Why mail (still) doesn’t fail

Marketing consultant – and FESPA Conference speaker – Ben Briggs speaks about the real-world value of direct mail.

Behind colloquialisms like ‘cash is king’ or ‘steel is real’ there is an underlying truth that you cannot argue with physical reality. For marketers, there’s an even more relevant phrase, particularly in our current disposal, digital age: ‘mail doesn’t fail’.

“When we look at digital advertising – of which, there are 10,000 messages a day, all competing for two seconds of attention per social ad – it’s a cluttered market. And when you combine that with the tangibility, the tactility of mail, it really does stand out,” Ben Briggs, Managing Director of media agency Join the Dots, explains.

The beauty of mail is that it doesn’t immediately enter your consciousness only to immediately leave it again. In a world of almost instantaneous digital gratification and short-termism, anything that is physical and which remains – even when you’ve switched off your device – has an added value. It does means, though, that when it comes to understanding the results of mail campaigns, they have to be viewed in a similarly long-term context.

“The typical tail of a mail campaign takes anywhere between 10 to 12 weeks to mature. But that’s across all print media, so that would include inserts in magazines and off-the-page ads, as well as other elements,” Ben says.

“There are loads of impressive data with direct mail, like its attention statistics. Each direct mail item gets 145 seconds of attention, with 60 seconds of attention per door drop item, and 2.9 interactions per mail piece. And 77% of all mail is read or looked at, which is at an all-time high.

“If you have a product that is a highly-considered purchase – insurance, bathrooms, furniture – those are things where you’re not going to view a digital ad and make an immediate decision. But a direct mail piece can hang around the house. That, combined with the trust it generates and its physical nature, is why it needs to be viewed as part of a wider mix of marketing approaches, and why you need to measure both the short-term effects and the long-term effects of a campaign.”

Part of the problem with bringing mail into the mix lies, ironically, with the marketing profession itself.

“I was lucky enough to be invited to The Drum Predicts event earlier this…