Vintage can be great …. the rise in old school Direct Marketing

As someone who worked in Direct Marketing during the boom years of the 90’s and a self-confessed data segmentation nerd, I have been watching the rising trend for businesses and charities to revert to quality, targeted direct mail with delight. It is one of the reasons I celebrate GDPR coming into effect, it has made us all accountable and transparent about who we want to hear from and, more critically, who can communicate with us. Truth is, we like getting mail…. if it’s personal, well put together and has a message that speaks to our values or ideals. Hit a doormat on the right day and some campaigns are seeing response rates around 5% (e-mail campaigns average around 0.5% – 0.8%).

Thinking about the most effective channel to your target audience is critical and with predictions from www.emarketer.com estimating that by the end of 2019, 30% of all Internet users will use ad blockers, all of a sudden old school channels don’t seem such a bad idea.

The trick is in the conversion …. how to take that 5% response rate and turn it into income… but that is another story where product, price, promotion and place all play their part …