20 March 2017 12:10
The Future of Direct Mail
Gavin Wheeler, CEO, WDMP joined 12 other Direct Marketing experts to reveal their predictions on the future of direct mail. Here’s what Gavin had to say:
In this day of multimedia, diminishing attention rates, ad blocking, unsubscribes and the sheer relentless volume of digital messages – effectiveness rates of these channels have plummeted with attribution becoming more and more difficult. There has been a huge increase in the rates of ‘bot’ responses, fraudulent responses and digital activity appearing in undesirable online media. It is therefore becoming harder and harder to truly cut through, hold consumers’ attention and measure the true success of your digital campaign.
Maybe this is why we believe that direct mail has a rosy future. We are seeing a resurgence in demand and in its effectiveness. We are working with a number of digital businesses, especially in the FinTech sector, teaching them how to effectively use direct mail with great results.
The fundamentals of direct mail have not changed though, be well targeted, with strong a offer, encapsulated in an engaging creative manner will still drive the best results.
The key benefit of direct mail remains in its ability to fine target and be truly measurable.
Fallow cells, match backs, as well as engagement rates, all allow you to measure true incremental benefit.
New technology is also helping. You can now deliver direct mail in a programmatic and trigger based manner, linking online behaviours to offline channels. Then adding digital engagement techniques such as Blippar as a response mechanism to get people back online, so closing the loop.
There is also a unique tangible nature of the medium, the ability to deliver a physical item and a brand message on a one to one basis and of course without ad blocking or being answered by a bot! Perhaps direct mail practitioners have been guilty of never measuring the additional brand benefit direct mail can deliver.
Click here to read the full article.
