Fundraisers and marketers are showing their confidence in the effectiveness of direct mail after Q3 DM budgets have been revised up.
The latest Bellwether Report from the IPA reveals that in general budgets have increased at the strongest rate for four years, since Q2 2017, with direct marketing improving on the previous quarter with a net balance of +5.6%, from +0.7%. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/10/21/ipa-bellwether-marketers-see-biggest-boost-budgets-4-years
By comparison, however, outdoor, events and PR all experienced budget cuts. Perhaps no surprise since another report by WARC https://www.warc.com/newsandopinion/news/pandemic-induced-consumer-behaviours-are-here-to-stay-marketers-toolkit-2022/46718 revealed that the changes to consumer behaviour caused by Covid are expected to continue well into 2022. This means that out-of-home media remains significantly less impactful than before the pandemic as people continue to be nervous about returning to their old ways and habits.
What does this mean for charities?
For charities this means that direct mail will continue to be an extremely effective marketing tool to engage with donors and a cost efficient way to recruit new supporters. This is because people are taking more notice of their mail. During the pandemic people experienced significant digital overload with screen time rising exponentially as people made the transition to working from home. In addition, email inboxe and social media streams were being overloaded by organisations wanting to stay in touch with their customers as digital media is a quick and easy communication tool – but when the volume of emails and posts rise, the risk of becoming lost in the melee is very real.
In this high stress, high tech environment, the tangible and analogue delivery of the post provided a very welcome distraction from both screens and the mundanity of being forced to stay at home.
People fell back in love with their letterboxes and even though restrictions have largely been lifted this trend hasn’t gone into reverse. The latest stats show that reach of direct mail has been boosted by 14 per cent and the channel is generating ad impressions over four times greater than the mail volumes delivered.
It is therefore unsurprising that we are seeing budgets for direct mail being revised up. If you are increasing your direct mail spend please get in touch as we can advise on the best strategy to ensure the greatest return on your investment.
