Direct Mail or Email Marketing?

It's an emerging debate that looks set to become more widespread in the future - which direct marketing method is most effective: traditional direct mail campaigns, or new generation email marketing?

Direct mail is sent to businesses and consumers every day and is used by a very wide range of organisations and industries. A mailing in the post, often accompanied by a letter, has become a proven and accepted way of targeting your audience, with consistent conversion rates of about 1-5%. However in recent years direct mail has attracted criticism over the environmental impact it can have, and the annoyance caused by misdirected mailings.

Email marketing using opt in data is less widely used at the moment, but is growing more rapidly in popularity than almost any other direct marketing tool. A growing range of good quality opt in, and in some cases double opt in lists are becoming available, as are a wide range of email broadcast services. But this new marketing medium has already been tainted by abuse and association with the practice of spamming or junk mailing.

So what are the relative merits of each of these contrasting direct marketing methods?

The Benefits of Email Marketing

• Email marketing is direct marketing at its most impactful. Your message lands directly in the inbox of your recipient, your message can be personalised, and even targeted to individual recipients.
  
• Email marketing can be timed not just to the day, but to the hour and minute, in order to reach consumers just when they are likely to make a buying decision. Email marketing can also be tracked in detail, even to the amount of people who open and read your email, or who forward it to a friend.
  
• Because it is solely a digital medium, email marketing is more environmentally friendly, and has a far lower carbon footprint than other marketing methods.
  
• Email marketing can be very cost effective as it does not need costly mailing houses, production, postage and so on. However data costs can be higher that traditional list rental for direct mail, and email campaigns also require the use of a broadcasting partner.
  
• Email marketing is highly effective in growing online sales for e-commerce sites - in just a few clicks the recipient can act on impulse and buy from your site. It can also be used to drive traffic to b2b sites that aim to collect leads and enquiries.

• Direct mailshots are a tangible and physical representative of your brand, which can be held in the recipient's hands. A mailer with high production values can say much about your brand, just through its size, feel and texture.
  
• Direct mail is well established and proven as a marketing tool. Consumers and businesses are used to sending and receiving marketing messages in the post, and are receptive to the messages they convey.
  
• Direct mail can also be used to increase your online sales from your website - increasing numbers of mail order companies are finding that their offline catalogues sent in the post are becoming increasingly effective at driving consumers online to order, instead of by mail or phone.
  
• Quality direct mail data is generally more affordable and more widespread, and does not come with fixed broadcast costs and fewer issues over the opt in procedure. The direct mail industry is also far more mature with a wider range of lists and suppliers available.
  
• Direct mail does not have to fight its way through complex spam and junk mail filters used in many email programs.