Why 56% of people find printed marketing the most trustworthy of all the marketing channels

There’s no question email was one of the most important inventions of the 21st Century, but many would agree it’s one of the worst. Sitting in front of your computer bombarded with messages for hours—a never-ending stream. At least before it existed someone would have to write a letter first and then put it in the post! These days these views aren’t isolated and many of your customers think the same way. In fact people admit to responding to only 0.12% of email messages. Now that’s a scary statistic for any marketeer.

It’s easy to write off direct mail when you’re bombarded by emails distracting your attention in different ways without your realising. But a piece of direct mail is different: It gets the reader’s attention because they’re holding it. And you can’t ignore something that’s already in your hand. 56% of people find printed marketing the most trustworthy of all the channels; that’s powerful insight right there.

In comparison to email direct mail has a greater likelihood to convert. How much? 4.6% of all mail sent converts to a response, which eclipses the paltry 0.12% of email. To imagine it in plain terms, for a mail campaign sent to 100K recipients, 4,600 of them will make a purchase. Email doesn’t even scrape in with 120 respondents. They both took the same amount of time to plan, draft and execute; which has the greatest return on your time and labour force?

But it doesn’t stop there. Direct mail generates 10% more customers than email (34% direct mail compared to 24% email) and 17.7 million people ordered within 12 months of receiving a direct-mail catalogue. Why? Direct mail conveys sentiment and emotion—it makes people react. This isn’t to say that email is entirely bad. Email serves its purpose and works quite well with direct mail for totally integrated campaigns, and it can even be a means of securing the sale with your customers, but it shouldn’t be the sole method to contact them.

As marketeers our job is to create an emotional response in our target audience. Choose the way to cause a real reaction. Email might make for a great support act, but the real star is direct mail.

www.firstmove.co.uk