Did you know that consumers consider direct mail marketing to be more trustworthy than online marketing?

While most marketers are jazzed up about email marketing, social media, SEO and PPC marketing, many of them are neglecting the “old school” methods like direct mail and telemarketing. But the data continues to prove that the “trust factor” of direct mail marketing creates higher conversion rates than online marketing.

When direct mail is done right, the higher conversion rates more than make up for the extra money invested into printing and mailing. Here are a few results from some studies that prove this…

(Note: I found some of the following statistics while reading Dan Kennedy’s new Book “No BS Trust-Based Marketing.”)

Consumers Say Direct Mail Marketing is More Trustworthy

In 2011, the Epsilon Research Channel Preference Study revealed that direct mail is still the top choice of US and Canadian consumers. The preference also covered the age bracket between 18 and 34, breaking the myth that the younger generation is more likely to respond to online marketing.

26% of these consumers considered direct mail to be the MOST trustworthy type of media. Half of them said they pay MORE attention to direct mail than they do to email and 60% of them claimed to enjoy seeing what was in their daily mail. How many people do you know who enjoy checking their email?

Only 6% of the consumers considered social media to be trustworthy (which ought to challenge the way you do social media).  21% of them found Newspapers to be the most trustworthy form of media. But 18% considered direct mail to the most trustworthy. That’s triple the amount of people who found social media trustworthy.

Another study by Direct Marketing News revealed that 98% of consumers retrieve their mail on the day of delivery and 71% of them sort and read it the same day. Meanwhile, the open rates for emails have been in steady decline over the past few years. On top of this, direct mail brings in nearly 80% of the donations for non-for-profits, a field where trust is the primary selling point (source: printisbig.com).

Another report from printisbig.com revealed that direct mail response rates have increased by 14% over the past few years while email response rates are down nearly 60%. As of the end of 2012, direct mail also remained the #1 marketing channels for large businesses, SEO/website marketing came second, while email marketing came in third.

So here’s the question…

Can You Afford NOT to Be Using Direct Mail?

If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you’re going to need direct mail marketing. Companies who rely only on internet marketing are making a common and costly mistake. They’re following the trends instead of following the evidence about what produces results. Of course, SEO, email and social media are still important, but they shouldn’t be your only means of reaching customers.

If they are, you’re in danger of losing market share to the competitor who discovers the high “trust factor” of direct mail marketing. So it’s time to start your first direct mail campaign today. A huge untapped pool of opportunity is waiting on you, and you need to act before your competitors catch on.

Call MSI right now and ask about our direct mail and printing solutions. Remember, trust is the currency of the new economy. If you want to earn more of it, you need to give people what they consider to be truly trustworthy.

Can you guess what the #1 ranked marketing channel was for large companies as of the end of 2012? It wasn’t SEO, social media or email marketing. It was direct mail marketing. US Advertisers spend an average of $167 per new customer on direct mail advertisements and generate just over $2000 in revenue, equaling a stunning 1300% ROI. (source: printisbig.com)

Makes you want to rethink your marketing budget doesn’t it?

There are scores of marketing gurus chanting about how you need to start using social media and building an online presence. While those are definitely important, most of the marketing “experts” don’t seem concerned about whether you’re still using direct mail.

Some of them even consider it out of date. But you’re about to discover how the popularity of the internet has made direct mail marketing even more relevant and more effective than ever.

Direct Mail is the Trump Card for New Client Acquisition

Printisbig.com did a study just last year which proved that direct mail was more effective than email, SEO or affiliate marketing for acquiring new clients. Over the past few years, this response rate for direct mail has increased nearly 15% while email response rates have dropped nearly 60%. This shouldn’t come as a surprise if you know what’s really going on in the economy.

In 2011, the Epsilon Research Channel Preference Study revealed that direct mail is still the top choice of US and Canadian consumers. 26% of these consumers considered direct mail to be more trustworthy than email, social media or SEO marketing. The statistics on direct mail marketing just get more and more surprising and promising the more you look at them.

The growth of the internet hasn’t changed this. In fact, if anything, the internet has made direct mail marketing even MORE important to your companies image and ROI. This is because of a simple shift in the way consumers view brands in the modern marketplace.

