What helps the videos stand out from the pack is that, rather than a dry and dusty, home recorded piece to camera from and industry expert telling you what to do, the ideas are illustrated. Besides the fact that the videos are fun and entertaining to watch, these communicate on multiple levels. The clear narration matches up with diagrams and flawless cartoons to really illuminate the subject.

If you want to see for yourself, why not check out http://www.youtube.com/user/SendMarketing ?

Currently, Royal Mail is at a disadvantage to direct mail companies, who are able to pass the savings they make on bulk postage to their customers. This is coupled with disadvantages in the consumer sector where texts and emails are replacing letters .
Royal Mail is looking to fight back with a risk reward system, where customers would be insured against a poorly performing campaign. Speaking in Marketing Week, Mark Thompson, Royal Mail’s Media Director, said that the incentive would be a “real statement of intent”.

The advantages of using mail fulfilment companies are plentiful. As well as allowing the customer to make savings that might not otherwise be accessible, a mailing house can design, print, send and analyse the results to continuously improve future mail shots. As well as this, a mailing house will often have email campaign facilities, making it easy to translate between the two mediums.

While the final plans from Royal Mail remain to be seen, there is one thing that is certain. Moving forward, the different marketing sectors of online, mobile and traditional are set to merge even further. The companies that succeed will be the ones that can rise to this challenge.

Other Sources:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk
http://www.dma.org.uk/

Direct mail infographic by Send Marketing Solutions

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<br /> <a href="http://www.directmailfulfilment.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/direct-mail-response-rates.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-49" title="direct-mail-response-rates" src="http://www.directmailfulfilment.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/direct-mail-response-rates-1024x723.jpg" alt="Direct Mail Response Rates" width="640" height="451" /></a><a title="Direct Mail" href="http://www.sendmarketingsolutions.co.uk">Direct mail</a> infographic by Send Marketing Solutions

This is great news for direct mail marketing, especially with other recent research by Royal Mail which suggests companies are benefiting from an increasing return of investment by using direct mail as part of their marketing campaigns – Source: Post & Parcel

The top ten favourite industries for direct mail, who benefit from the best direct mail response rates include supermarkets, local restaurants / take aways and holidays and it is noted that two of the most important aspects of encouraging consumers to open direct mail are i) being a well known brand and ii) the marketing being relevant. Improving direct mail responses rates requires research and insight into your target market and getting to know your customers through demographic profiling.

Send Marketing are a Midlands-based mailing house who specialise in providing low cost mailings and data profiling solutions to businesses across the UK. For enquiries please contact info@sendmarketingsolutions.co.uk

Infographic Design by One Result

Comprehensive research from the study suggested that as much as 79% of recipients are happy to continue receiving direct mail. The study also demonstrated that 20% of the people who took part in the survey received more than ten pieces of direct mail every week.

In direct comparison to the opinions of other marketing groups the results from Onepost’s survey also indicated that there was no preference to the actual day of the week that people preferred to receive direct mail. With three quarters of the respondents stating no preference.

Chris Combemale, executive director of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), added that DMA research had also found that direct mail “has an extremely important role to play in the marketing mix”. [Source - directmarketing.thomsonlocal.com]

Companies who are looking to outsource their direct mail fulfilment requirements should be safe in the knowledge that contrary to the popular belief that direct mail is obtrusive and unwelcome in many households, clearly the result of this survey prove otherwise.