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Yes.
Direct marketing is attractive to marketers because response rates can be measured directly.
For me, Email Marketing & Direct Mail Marketing is and will remain a key online channel.
Email marketing is only and will stay important for selling goods, people want to see what they buy or get triggered to look for what they see and like.
Direct Mail Marketing
Direct mail marketing is not dead. It is still as powerful as it has ever been. One of the best things about direct mail marketing is that it has the ability to get your message into the hands of your prospects.
1. Recipients More Receptive
Many people are still not using email. Plus the fact that people will most likely spend more time reading a post card or letter than they will an email. Getting a beautiful post card or envelope into the recipient’s hand can be a powerful tool. As long as you design your marketing material so that it catches the reader’s eye, they will read your message. So much of the mail marketing pieces that arrive in a person’s mailbox is so poorly designed, that much of it gets ignored. Make your piece stand out from the rest, and they will read your message.
2. Can Become Expensive
If you are not targeting the correct audience, you will be wasting time and money. Sending marketing materials directly to specific people at specific addresses will keep your costs way down, and greatly improve your chances of making a sale.
3. Can Be Time Consuming
Building a mail list, and designing amazing marketing materials to send out, takes time, thought, and money. But as a small business, you must always be adding to and improving your mail list and marketing materials. Right from day one. Many small businesses, home-based businesses, and professional practices will live or die based on how good their mail list and marketing materials are.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is amazing, cheap, quick, and easy to implement, but it will not be replacing direct mail for a very long time. One of the best things about email is that it is trackable. This data can be used to analyze open rates, clicked links, and conversion details. All of this data can help you fine-tune your email content and message.
1. Very Inexpensive
You can easily start an email list and not spend one cent. But getting email addresses from anyone beyond your current customers can be very time-consuming. But eventually you will build a larger list. Then you will need an email service company to manage and send your email messages. Many of these service companies have a free plan to manage up to a certain amount of addresses.
2. Very Fast
Once your emails are designed and set-up, you can send out a mass email in a few minutes. Your recipients will start opening your email message a few minutes after you sent it. You will start to get hits on your website a few minutes later. Amazingly fast.
3. Very Convenient
Providing links to your products and services makes an email very convenient to the recipients. Links allow them to quickly understand what your email is trying to tell, and sell, them. This speed is one of the major reasons we enjoy emails.
What’s Best for Your Small Business?
Don’t be afraid to use both methods at the same time. Direct mail might work better for some of your prospects and current customers. Email might work better for the others. Each method has several similarities, and several important differences. You will need to decide which method, or both, is the best for your small business. The reality of the situation is that direct mail and email marketing are a perfect match for each other. Each method makes up for the shortcomings of the other. Used together they create a powerful tool to use in your marketing plan.
Yes because email marketing offers a variety of one-to-one targeting options, making it a great medium in both acquisition and retention activity, email is particularly powerful when combined with other channels and media as part of an integrated communication strategy.
So any industry (B2B or B2C ) will need email marketing to communicate with clients like Hotels, Travel and Tourism, Gyms ... etc
Direct marketing and E-mail marketing are useful in some industries to some extent, Like Publishing firm, they email their regular customers about their new edition of magazines, journals or books ex- Readers digest.
We cannot ignore the importance of e-mail marketing as well as direct marketing in any industry. There are companies who still are only focusing on direct marketing and ignoring other tools of marketing and are successful too.
