4 Reasons Why Direct Mail Can Thrive in the Social Media Age

December 9, 2009 By Ethan Boldt

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He says the challenge for marketers is to develop a fuller appreciation for the uniqueness of those relationships and to avoid the temptation to have all of the channels be everything to everyone. For example, Merrigan urges marketers to get past the broadcast mentality. A separate example is staying with a consistent multichannel plan of using direct mail for acquisition, e-mail for retention and social media for CRM.

"Clearly, this is a time of experimentation. Marketing directors are busy probing the weaknesses and leveraging the strengths of each marketing platform," relates Ruth Sheldon, a freelance copywriter. She says these marketers hope to discover which communication platform performs best on its own, and which are more effective as team players.

The difficulty? "They want answers BEFORE things start to change once again," remarks Sheldon. "It's like solving an equation with moving parts or changing numbers. You can never quite nail it."

4. In Some Markets, Online Remains Small Potatoes
"My impression is that donors have NOT come to favor e-mail over [direct] mail. Nor do I think they are likely to do so in the years immediately ahead. Habits die hard," asserts Mal Warwick, founder/chairman of fundraising agency Mal Warwick Associates.

Even if response rates to direct mail (principally in acquisition) continue to decline, Warwick doesn't anticipate that response online will pick up the slack. He's seen no such signs, in fact, "despite the self-interested boosters of online fundraising and the wishful thinking of organizations that want to cut costs drastically by switching to e-mail."

In some way, it's very simple. "I think social media will work for some companies but not for others. I think right now you have a big rush of people that are trying it because it is free and the hot new craze," states Keith Goodman, vice president of corporate solutions for Modern Postcard, a direct mail solutions company specializing in postcards. Like Harhut, he isn't sure if it'll fade but will soon find its place and settle in.

Johnson concurs, largely. "Social media is great, but still hard to measure. Mobile will still struggle in North America. And e-mail will become less and less effective over time due to misuse/abuse."

In other words, the workhorse called direct mail certainly is not being put out to pasture.

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