Email or Mail?

Seems like a simple question, right?  But there are a lot of different answers to this question.


Merits of Each

• The best thing about email is the low expense.  You can send 5,000 emails to your list for a little as $50 which is considerably lower than using mail.
• The best thing about mail is the response rate.  It routinely outperforms email in solo campaigns tested against each other. Another benefit with mail is the flexibility of design and package.  You can put hundreds of different kinds of packages in the mail system, from postcards to letters to 3-D mailings.

Complexity
Anyone can create an email and send it, as opposed to mail where you really need the experts to prepare it to get the lowest postage rate possible.  Email and mail have both proven to be quite complex in the know-how it takes to make them truly effective.


Flexibility
Emails are static. You can use the names of the recipients in the email but basically, you're sending the same email to the whole audience - same headlines, same pictures, etc. Direct mail can use a technique called Variable Data Printing to create a unique mailer for each recipient based on information in your database.  Go to baberweb.com and look at the first case study under insurance (Insurance-Disability) and you'll get an idea of what you can do with variable data when you have just age and gender information.


Customer's Choice
You should give your customers the choice when it comes to how you communicate with them. They should have the choice to receive email or mail from you and you should be prepared to use both methods of delivery.  Baber Direct Marketing can give you more information on how to give your customers the choice and let them know how much you appreciate them by asking which they would prefer.


The Final Answer . . .
Why not both?  Cross Media using email and mail (or any other direct channel) can increase response by as much as 35% when compared to email alone or mail alone according to a study by InfoTrends.  I would hate to have to use either one by itself to meet my clients' goals.  Together, they are the final answer to a lot of complex questions about how to market these days.


Mike Baber