of any marketing communication strategy.