Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Consider this Post a New Year's Resolution...

Who better to motivate me back to blogging than this recent post on Flipping the Funnel by Seth Godin.

I won't comment on the concept other than to say just read the ebook because anything I add will dumb it down. What I will do is call out Godin on his initial comments that "direct mail is dying".

I will be the first to admit my sensitivity lies with the fact that I am fully entrenched in the industry and have been working in direct response marketing since graduating college nearly 10 years ago. Sure, the statistics don't lie but I think he should have said, "direct mail as we know it is dying".

I'm not asking for much...just three extra words!

No question rising paper and postage costs are making mail less economical but I would argue that at least part of what is driving declines in response rate is increased competition in the mailbox. An earlier post in my blog regarding the boom in non-profits is just one example.

The USPS isn't going anywhere and neither is direct mail...that's not to say direct mail as we know won't or shouldn't change dramatically in the years to come!

C'mon Seth!