Effective Marketing in 2011: Direct Mail vs. Email Marketing

Reaching the maximum number of customers in the shortest possible time is the basis of marketing. Direct mail marketing for your business is the age-old strategy of promoting your products and services by sending newsletters, print ads, catalogues, letters, and other business mailings to your target market. Over time, as technology developed and the Internet came to the fore, marketing strategies also took a complete turn. By allowing instant communication to a large number of people, email marketing was considered the new revolution in the world of marketing.

The traditional way of direct mail marketing for your business, including collecting customer addresses, preparing advertising brochures, applying postage and mailing, took a backseat. Instead, email marketing with its extremely low operating cost, instant gratification, and ability to connect with a large number of consumers at the same time emerged as a much more preferable alternative. So, leaving the traditional marketing style of physically posting newsletters, direct mail marketing for your business took the form of sending marketing communications through emails. Since information is sent from one corner of the world to another in a matter of seconds, the speed of the new system was its greatest advantage. Email marketing allowed entrepreneurs to reach consumers with personalized and dynamic messages. Advertisers could also connect with email subscribers who had opted in to receive email communications from them. But as with any overused system, email marketing failures have also arisen.

The biggest problem associated with email marketing is the potential for them to be seen as spam emails. Every day Internet users receive a large number of unsolicited emails posing as genuine business communication. The increasing number of spam emails has led to the development of stronger spam filters, spam laws, and users to be more cautious about the email they receive. Emails with a subject line resembling spam are now automatically sent to the spam folder or deleted without even being opened, ultimately costing the seller.

With the development of new applications like blogging, article writing, affiliate marketing, and social media, the dimensions of online marketing are undergoing additional changes. However, email marketing still holds an important position in the world of marketing. The latest trend is to combine the positive aspects of both traditional marketing and online marketing to create a form of blended marketing.

With this type of marketing strategy, email marketing can be combined with direct mail marketing to help your business achieve better results. Emails can be used to present an advertising campaign that would create awareness among customers about your product or service, which can then be followed up by direct mailings. Alternatively, a direct mail campaign can also be followed by emails containing purchase links that allow customers to go directly to the purchase page. Therefore, despite certain disadvantages, email marketing is still an effective form of marketing.

Leave a Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *