Is direct mail dead?

Absolutely correct. I believe that direct mail continues to be a valuable and quite viable method of advertising among other things.

We don't think so for our business. More and more people are saying to us they don't want to sit in front of their computer to consider how to plan there children's play area. It causes a problem as a lot of the outdoor play equipment suppliers have stopped printing their own brochures.

What we are seeing is a return of about 2-3 years to very nice brochures to use as a back up after the customer has done their normal days of searching through numerous web sites.

Gill

That's interesting, so competitors are moving away from traditional brochures, yet your customer base still wants them. Sounds like cost savings over customers needs, or poor market research. Either way, sounds like a good opportunity to be exploited

It certainly looks that way. A lot of the suppliers saw a way of saving money if the customer could find everything they wanted on their web sites. What they didn't take into consideration was that they could also find the same information on lots of other web sites. After they have read a few they cant remember who they started with.

Of course sending a brochure doesn't guarantee an order but we hope that given enough good will and support the customer will return to us.

We are also aware of a lot of companies clamping down on their web access now whereas people could spend a lot of time during their lunch hour searching the web, it maybe that they cannot do that type of in-depth research on their phones or tablets.

Gill

A lot of times, direct mail is a lot more effective in certain markets as compared to others - the amount of marketing inundation with this type of advertising has an effect.

From all the top companies that are successful they all still use direct mail.
J crew ,J Peterman company Crate & Barrel and let me not forget to mention Dan Kennedy ! We use it in our business to market Property Managers and other target markets.

salesmanship in print with the right message will find the golden needle in the hay stack and will give you there money.

Direct mail is alive and well...especially in the B2B space.

One strategy that i STILL employ is to email prospects, track opens, follow up with a phone call only with the ones that have viewed the email and then follow up with a FAX....

Most businesses STILL have fax machines and the laws about using them in the U.S. are fairly lax and its still ok to do as long as you have a relationship with the potential prospect.

Hope that was helpful.

Regards

Los