From the Age of Advertising to the Age of Trust

Did you know that the age of advertising only started about one hundred years ago? From the early 1900s until just a few years ago, winning customers was all about being bigger and louder and prettier. That’s changing rapidly. The information age has equipped modern consumers with the tools to research companies before they buy products from them.

Today’s consumers don’t just take things at face value anymore. They question and examine everything, sometimes to an excess. Nearly 50% of the searches conducted online are searches for information on products and services. 7 to 9 out of ten consumers consult peer reviews before making a buying decision.

And consumers are already bombarded with advertisements, they can find those anywhere. So today, consumers aren’t looking for the biggest, loudest and most visible companies. They’re looking for companies they can trust. When you send a printed letter to your customers, you instantly make yourself more credible. You demonstrate that you have some economic fuel driving your company.

This suggests that you’re not just a fly by night Internet Company which popped up today and will be gone tomorrow. That’s why direct mail has such a high response rate. The more saturated the online marketplace becomes, the more important it will become for you to find other ways of standing out and setting your brand apart.

Are you starting to see why more large companies depend on direct mail and how direct mail could become YOUR #1 marketing channel for acquiring new clients?

If so, call MSI right now and ask what our direct mail and printing services can do for your business. You could be missing a lot of market share by relying only on internet marketing methods.

Direct mail marketing is more than just a strategy for acquiring new customers. It’s also the lifeblood of the United States Postal Service and an important force in keeping the US economy humming.

For example, in 2012, 160 billion pieces of mail were sent, 47% of them were direct mail advertisements. That’s nearly 80 billion pieces of mail, all which were sent to connect businesses to consumers and to keep our economy humming.

Direct mail marketing provides much of the economic fuel which the USPS needs to keep their postal workers staffed and their trucks running. If direct mail were to stop altogether, the USPS probably wouldn’t be able to support itself from the dollars paid to mail regular letters.

But that’s not all direct mail marketing does. Direct mail is also very positive for our local and national economy.

Direct Mail is a Driving Force in Our Economy

In 2011, the Epsilon Research Channel Preference Study revealed that direct mail is still the top choice of US and Canadian businesses. If you’re someone who believes in “taking care of our own,” and supporting US based businesses, you should be happy to know that a majority of the marketing mail is being sent by American businesses.

Almost all of the marketing mail sent by the USPS comes from an American based company. When a customer responds by purchasing a product or a service, that’s more money being pumped into our National economy.

I know, I sound like a direct mail patriot. But my goal in this blog is to change the way you think about direct mail. Don’t think of it as sending “junk mail” that no one will want to read. According to consumer surveys, 26% of consumers consider direct mail to be the most trustworthy kind of advertisement. Only 6% considered Social media to be the most trustworthy and only 18% said that email was the most trustworthy.

Clearly, information age consumers are interesting getting direct mail. It’s influencing their buying decisions and it’s helping them connect with companies they trust.

Want More New Business? Try Direct Mail

If you’re tired of scraping up customers through cold calling and radio ads, you need to try direct mail marketing. Direct mail is a powerful customer acquisition strategy, especially considering that over the past few years, direct mail response rates have increased while email open rates have decreased.

Your business is an important economic force. You owe it to your prospective customers to let them know that you exist and that you’re a trusted brand. If you show up in their mailbox more often, you’ll have a much better chance at getting new business.

So if you’re ready to find out what direct mail marketing can do for your company, call MSI right now at the number on this site. We look forward to helping you succeed and to making another deposit into the American economy.

Makes you want to think again about dumping your entire marketing budget into one type of online marketing doesn’t it? If you’re curious about how direct mail might fare for gaining new business, you might want to see some of these stats on how the information age consumers are responding to direct mail marketing…

Stats Show that Direct Mail is More Effective than Ever

According to DMA Statistical Fact Book 2012, 54% of all mailed postcards are read by the recipient. The United States Postal Service also reported that 98% of consumers will bring their mail in the day it’s delivered. Nearly 80% of them will sort their mail that day and according to the USPS, a whopping 85% of women between the ages of 25 and 44 will read direct mail messages.

Another report from printisbig.com shows that direct mail response rates have increased by 14% over the past few years and that direct mail is still the #1 marketing channel for large businesses.

Are people responding this well to email marketing and even mobile marketing?

