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Why Do You Think Direct Mail Marketing
Hasn't Lost
Ground Grabbing New Customers?
Advertising mail, also known as direct mail, junk mail, or admail,
is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail.
The delivery of advertising mail forms a
large and growing service for many postal services, and direct-mail marketing forms a significant portion of the direct marketing
industry.
Some organizations attempt to help people opt out of receiving advertising mail, in many cases motivated
by a concern over its negative environmental impact.
Advertising mail includes advertising circulars,
catalogs, CDs, “pre-approved” credit card applications, and other commercial merchandising materials delivered
to both homes and businesses.
It may be addressed to pre-selected individuals, or unaddressed and delivered on
a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis. Postal systems have enacted lower rates for buyers of bulk mail permits. In order
to qualify for these rates, marketers must format and sort the mail in specific ways – which reduces the handling required
by the postal service.
Income from advertising mail represents a significant and growing portion
of some postal services' budgets, and it is a service actively marketed by them.
Postal services employ the terms
advertising mail, admail, and direct mail, while avoiding and objecting to the pejorative term junk mail.
In the United States, "Standard mail: advertising" comprised 29% of all mail in 1980 and 43% in 2003. Direct
mail is a common form of direct marketing, and may be employed by for-profit businesses, charities and other non-profits,
political campaigns, and other organizations.
Advertisers often refine direct mail practices into targeted mailing,
in which mail is sent out following database analysis to select recipients considered most likely to respond positively.
For example a person who has demonstrated an interest in golf may receive direct mail for golf related products or
perhaps for goods and services that are appropriate for golfers.
This use of database analysis is a type of database
marketing. Alternatively, unaddressed direct mail may be sent on a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood basis.
Whether
at the individual or neighbourhood level, direct mail marketing allows recipients to be targeted, attempting to match the
demographic profile of the recipients to one most closely matching that of likely customers.
Individually targeted
direct mail may be tailored based on previous transactions and gathered data. For example, all male recipients of an offer
may receive a personalized package with a man’s picture on the cover, while all female recipients receive a picture
of a woman.
With the advent of the Internet
in political campaigns, direct mail became just one of many campaign management tools, but still played a significant role.
When targeted to other businesses rather than individuals, direct mail is known as a business to business mailing.
Traditionally, this worked in one of two ways: as a direct sale, therefore precluding the use of a salesperson or a retail
store, or as a method of generating leads for a salesforce.
The former method was ideally used by products that
were easy to sell, were familiar to the prospect and needed no demonstration.
The latter method was used for large-ticket
items or for those that needed demonstration for example. One method of direct mailing used in B2B is known
as "bill-me".
In this direct-mail marketing offer, the buyer is shipped the product prior to payment
and then is sent an invoice later.
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(586) 431-1300 To Discover More!
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