DM is back. And now it’s more popular than ever

10/01/2012

Just a few, short years ago, DM ruled the roost. For both B2B and B2C campaigns it was the quickest, most cost-effective way to mass market to your customers and prospects. If something didn’t work, or produced less response than you need, you could test a different approach to a small test cell before rolling out to your full list.

Then came email and e-marketing platforms. They changed everything and revolutionised the way marketers ran campaigns. You could have an idea in the morning and by the afternoon be receiving orders. Better still, you knew precisely how many emails were delivered, opened, clicked and acted on.

Email was now, sexy and cool. DM was past-it, boring and so last century. Who opens junk mail?

But email was soon a victim of its own success. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. Your email Inbox was constantly ‘exceeding its limit’. And a great deal of those emails would now be spam – casinos, Viagra and other more distasteful products and services. Instead of getting excited about getting emails, people now saw it as a chore wading through a bulging Inbox, particularly after a few days away from the office.

Now, it seems that the pendulum is swinging back to DM and faster than ever before. A new report by the Mail Media Centre published in June 2011, provides an in-depth examination of DM and restates its advantages to marketers. Did you know, for instance, that DM has seen its ROI rise steadily over the last three years, a trend put down to improved targeting?

The report brings together information gathered from a range of sources including BMRB, Nielsen, TGI,  OMD BrandScience,  DMA, Ebiquity, Royal Mail Consumer Panel, Quadrangle, GfK FRS and Comscore.

The report also explains why DM and digital are very effective partners and how DM can help search work harder. Key findings include:

• In 2010, an average of 91% of prospect DM was opened, including 96% for personal banking and 95% for stores

• The percentage of mail where customers took action has increased from 4% in 2004 to 5% in 2010

• 17.7m people ordered after receiving a mail order catalogue in the past 12 months

• DM prospect opening rates have increased from 88% to 91% since 2006

• DM has seen its ROI rise steadily, from £1.57 in 2006 to £3.22 in 2009

• 75% of consumers like receiving special offers and vouchers by mail

• 61% welcome DM from companies they are already a customer of

• 69% welcome mail that rewards their loyalty

• 54% like to receive mail telling them about better offers or new services