We’re taking a stand.

After years of watching the law of diminishing returns apply itself strongly to the area of direct mail, we no longer feel good about recommending this marketing tool to clients. But even more compelling is the argument about what it is doing to our planet and our resources — as an environmentally conscious agency comprised of people who are committed to making a contribution, we are saying adios to direct mail as part of our lexicon of talents. Yep, it’s sayonara, auf wiedersehen, au revoir, ciao, aloha, guten tog, bye bye.

And we’re not alone.  This is  topic of great interest and concern for a variety of people — so much so that Newsweek featured a recent article about it.  It’s interesting that the Direct Marketing Association and the US Postal Service are in cahoots to support direct mail as a viable marketing tool.  Hmmmm.  Could that be because the Postal Service stands to lose 54% of its mail volume (and revenue) if marketers stopped using direct mail?  Even though, according to this same Newsweek article, a whopping 89% of US consumers polled said they would prefer not the get any direct mail?

Double hmmmmm.

Now don’t get me wrong — we strongly believe in direct marketing, and would gladly counsel our existing and future clients about the myriad ways to target potential customers through very specific, direct marketing approaches.  There are so many creative and unique ways to reach consumers today online, through email and social media, and even in non-traditional methods such as out-of-home and guerrilla marketing.  We employ all these techniques for clients with great success, and none of them require us to mail countless pieces of paper out through the world — with a 1-2% CHANCE OF MAKING ANY KIND OF IMPACT.  IF WE’RE LUCKY!

That doesn’t sound like a great rate of return to me, leaving all the green positioning aside.

Here’s a couple of examples to illustrate my point.

This is a photo of the direct (or should I say  “junk”?) mail I accumulated at my home over one average week, weighing in at more than 9 lbs 5 oz:

At the office, we all saved our junk mail for a week and accumulated another 14 lbs 10 oz of crap.  All so we could just throw it into the recycling container to start this vicious cycle all over again.

Here is a photo of what our office of 21 people accumulated during that same week:

Now, you tell me.  Can we as marketers really continue to advocate a dinosaur marketing tool when there are plenty of other successful methods to reach the consumer without all this waste of resources?  Having said all that, we will still use the mail to reach our clients’ customers if that is clearly the best method — and there are a lot of variables that make that scenario work best.  Start with a clean mailing list of people who have signaled their desire to receive information from your source.  Then, the piece must be compelling, well-designed and meaningful to the target audience.  And let’s not forget our responsibility to the environment –if you are going to mail something to the masses, and least make sure it is printed on recycled or FSC certified paper.

I’m sure I will hear from the Direct Marketing Police on this one….