Comparisons - direct mail
Direct mail is the grandfather of direct marketing, and it still has a major part to play - not least because it is so much cheaper than telephone marketing, and has a much higher success rate than any other form of marketing.
If we compare direct mail with email marketing where the same product is being advertised and the same sort of list used, we find interesting comparisons. In our research we used a product selling at £25 advertised to a list of people who were not recorded as previous buyers - in other words it was a straight forward cold list.
We obtained a sale rate with the direct mail of 4% and a sale rate with the email of 0.5% - that is the direct mail was eight times more responsive.
If we compare prices and income on a mailing of 5000 we see these results
Direct mail cost £2000 and generated an income of 200 sales x £25 = £5000 a gross profit of £3000 or a return on investment of 150%.
Email cost just £250 and generated an income of 25 sales x £25 = £600, a profit of £350 or a return on investment of 128%.
Thus email is profitable but it has a lower return on investment and a lower benefit to the company overall. Most of us would prefer to get £3000 gross profit rather than £350 each time we advertise.
However there is one more bonus here - that is that there is some evidence that each of these four media has its own readership. In other words it is usually quite possible to sell a product via email, and then it again to the same people via direct mail. The people who will read your email are not the same people who will read your direct mail.
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