Direct marketer Dan Kennedy has a saying worth tattooing on every campaign manager’s forehead. Markets don’t kill a channel. Cowardice does.
Here’s what he means.
Every few years, somebody declares direct mail dead. And every time, the people saying it aren’t the ones actually making money.
When a crowd abandons a channel because they heard it’s outdated, that channel doesn’t get worse. It gets less crowded. That’s not a problem. That’s an opportunity.
Think about it. Voters get 120 emails a day and delete most on reflex. Their social feed is a fight for attention against a thousand other things.
But their mailbox? Quiet. A bill, a catalog, maybe something interesting.
When something interesting shows up in that mailbox, it gets picked up. It gets set on the counter. It gets looked at again two days later. Try getting that from a text message.
Here’s how you use this.
Fundraising: While every other campaign chases the same donors through crowded email inboxes, a well-crafted mail piece stands out simply because almost nobody’s fighting for that space anymore.
Votes: Your opponent thinks mail is old news and dumps his whole budget into digital ads voters have trained themselves to ignore. Meanwhile your mailer sits on the kitchen counter for a week.
Volunteers: A personal letter asking somebody to volunteer carries more weight landing in an empty mailbox than a text buried under fifty others.
Beating your opponent: When he hears “nobody does mail anymore” and quits, that just means nobody in his campaign does it. The channel’s wide open. Take it.
The takeaway: “Nobody does that anymore” isn’t a reason to quit. It’s a description of exactly how much room you’ve got to yourself.
Dr. Chuck Muth, PsD
Professor of Psephology*
(homeschooled)
* Psephology (see-follow-gee): The study of campaigns and elections