DM News online has a bit called GLOVES OFF and last Monday (May 17) the topic was “Is Direct Mail Dead?”
Two executives,
Scott Grimes – CEO and cofounder of Cardlytics – and Dan Smith – SVP of marketing, ClickSquared – took more or less opposite sides.

Smith wrote “No. Direct Mail is not dead.” and closed with “Direct mail might not make sense in all situations, but it remains an integral part of cross-channel marketing.” Reasonable answer.

Grimes’s contribution needs a closer look. First, here’s a line from the Cardlytics website that more or less describes what his business does: “Merchants present customers offers directly within their online banking pages.”

Now here’s his take on whether or not direct mail is dead. The bullet points between his paragraphs are mine:

Yes. Despite direct mail’s reputation as a marketing standard, its effectiveness has always suffered from a number of practical limitations. Essentially, marketers are in the dark regarding the efficiency and ROI of direct mail, even though its cost – in terms of time, money and labor – is significant.

· Every marketing discipline is ineffective in some way because of practical limitations. That’s why we have so many different disciplines.

· Marketers are in the dark regarding the efficiency and ROI of direct mail? No. It’s the exact opposite, down to the last nickel if we care to track it that far.

Through transaction marketing within banking, as well as other emerging channels, direct mail has finally met its match as users are deriving tangible benefit from reduced expenses, improved targeting and tracking capabilities and ease of redemption.

· Sounds as if transaction marketing within banking is the leading emerging channel.

· Direct mail has finally met its match? Well, that might be true for things that can be sold successfully through transaction marketing within banking to people who don’t mind being interrupted while they’re banking. Impulse items, I imagine. Anything more complicated might need a link to a website or, heavens, direct mail.

Launching a direct mail campaign requires significant up-front expenditures for design, mailing lists and printed materials. Marketers hope to recover these investments over time. Besides being expensive, lists and databases quickly become obsolete, have significant duplication and are prone to error.

· Recover investments over time. Hmm. Sometimes we recover 100% or more the very first time out and every time we mail out we acquire something more valuable: knowledge that helps us get better and better as we skip along creating a foolproof money-making machine for our clients. It’s fun. I imagine the same sort of thing happens in transaction marketing within banking.

· All worthwhile lists (databases, too) are updated regularly and don’t become obsolete unless the list owners want to commit business suicide. List renters frown at internal duplications. Among different lists, significant duplication can be a pretty good indication that you’re on the right track in list selection. You don’t pay for most duplicates and computers de-dupe in the blink of an eye. No prob. Prone to error? I don’t know about prone, certainly not in my experience, but errors do happen from time to time, and probably happen even in transaction marketing within banking.

Additionally, direct mail does not provide marketers realistic means of tracking who receives the offers – let alone who actually “opens the envelopes.”

· Well, not a 100% realistic means of tracking who receives the mailings. With simple list hygiene and CASS, we’re pretty sure of 95% or so. Not bad and as realistic as the Red Sox pitching problems.

In today’s digital age, direct mail is archaic, especially in the ways in which customers must redeem incentives. Mailed offers generally include physical coupons or promotional codes that need to be printed or remembered, a difficult scenario for a busy, digital consumer.

· I’m sure he meant that direct mail is seen by some as archaic. Not sure what redeeming incentives has to do with it (compared to the entire proposition) but it probably involves the ghastly inconvenience of slipping something into a prepaid envelope and dropping it into a mail box or calling a toll-free number or logging onto a URL or sending an email, even faxing. The horror.

Many efficiencies presented by emerging channels far outweigh direct mail in terms of giving marketers and customers what they want.

· Ah, to hell with it. Grimes can do what he does and we’ll do what we do. Good Luck to him.

This thing came in the mail the other day, an envelope and two glossyish sheets of paper.

The envelope had no ID on it except for a P.O. Box return address in Salt Lake City. My name and address showed through a wide window beside two big 0% items.
There’s no logo anywhere in the mailing and almost no suggestion at all of who sent it or, indeed, of what’s being sold.
The first sheet of paper promises all kinds of stuff and there’s a hint in line 15 of the letterish copy that some kind of card is involved, probably a credit card but that apparently antique term is never used.
Way down at the bottom in the footnotes there’s this: “1 More U.S. households have a Discover card than any other cash rewards card.” It wouldn’t be insanely unreasonable to assume then that this “card” offer comes from Discover although it is by no means certain.
This is undoubtedly a test by Discover to learn if their brand has any value at all. When things get that bad, it’s probably time to fold your tents and disappear into the night.
By the way, I’m preapproved for the card subject to one tiny matter, namely a review of my financial information – demonstrating once again that there is no difference between preapproved and not preapproved.

L.L. Bean is not into planned obsolescence. I bought shirts from them 30 years ago that are still fine; why would I buy any more? I don’t need them.

They’re a great company. They source terrific stuff, live up to their guarantees, offer wonderful customer service, ship right away. Their store in Freeport, Maine is a marvel. Their catalogs are lovely, sharp and easy to follow. Their website is fine: L.L. Bean Website

So what’s the problem? Well, nothing, if you’re an old guy like me. They’re perfect. But, much as I love L.L. Bean, I don’t need them all that often. I’m set.

