Benefits of Direct Marketing over Email Marketing
Over the years we marketers are in search of which kind of Marketing is more effective than other. While the search is on let me reflect on Direct Marketing over Email Marketing. Direct Marketing is one of the oldest Meadia vehicles used over ages to communicate with the prospects and customers. Though the initial cost of Direct Marketing is high comparing to Email Marketing, the ROI (Return on Investment) is far better in case of Direct Marketing.
Direct Marketing is far more effective and cost lesser compare to Email Marketing especially when for finding new Business customers. Let me go through the features of both one by one.
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Delivery Rate: Thanks for the spammers, the Corporates, the ISPs and email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc, are beginning to block unsolicited emails. Majority of the email lists have a delivery below 50%. On the Other hand a direct mail list is typically 95% deliverable.
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Opening Rate: While sending an email using a purchased list remember, the people on that list may not know you and the result will be the email recipient may either delete or transfer to the SPAM box, without even looking at the email. On the other hand, direct mail is a tangible item that typically captures a glance. The receiver may not read every word, but your company name/brand will gain much more awareness with direct mail than email.
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Safety: With the growing threat of identity theft, viruses, and SPAM, people are becoming more and more hesitating in responding to on-line offers. On the other hand people trust old surface mail.
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Website Visit Rate: One may use a postcard or a simple letter informing about the product/service in few words and inviting them to visit your website.
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Response: When searching for “new” customers, study after study proves direct mail will generate more new customers than email. A recent study by the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) shows direct mail being 10 to 30 times more effective than email.
http://www.dmnews.com/dma-direct-mail-response-rates-beat-digital/article/245780/ -
Consumers Prefer Direct Mail Over Email:
An Epsilon study found that over 50% of consumers prefer direct mail over email. And 67% feel direct mail is more personal than the Internet. 70% preferred mail for receiving unsolicited information from unfamiliar companies. -
Trustworthiness: The Epsilon study also found that 25% of consumers found direct mail offers more trustworthy than email offers.
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Quality Prospects: Accurate – quality email addresses are very difficult to acquire – mainly because most people do not opt-in for third party offers. For this reason, all email lists are missing the majority of the target. Typically a direct mail list offers 80% more prospects.
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Shelf Life: The shelf-life of an email offer is measured in seconds, while an offer via regular mail can be on purchaser’s table for days.
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Stand Tall in Crowd: More than ever consumers are bombarded with digital offers that they can’t digest. Email is now the cluttered option, while direct mail represents the uncluttered option. With postal mail your offer will not get lost among crowd.
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Uniqueness: You may send letters in different shapes and colors unique to your brand to get attention of the purchaser.
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Selectivity: Most email lists do not offer the extensive array of selectivity factors available with a direct mail list. With a direct mail list you can target your exact segment so that you will get exemplary result.
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Verification: With an email campaign there is no way to verify the accuracy / quality of the email list since in most cases the email supplier will not provide the email contact data to the marketer. With a direct mail list the marketer has a physical address … that you can cross reference with other databases for verifying demographics / quality.
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Multi Lingual communication: In Direct Mail you can communicate with your prospects in different languages simultaneously where as in email it is difficult.
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The materials can be kept: You can insert a sample, a CD or something like that in Direct Mail whereas in email it is not possible.
To conclude, if you are targeting a new business then it is better to use Direct Mail because it is more effective than email. You may be agree that big internet business like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. are using direct mail. But both media vechiles have their own strengths and weaknesses. Direct mail is perceived as a more trusted, personal form of marketing, where as email is seen to be quick and informal.