Is mail still worth the investment?
That’s a question more and more advertisers and marketers are asking themselves lately. Given the variety of ways you can communicate and do business with customers, cost-conscious executives are beginning to wonder if it makes sense to keep mail in the mix.
Why the doubt? To an extent, I’m sure the constant calls for postal reform, for the preservation of a mail-delivery system that’s seemingly on life support, and for an already overburdened postal cost structure to pick up expenses that ought to be borne by taxpayers is behind some of it.
If things like that have been going through your mind, let me try to put you at ease. Despite the growth of alternative communication channels, mail is still the only medium that can deliver the attention of an audience as broad as every home and business in America.
In the days when cable TV was trumpeting the availability of 100 different channels, the U.S. Postal Service came out with an ad that’s as true today as it was then. Only the mail, it said, can deliver you more than 120 million different channels—each connected to a place where we either live or work.
Sure, there’s uncertainty over what the future holds. But even so, it’s hard to envision the possibility of a total postal collapse in an economy whose postal system is so vital to the nation’s well-being. It may take a while for lawmakers and presidents to stop all the political malarkey and fashion a postal model that will suit our future needs, but sooner or later they’ll get to it.
In the meantime, if you’re in the advertising or marketing business, prudence would suggest that you continue to make mail part of your business investment and development strategies. With mail, you can find new customers, talk to and maintain current ones, and fulfill the promises you’ve made in your business messages.
But if you’re going to continue to use mail, be sure to do so wisely. The fundamentals of good advertising and marketing still apply: Select your audience; be sure you’re ready to recognize the unique needs of the mail medium; and measure and compare the results produced by every dollar you invest in any medium.
Mail is here to stay.
GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.
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