So what? I’m 123 years old. I’m a guy. I don’t care if my clothes are in vogue. I’ve never known what’s in vogue, anyway. I’ve worn the same stuff since I was 8: blue blazer, button down collar – long sleeve cotton shirt, unpressed khakis, tightie whities, cotton socks and penny loafers. The immortal all-season outfit for geezers and (fewer and fewer) protogeezers.

So when Lois Geller, our agency’s President, wrote a short bit about how L.L. Bean was maybe getting a tiny bit stale, there was a firestorm of protest from L.L. Bean fans, including yours truly.

But Lois wasn’t writing about people like me. She was writing about the kind of people who wear shoes with Donald Duck toes, get tattooed, listen to what they think is alternative music, drink abominations like appletinis, drive Cube cars, really believe that America, the world’s oldest and by far most successful republic, has to change (to what? Zimbabwe?) and generally don’t think, act or look anything like geezers.

Sherry Chiger of The Big Fat Marketing Blog figured it out right away. You can read her take here: The Big Fat Marketing Blog

You never hear the names of most of the world’s heroes: the Battle of Britain spitfire pilots, the battlefield doctors and nurses. Do you know anyone who can name even one of the NYC firemen who ran into the World Trade Center?

Moms and Dads, teachers, nurses, blood donors, coaches, mentors, soldiers, cops, volunteers, philanthropists, can all be heroes. But the heroes we know by name stand in for the unsung rest.

There’s a difference between admired and heroic. Oprah and Mrs. Clinton often make the most-admired lists but they’d be the first to tell you that they’re not heroes. Well, maybe Oprah would.

Wondering who my own heroes are, I picked the first 10 names that sprang to mind then arranged them alphabetically:

· Boadicea
· Winston Churchill
· Cincinnatus
· Paul Rusesabagina
· Claus von Stauffenberg
· Chesley B. Sullenberger
· Margaret Thatcher
· Paul Tibbets
· Harriet Tubman
· George Washington

I’d be amazed if one person in a hundred knows who they all are.

Only four were office-holding politicos: Churchill, Cincinnatus (who hated politics), Thatcher and Washington.

Three are women, two are black. Four are Americans, three are from England and there’s one each of African, German and Roman. Most are fairly modern except two who are really old school: Boadicea and Cincinnatus lived about 1,900 and 2,500 years ago, respectively.

At first glance, it is not at all apparent why Cincinnatus, Thatcher and Tibbets would be especially heroic but they are, to me anyway. And to some people both Thatcher and Tibbets are evil and I suppose Progressives would consider Cincinnatus a fool.

When I made my heroes list, I didn’t have any criteria in mind except a vague sense of something heroic. But when I examined the result, I found that all 10 have a lot of things in common and those things are the criteria my subconscious used to help make the list.

What do my 10 heroes have in common?

Incredible courage for one thing. Leadership, independence of thought, competence, a certain mulishness, vision, confidence, a notable lack of grandstanding, social responsibility in the face of rabid opposition, and the Davy Crockett ability to “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.” Most of them had terrific senses of humor. There are more just like them but these are the ten who came to mind first and, if you felt like it, you could use them to infer something of my character.

Who’s on your Top 10 list of heroes?

I ask this question occasionally and am no longer surprised to learn that some people don’t have heroes and that an amazing number can’t think of ten of them.

People conjure up names like Jesus, Ghandi, Mandela, Pope John Paul II, Lech Walensa, John Adams, Otto Schindler, Golda Meir, Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa, Miep Gies, even the great Ignaz Semmelweis, all of whom could fit into my top 25, if my list went that high.

When I hear names like Michael Jordan or LeBron James, one of the Mannings, Ted Williams, I lose interest politely.

Plain old politicians like Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, all the Kennedys, the odious LBJ, both Bushes, and Nixon occasionally get on some lists but they’re not remotely heroes. FDR was a hero of sorts for what he did in WWII and a villain for what he did otherwise. U.S. Grant was hero as a general and a bum as a President.

My blood runs cold when I hear that murderous vermin like Mao, Lenin, Marx (Karl, not Groucho), Castro, Guevera, are on someone’s Top 10 Heroes list.

What does all this have to do with direct marketing? Not much, except … the process of singling out specific people for any reason at all yields surprising results. It’s only after you do the picking that you realize what they all have in common.

In marketing, especially direct marketing, we pick people all the time, the people most likely to buy what we’re selling. They’re called Target Audiences. Collectively, they could be as seemingly different as, oh, Winston Churchill and Harriet Tubman. Only after you gather the names on one list do you realize that Tubman and Churchill are, in all their essentials, almost the same person. In an important way, all 10 of my heroes are very close to being the same person.

If you look at the relevant attributes of the people you most want to reach, every day people, you’ll probably find that as different as they seem, when you look at them all on one list, they’re astonishingly similar.

What’s important is that you’ll know how to talk to them.