Direct mail or postal mailing is a marketing strategy that requires marketers to send printed advertisement materials to the potential customers via postal mailing services. This outbound marketing strategy is well known to marketers all across the world and has been practiced for decades. But, time has changed everything. Instead of believing the phony descriptions of advertisements, people now prefer to find the necessary products themselves. All this is possible thanks to the overwhelming influences of the internet. However, many are surprised to find that direct mail can be a huge waste of money. Read on to see how direct mail wastes your money with nearly zero turn around.
A new study conducted by the Direct Marketing Association suggests that different profit and non-profit organizations have spent some $153.3 billion in 2010 only after direct mailing or direct marketing. This amount soared upwards in 2011 as well. But, the question asked is whether this vast amount of money brings any positive outcome or not. Well, an average expenditure per lead via direct mail is $9 where you need only $2 to generate a lead via banner advertising, $1.18 via yellow page, $0.5 per email and as low as $0.29 per lead via search engine marketing. The decision is up to you whether you want to experience the thrill of marketing with less money or not.
Direct mail marketing is usually executed by giant businesses. If you are operate a small self-owned business, then direct marketing can be a suicidal decision for you because it is really harder to afford $9 to generate one single lead where no one guarantees leads to turn to be sales. So, direct mail marketing is nothing but a method of wasting money that biggest corporations may afford, but for a business person with small businesses, it can have devastating effects.
Why waste money
- Of all the direct postal mail sent, less than 3% respond positively or buy products as a result of it
- Many of the marketers and buyers consider direct marketing an old fashioned marketing strategy
- This marketing method requires an average $9 per lead generation
- This marketing strategy is considered a likely potential loss for small businesses
- Inbound marketing is much more effective when compared to outbound marketing strategies
Why Direct Mail Is Preferred At All
There are a number of reasons why people still prefer sending direct mail to postal addresses. Though the turnaround of direct marketing is significantly lower, most of the clients still think that companies that send mails to their postal addresses are more authentic than the ones that do not send. They measure it as a way to judge how large the company is. It basically works as a psychological factor that still motivates many people.
But, the question that the modern marketers raise is if there are certain other strategies for expanding business, especially those that are cheaper and with higher probability of results, then why send direct mails? This is an obviously logical question, but it does have an answer. Some say to send it just as an added strategy to see if results turn up, while others have been stuck in the habit of sending direct mail and won’t stop. However, most are finding quickly that direct mail is not only inconvenient or efficient, it’s also one of the most costly marketing strategies a business can carry out.This is the prime reason why most of the marketers are now giving up using direct mailing services. They call it the ancient marketing method with no positive results.
Yet, sending direct mail is more backdated than sending newsletters or email marketing, even though the only difference is that one is done physically and the other is virtually. Consider this though: with the same budget you can connect with a lot more people by email marketing instead of direct mail. If you practice inbound marketing strategies, you’d be able to have one of the best inbound marketing plans possible since inbound marketing is so much more convenient both from a time standpoint, a money standpoint, and most importantly, as these methods can be very accurately tuned to a specific audience.
However, direct mails are location specific and that’s usually what really matters to the marketers sending direct mail. If you are selling a geographically specific product and need to get customers from a specific area, then direct mail can be a good choice. But, do you know how search engines give you results? Google is so powerful that if you are searching for something from NY and CA at the same time, you are likely to get two different results. That means, search engine marketing can work as a geographically specific marketing strategy too. With this to consider, what does direct mail offer in comparison to the many other marketing extensions now available?
Finally, if you are still perplexed on whether to market through inbound marketing strategies or direct mailing, then consider the facts stated above. If you are principally operating your business for profit, then you would surely prefer to save the money by preferring inbound marketing.
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Bob is the owner of IMPACT and an inbound marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in online marketing and strategy development. Bob has always been on the cutting edge regarding all aspects of online marketing, and since founding IMPACT in 2009, Bob oversaw the company through an accelerated growth period. IMPACT has developed a reputation as one of the top small business marketing agencies in Connecticut. Read More.
Categories: Inbound Marketing Small Business
