You Ask, I Answer: Is Direct Mail Dead?

In today's episode, Maria asks, I'm researching direct mail, and my boss says it's a waste of time. It's dead. Is direct mail dead? So this is an interesting question. Yes and no.

Direct mail, and by that we mean literal pieces of paper that are sent to people uh in the postal system, is used to be one of the most popular tactics for marketers back in the pre-internet days. But obviously, as people have moved online, uh electronic communications have become uh ubiquitous, right? You have these lovely uh devices that uh let us communicate and be online 24-7. Direct mail, and by that we mean that mailing of paper to people who did not ask for it is dead. And the reason it's dead is the cost, right?

It costs almost nothing to send an email, even for the most elaborate and expensive marketing automation software, right? It costs almost nothing to send an email. It costs sometimes pennies, uh, maybe as much as 25 cents US to send a piece of direct mail to consumers. And that's a lot of money, right? You send mail to four people, uh, that's a dollar.

That costs you a dollar. The reason why we're saying direct mail is sort of dead is because it's dead to people who didn't ask for it. If you're cold email, cold postal mailing people, that is an enormous, enormous waste of money. It is tens of thousands of dollars that is just literally being thrown away. Uh and more importantly, today, it's flat out pollution.

It's pollution, it's double pollution. Because A, you've got the mail pieces being thrown away into garbage dumps, maybe compost heaps if you're lucky. And B, you had to cut down a tree and make the paper that the direct mail is printed on. Doubly so it's even worse if the paper happens to be uh junk bell. Um coated in plastic to make it weather resistant or or sealed, then it takes even longer for it to break down.

And so there are substantial negative uh climate impacts to direct mail to people who didn't ask for it. I would rather you send a billion pieces of electronic spam uh than cut down even one tree to send marketing materials to people who didn't ask for it. Right? If you're gonna if you're going to to spam, please do it electronically. Public service message.

Here's the flip side. Direct mail to people who ask for it, people who want it from you is not dead. If you send out a a real paper newsletter, if you send out a magazine, if you send out a mailer to people who have specifically raised their hand said, I want you to send this to me via the postal mail, and maybe even they're willing to pay for it, then it's not dead, right? Magazines, people still do receive magazines in the mail. People still do read read and receive paper newspapers.

Not many, not as not nearly as many as they used to. People still do want to get things in the mail. There are entire subscription services where you get something in the mail, right? So if people ask for it, then it's not dead. The question is, how do you know that somebody wants it?

Well, the way to do that is to use electronic communications first and then ask people, hey, would you like to receive our marketing in printed form? If so, it will cost this much. Now, out of a 10,000-person mailing list, you know, five people may opt for that, but as long as those five people are the ones that are valuable potential customers, then it would make sense to do. It's like any form of marketing. Is does it make sense to do it?

Is it the right people? This is the fundamental rule of all outbound marketing. Nothing is dead to people who really want it. Certainly nothing is dead to people who are willing to pay for it. And the gold standard that we all strive for in marketing is have our marketing be so good people would actually pay for it.

And direct mail is an example of that. Is your marketing good enough that somebody would want to at least pay the costs of the direct mail to receive a newsletter from you that is worth them shelling out 25 cents? If you're at that point, you are an outstanding marketer. And I like my newsletter. So that's the short answer.

The longer answer to the question is it's worth a try for outreach as long as you are extremely segmented in your mail. If you have a a list of you know 10,000 people, who are the 10? The ten people on that list who are the most valuable. Send your direct mail to just those ten. Keep your costs super low.

But if you if you know for sure, like these ten people are gonna be lifetime customers. You know this from your data, you know this from your analytics. These ten people are the people that we have to get out of this list. That's a great case for l very limited outbound direct postal mail to people, especially if you can make the mailers super compelling. Which is not a postcard, right?

It has to be something that when people get it in the mail, they're like, wow this is actually really kind of cool. Like this is I'm kinda glad I actually opened this thing. So these are not going to be a postcard or a letter or something like that. It's going to be something unique. It's going to be something that they were not expecting that is valuable to them that is important to them.

I'm trying to think of some uh mailers that I've seen in the past done and usually have piles of stuff laying around. There are certain types of like really elaborate folding origami mailers that kind of spring open into like a little house or something. I've seen realtors use that which is very clever like a cardboard mailer which is kind of cute. Um back in the day we actually did uh got burner phones inexpensive phones that were had a the contact number of the the chief technology officer uh hard coded into the phone we would actually mail that to uh reporters and we only again we did 10 of them, right? Um, because it was very expensive to do.

Um, people have mailed out things like AirPods, right? You know, or or iPods back in the day with messages pre pre-burned into them. And so those are highly segmented, highly targeted, incredibly expensive pieces. But if the return justifies it, then you do it, right? That's that is the way to handle direct mail.

So is it dead? Anything to someone who doesn't want it is dead. Anything to somebody who does want it, not dead. Just do it well and be aware of the cost and the impacts of it. Great question.

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