New Rules for Direct Mail in the Internet Age

While 10 years ago running a direct marketing program through the mail was simple, clean, easy and quantifiable, today the impact of the Internet has muddied the waters. With the growth of Internet sales and the consequent migration of orders to online booksellers such as amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com, publishers are cutting back on their mailing efforts.

Nevertheless, says Lenny Friedman, executive director of global direct marketing for Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer and John Wiley and Sons, this response is shortsighted. To a great extent Internet retailing is passive, relying on buyers to seek out the book they want. In contrast, direct mail generates buyer response. "There's a symbiotic relationship," Friedman explains, so the results of your efforts through mail and e-commerce need to be considered together.

Look for the Effects of Direct Mail on All Your Sales

Even when orders don't come via your mailed order form, they may be generated by your mail. You have to know how to look for and trace this effect. Illustrating this point, Friedman explains how Pfeiffer UK stopped mailing its catalog because of a decline in mail responses. The results? "Suddenly the phone stopped ringing and a very successful line of products stopped moving. Though we weren't getting catalog order forms, it became evident that the mail was generating phone calls to customer service and online orders. We revived the mailings and sales returned."

This, then, is the new paradigm. When measuring the results of your direct mail, beyond the clearly traceable orders, you have to calculate as best as you can the number of orders the program generates through other outlets, whether your own customer service, brick-and-mortar or online retailers.

Don't Surrender Your Customers

As important as direct mail may be in generating sales, it's perhaps even more important for building customer loyalty. "Don't give up your customers, either to the online booksellers or your competitors," warns Friedman. Once your customers go elsewhere to purchase, they are open to purchasing whatever books may be offered, and those books won't necessarily be yours.

Create policies to keep these customers as your own. First, make it easy to order. Give customers every ordering option available and plaster your 800 number and Web site on every page. Second, make an offer with a real incentive. Give your customers something in return for placing their order through you. Free shipping, a discount, a premium: it's not so important what it is, as long as the offer sounds attractive.

Finally, keep following the basic rules of direct mail: assign priority codes for tracking orders, test results, build your database and repeat mailings when they are successful. To these, you can add some new rules that take advantage of the Internet. Be sure to ask your customers for their e-mail addresses (so you can e-mail offers to them) and steer them to your Web site. Once you are able to track electronic orders, you will probably find that the decline in response to your direct mail is less than you thought.