The Mizel Method

Direct-mail stages a comeback

Like most direct-response marketers in their mid 40s, I started out offline with fellow cohorts like Marlon Sanders, Scott Covert, Bill Myers, and Tony Blake.

The commercial Internet didn’t even exist in 1989, thus our generation was reared on display and classified ads, newspaper inserts, card-decks, flyers, billboards, and most of all, direct mail.

Direct mail was a hugely powerful medium because it allowed you to create a special bond with a prospect, far removed from the clutter of competing ads found in newspapers and magazines. If you were selling an expensive or sophisticated product, direct mail was often the best medium. It offered measurable returns, relatively exact targeting, and most of all, privacy.

Gary Halbert once said something like, “You can send a million sales letters and attract less attention than if you one run small ad in a local penny shopper.” And he wasn’t just talking about attention from the Feds;) He was also referring to competitors, criminals, and various corrupt officials.

However, around 2000, a funny thing happened… the direct mail started to dry up and get replaced with e-mails, pop-ups, banners, and advertising links. The messages were the same; Get rich, get laid, get smart, get skinny, etc.. but the primary medium became the Internet.

And in 2003, nearly all low-end direct mail dried up due to increased costs. Gone were the chain letters and magalogs and ad sheets and all the other crap we used to receive. And even more interesting was the fact that the long-format sales letter had almost completely disappeared from the mail box and started showing up with increased regularity online.

But as fate would have it, the tables have once again turned.

Gone are the 50% click throughs and 3% – 5% conversions to cold lists. Gone are the $0.05 clicks and $0.25 registrations. And gone are the days when you could send an e-mail blast and know most of your subscribers would read it and click through. In other words…

The noise online has become unbearable for consumers!

The Internet is so completely filled with ads and sales solicitations, that the only way to once again pull the prospect aside and share an important message is to take them offline, specifically to their mailbox.

In the past week, I have received no less than 9 postcards, 7 sales letters, 3 invitations to seminars and workshops, and 2 magalogs, and the volume increases every month.

Frankly I welcome this return to old-fashioned marketing. Not that I’m a fan of wasting paper or anything like that, but if people are willing to spend a few bucks to send me something, they’ll generally put more effort into the sales presentation and copywriting.

And that tends to raise the bar for all marketing, something I’m always happy to see.