Not quite. As of 2012, email response rates are down nearly 60% from where they were just a few years ago.  Surprisingly, the B2B Lead Blog also reported that only 15% of marketers rated mobile marketing as being “very effective” for lead generation while another 15% claimed that it’s “not effective at all.”

Makes you want to rethink which trends you’re following doesn’t it? So let’s talk about the smart way to spend your marketing budget…

Follow Results, Not Trends

Mitch Meyerson, author of “Mastering Online Marketing,” said that “one is always the worst number in marketing.” In other words, you shouldn’t dump all your money into online marketing assuming that offline marketing is out of date. It’s not.  People just happen to be caught up in the gold rush mentality when it comes to online marketing…as if the .com boom was still going strong.

81% of modern businesses are depending on email marketing as their primary source of lead generation (source: MarketingSherpa). There’s also a lot of hype surrounding mobile marketing these days, and for good reason. But how much of it is hype and how much of it is valid? We all know that trends can create an irrational sense of value.

Marketers see a new trend, and they all have to jump on board with it. Sometimes, the new trend isn’t even relevant to their business, but they do it because everyone else is.

This is NOT to say that mobile marketing and email marketing aren’t important. But these stats should be a warning to anyone who’s got thousands of dollars in their sweaty palm, ready to dish it out for the fancy new $10,000 mobile site and mail autoresponder series.

Stop and ask yourself what’s really working before you spend your money. Don’t follow the trends, follow the money. Create a marketing strategy that uses a healthy balance of email, SEO, social media and direct mail and don’t get distracted by trends. Here at MSI, we are constantly educating our customers about the types of marketing they should be doing and the best way to diversify marketing budgets.

Did you know that a fantastic fulfillment and customer service strategy can grow your business faster than a good marketing strategy? Most business owners assume that business growth is all about marketing, and it is. But they forget that a business is always marketing itself.

No matter what you’re selling or who you’re selling to, your customers are always evaluating your business. They’re evaluating it before they buy your product or service. They’re evaluating it after they buy.

Marketing, in the traditional sense of the word, usually refers to the marketing that’s done before a sale is made. It’s about connecting with prospects and turning those prospects into customers. But the other side of marketing is turning your existing customers into loyal promoters.

That’s done, not through marketing, but through customer service and fulfillment. THIS is the secret to creating explosive business growth. It turns your customers into an army of the most trusted sales people money can buy…but you don’t have to pay them!

Let’s look at some data from Liveperson.com which was gathered from some consumer polls and surveys and see how your customers define great support and service…

The Facts on How Customer Service Drives Business Growth

Lack of customer support is a factor which contributes to high shopping cart abandonment rates online. According to LIveperson.com, 37% of online shoppers claim that they abandon their purchase because they couldn’t contact the vendor. 30% of them abandon carts because they have a hard time getting help on the website. These are probably sites which were well marketed, but poorly supported.

Customers also claim that speed is important during a customer service experience. Over 71% of consumers expect to get support in five minutes or less, 31% expect immediate assistance. 48% of shoppers who aren’t helped right away will go somewhere else to make their purchase. 56% of online consumers expect to have their problems solved in one interaction.

The statistics also show that hiding behind an FAQ page, email ticketing system or support forum instead of allowing your customers to talk to a live person via chat or phone is a costly mistake. Nearly 60% of consumers want to have a choice about how they contact brands online. Nearly 60% of online consumers also prefer to speak with someone over the phone.

That’s how great customer support can increase your sales and make your marketing more effective. Now, let’s debunk a popular myth about the “expense” of customer service.

Customer Service, an Expense or an Investment?

It’s a mistake to think of customer service as an expense. Sure, it costs money to provide live support. But it’s costing a lot more to let your customers abandon their purchases, never to return to your site again. And how about after the purchase is made?

If customers expect quick and efficient support during the sales process, how much more will they expect it after they’ve spent money with your company? If you spend money on marketing to get customers to your site, yet lose them because of bad support, your marketing dollars become less effective.

But if you invest in great customer service, you can not only increase your sales, your customers are also more likely to tell people about the positive experience they had with your company. A happy customer is a great sales person, and you never had to pay them a commission. It’s 100% done for you marketing.

So if you want to grow your business, invest your money into creating exceptional customer service instead of just marketing.