Direct Mail Fights Back

July 1, 2015      Tom Belford

What’s sexiest in your nonprofit these days? Who’s got the hot fundraising job? Email fundraising? Social media? Video? Mobile? Direct mail?

Direct mail?! That’s so 20th century.

But wait, direct mail is fighting back. Or at least, as reported in Direct Marketing, the (not disinterested) US Postal Service is. Advertising mail accounts for 31% of USPS revenue.

The USPS partnered with Temple University’s Centre for Neural Decision Making to study how consumers process physical ads (direct mail postcards) versus digital ads. The result, as headlined by Direct Marketing … Direct Mail Has a Greater Effect on Purchase than Digital Ads.

Temple showed a mixture of postcard and digital ads to consumers, and used three monitoring methods to gauge the effects the ads had on them — eye tracking measured visual attention; fingertip sensors monitored heart rate, respiration, and sweating to reveal emotional engagement; and MRIs performed scans to uncover deep brain activity.

Postcards were judged superior to email ads in four of nine ad attributes measured: engagement time, emotional reaction, recall, and building subconscious desire for a product or service. Email ads led in just one attribute: focusing a customer’s attention. The two methods tied in three remaining areas, as shown in the table below:

mail vs digital table

Here’s how the study itself (here’s link for the advanced student) summarised the findings:

“The results of the study showed that participants processed digital ad content quicker. However, participants spent more time with physical ads. When viewing physical ads, participants had a stronger emotional response and remembered them better. Physical ads, though slower to get one’s attention at first exposure, leave a longer lasting impact for easy recall when making a purchase decision. Most importantly, physical ads triggered activity in the area of the brain (ventral striatum) that is responsible for value and desirability for featured products, which can signal a greater intent to purchase.

“These findings have practical implications for marketers. If short on time, the digital format captures attention quicker. However, for longer lasting impact and easy recollection, a physical mailpiece is the superior option that could lead to a purchase. This suggests a complementary effect between the two formats that could provide a powerful way for marketers to optimize their media mix, especially as companies look to reach digitally connected customers.”

In short, direct mail still pulls its weight in the marketing mix — makes the pupils dilate, the hearts flutter, the neural fibres buzz.

What’s the sexiest role in your fundraising team, these days?

Tom

2 responses to “Direct Mail Fights Back”

  1. Mike Cowart says:
    July 1, 2015 at 10:24 am

    According to the recent Abila interview with 1,263 donors from four generations, direct mail rules.

    I was training a group of hospital foundation Millennials last week. They love mail, but “no one sends me direct mail” was their response to the mail question.

  2. Mike Browne says:
    July 2, 2015 at 11:34 am

    Tom, When I saw the headline “Direct Mail Fights Back,” I thought you hit the same topic I just blogged about … USPS Last Gasp http://big-db.com/blog/
    … but no.
    Happy 4th!

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