There’s a relatively new VC backed company called Earth Class Mail that threatens the existence of direct mail. I bring this up because I have received some very compelling direct mail recently. The first, was a letter that looked like it came from my mom. The address was hand written by a woman. It wasn’t printed in a hand written font, it was actually hand written, which was impressive. Inside this friendly looking piece of mail was a folded up news paper clipping with a post-it note on it, also handwritten. This article though, was announcing a local car dealership sale. I saw that, and immediately set it aside, because I’m not in the market for a new car. The piece, did however, astonish me at how creative and effective it was.
Today, I also received another direct mail piece from the stock resource company Veer. I’ve been on their mailing list for a while now because I love what they send me. Their catalogs are printed on a very nice heavy stock. The creative is exactly that … creative. But what I love the most is the smell of high-quality print. If you’ve ever worked at a commercial printing company you’ll know what I’m talking about. Granted … the majority of direct mail just clogs up your mail box, but the people that know how to do it right give their recipients something great.
I really don’t think direct mail is going away, but services like Earth Class Mail definitely threaten its existence. Essentially it makes direct mail equivalent to email. So what good does that do to companies spending thousands of dollars, sometimes millions, to get something physical in front of a potential customer?
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