It’s official. Come August, letter mail will only be delivered Monday through Friday. After all the to and fro, the handwringing, the high blood pressure, and speculation it’s happening. And someone is going to be on the losing end.
The only question is...will that someone be you?
We’ve all seen the signs for years. Three pieces one day. Five the next. Mondays, now that’s another story...10 pieces in my mailbox this week. While our e-mail inboxes are bursting from perpetual overload (I’m lucky if I keep mine under 100), our physical mailboxes become emptier and emptier.
When one door closes...
A recent survey conducted by Aquent and the American Marketing Association (AMA) found that 32 percent of marketers plan to decrease their organizations’ focus on newspapers this year (no surprise there); and 28 percent plan to decrease focus on consumer magazines.
Yep, this definitely sounds like doom and gloom. But here’s the opening door and your chance to be on the winning end after all: Nearly 91 percent of the respondents have no intention of cutting their direct marketing spending. Interesting!
And I can see a few good reasons for this:
- In a digital world, print carries more weight—When someone takes the effort to create, print and mail the piece, it’s perceived as more trustworthy.
- Everyone’s mailbox is getting emptier—Well designed and crafted direct mail campaigns have a much higher chance of being noticed.
- People like the tactile experience—In a world of digital intangibles, they like to pick up something physical, hold it, feel it, and look at it.
- Personalization—If done right, it makes direct mail more relevant (just what your target audience wants).
Another door opens...
Think of the many creative ways in which you can entice your clients to incorporate this opening-door opportunity into their marketing mix.
Show them inspiring (none of those boring pieces please) examples of what print can do. From sumo-sized postcards to uniquely folded self-mailers, from scented varnish to textured papers, from meaningful personalization to quantifiable results, from QR codes to augmented reality, this is your wheelhouse. No one knows what print can do better than you. This is the open door...run right through it!
“When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
- Alexander Graham Bell