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Mailing
The British office worker’s love/hate
relationship with paper is laid bare
in a recent survey by Danwood. Nine
out of 10 workers questioned by the
document solutions provider said
there would always be a reason to
print documents and 80% said they
needed paper to do their jobs. Yet,
almost as many (73%) said they were
trying to reduce their reliance on the
printed page.
Digitisation should help them do
this in relation to internal document
workflows and the sharing of
information. But what of other uses
of paper, such as direct marketing?
Switching to e-marketing might help
a business reduce its carbon footprint
and be good PR. But does it make sense
from a commercial perspective?
A new study by Royal Mail
MarketReach suggests not. Three quarters
of direct mail users questioned said that
direct mail delivers a good return on
investment. The same proportion believes
that consumers are more likely to retain a
printed mailshot than an email.
Even so, digital channels remain
more popular than direct mail.
According to
Smart Marketing for Small
Businesses
, the most popular channels
for SME marketing are email (82%),
social media (62%), online advertising
(50%) and direct mail (46%). Only 16%
of SMEs currently use search marketing,
with just 7% using telemarketing.
To help SMEs explore the possibilities
of direct mail, Royal Mail has launched
MailshotMaker, an online tool that
can be used to design mailshots for
distribution to mailing lists created
from Royal Mail data or the user’s own
customer lists. Prices, including printing
and postage, start at 49p plus VAT per
mailshot.
Enduring appeal
A separate Royal Mail MarketReach
report,
The Life Stages of Mail
, underlines
the enduring appeal and effectiveness of
hard copy marketing for all age group. Its
analysis shows that the average response
rate to addressed mail (i.e. buying or
ordering) in the last 12 months is 26.7%.
The report explores how people at
all seven stages of life read, share and
respond to direct mail, including:
n
Fledglings
– young adults living with
their parents;
n
Sharers
– adults living in shared
accommodation;
n
Couples
– adults living only with their
partners;
n
Young Families
– adults living with
child(ren) below the age of secondary
school;
n
Older Families
– adults living with at
least one child at secondary school or
further education;
n
Empty Nesters
– adults with no
children at home and at least one still
working; and
n
Older Retirees
– either one or two
adults living as partners and dependent
on income from pensions.
Its analysis shows no marked
variation in response rates between
different age groups. Indexing the
findings and taking the average response
across all age groups as 100, Royal Mail
MarketReach found that all groups were
within 20 index points of the average.
New research from Royal Mail highlights the enduring
appeal of direct mail, even among so called digital natives.
Age no obstacle
Three quarters
of direct mail
users questioned
said that direct
mail delivers a
good return on
investment.
Missed opportunities
Perhaps surprisingly, Fledglings, who tend
to be characterised as digital natives and
are assumed to have a clear preference
for electronic communications, are 18%
more likely than the general population
to welcome direct mail and 32% more
likely to find it memorable.
Almost a quarter (23%) of Fledglings
have bought or ordered something as a
result of receiving direct mail in the last
year, and 31% have kept a piece of direct
mail for future reference.
Nevertheless, Royal Mail points out
that young people receive less mail than
older groups as advertisers erroneously
assume they don’t want to receive it or
won’t respond to it. This suggests that
businesses are missing an opportunity to
market themselves to young people.
Choice matters
Another key finding of
The Life Stages
of Mail
report is the importance
of providing a choice of response
mechanism, as results show that people
in different life stages like to respond to
mail in different ways (see graphic).
Royal Mail suggests that the response
levels of specific age groups can be
improved by highlighting the channel
that they prefer. For example, Young
Families are much more likely to go
online to make an enquiry or request
more information as a result of receiving
mail than other life stage groups. Older
recipients are more likely to respond by
post or phone call.
The full
Life Stages of Mail
report,
including tips on how to market to
specific life stage groups, can be
downloaded from
.
Addressed mail generates response
By life stage, all groups cluster close to the average
26.7%
BOUGHT OR ORDERED FROM DIRECT
MAIL IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS*
23.3%
21.7%
26%
29.6%
26.9%
25.8%
31.7%
FLEDGLINGS
SHARERS
COUPLES
YOUNG FAMILIES
OLDER FAMILIES
EMPTY NESTERS
OLDER RETIREES
*Source: TouchPoints 6
Clearly, however, there are differences between the groups. For direct response
marketers, perhaps the most important is in the channel they used to respond.
6
Purchases from mail by life stage and channel
Overall, we can see that all life stage groups use multiple response channels, albeit
with certain biases.
Unsurprisingly, the older groups were more likely to say they responded by post
or phone, but not exclusively so – almost as many respond online via a PC.
But the people most likely to use digital channels to respo d were i the Young
Families group – not the younger ‘digital natives’.
There are two clear implications.
First, since response can come via a variety of ch nn ls, mailers need to ensure
that, regardless of channel or life stage target group, th y make the journey to
respond as seamless as possible. However, mail sent to specific groups can be
improved by highlighting the channel(s) they are more likely to use.
The second is that the real response rate – and ultimately value – of any mail
campaign, has to be measured across a width of channels, not just one or two.
In the following sections we describe some of the characteristics of each group and
offer some tips that may help guide better targeted and more effective executions.
Online via tablet/
smartphone
9%
10%
10%
10%
3%
3%
7%
7%
7%
6%
7%
6%
5%
5%
5%
10%
10%
11%
9%
9%
9%
8%
16%
5%
6%
14%
14%
14%
15%
23%
21%
23% 26%
30% 30%
Online via PC
Shop
Phone
Post
SMS
Older
Retirees
Empty
Nesters
Older
Families
Young
Families
Couples
Sharers
Fledglings
