Both email marketing and direct mail are forms of advertising and promoting your business. One is very much a digital technique, while the other falls under the heading of a traditional marketing approach. Still, both are used to this day, but how do they differ and is there a true winner between the two? Here's everything you need to know.
By Team Savant
Image: Campaign Creators
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing revolves around sending promotional emails to customers and people on your mailing list. There are many different types of emails you can send out to people, and the aim is to generate clicks back to your site, influencing sales.
What Is Direct Mail?
By contrast, direct mail refers to physical mail that's sent to people's homes. This can include brochures, flyers, postcards, adverts - the list goes on and on. You can use direct mail services to create all of your marketing material, sending it out to your customers and leads in one go.
Email Vs. Direct Mail
So, how do the two square up against one another? To start, an advantage of email marketing is that it is easier for you to build a mailing list. All you need is an email and there are multiple strategies to help you generate lots of emails without selling products to people. With direct mail, it is tougher to get a list of people that aren't existing customers as you need their name and address.
Email is also seen as a more convenient form of marketing as automation makes it easier than ever to send mass emails out to loads of people all at once. Therefore, you can potentially broaden your reach with this tactic.
However, there are some pretty damning statistics when you compare the two in terms of response rates and memorableness. Research by the Direct Marketing Association discovered that 75% of people can recall brands after receiving direct mail, compared to only 44% from emails. The research also found that direct mail generates a 4.4% response rate than email - which sits at a low 0.12%. It was also found that 70% of respondents in the UK claim to receive too many emails every day.
So, when it comes to engaging your target audience, direct mail could be more effective. There is another advantage with email marketing, and it's that you can easily measure its success by looking at the click-through rate. All it takes is one click to take people to your website, while direct mail requires people to scan a code or physically input the address into their device.
All in all, both ideas have their pros and cons. Email marketing can be more convenient and affordable, but only when you use it correctly. There's definitely a sense of less is more when it comes to this approach. But, for raising brand awareness, direct mail comes out on top. In reality, the best idea is to use a combination of both for different reasons. Use direct mail to build brand recognition, but call upon emails when you want to generate traffic to your site.