Is snail mail dead for marketers? Does it make sense to spend an average of 65 cents per piece when email is virtually free? Maybe not, but before you replace mailbox marketing with inbox marketing, put your consumer hat on for a moment and consider this scenario…
You get to work in the morning and your email in-box awaits you with several dozen messages. Since time is your most precious commodity, you glance through the list quickly to find those you must read and respond to. The rest, especially the ones you didn’t ask for, or the ones you subscribed to so long ago that you forgot you ever signed up for them, are a nuisance. If you had the time you would unsubscribe, but that’s never as easy as it sounds.
When you get home from work you open your regular old mailbox. It, too, is filled with messages you didn’t ask for from marketers you don’t know. They may or may not get your attention, but the fact that they are in your mailbox does not feel like the invasion of your privacy that you felt when you found this stuff in your email in-box, right?
You expect to receive advertising messages in your regular mailbox. You’ve gotten them for years. You might not read the marketing piece, but when you see the brand’s name on the mailer you don’t think ill of it because it went into your mailbox. But you did with the ones in your email, didn’t you?
If we marketers continue to focus on building trust with the consumer, we have to think about this piece of the puzzle. Don’t intrude where you’re not welcomed. Don’t make a marketing decision just because it’s inexpensive. It could end up being much more costly to your brand than you ever imagined.
