Is Direct Mail a “Knight in Shining Armor”?

Posted in: AERIOS by admin on 09/13/2011

With all of the hype lately around the U.S. Postal Service losing money and cutting back, here’s an interesting observation from EJ Schultz at Ad Age. In a nutshell, direct mail is on the rise and viewed as a highly-dependable medium. It’s also what many believe will be the financial savior of the USPS. http://adage.com/article/news/junk-mail-hope-saving-usps/229727/

My favorite excerpt: “You can’t make me open your email…But if you send me a mail piece, you can compel me…”

Interestingly, the USPS was the one huge federal agency that actually MADE money — or at least broke even — for decades up until a few years ago.

At Aerios we consider ourselves to be “channel agnostic.” While some of our team’s roots go way back in the offline world, we provide plenty of online tactics to help clients achieve their marketing goals. Yet having said this, we are seeing direct mail response rates now that are higher than they were pre-Recession. We believe it’s due to fewer companies mailing and less clutter. (Not to mention our advanced data targeting or cross-channel engagement techniques.)

Another interesting opinion from A. Lee Fritschler, former chair of the Postal Rate Commission:

“…from the earliest days, the Postal Service was a means of communication. …It’s now become, thanks to the Internet and telephone, a broadcast medium. It is doing the same kind of thing that newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV stations do, that is — it carries advertising. … It’s broadcasting, not communicating… and its broadcast function is in competition with other media.”

More on this in future posts…