David Baldaro Weblog

A couple of things caught my eye over the past week; one was a report from Forrester and another was a survey that came from InfoPrint Solutions. Both combined made me ask the question, “Are marketers all running in the wrong direction?”.

The report from Forresters (Click here for report) shows the dramatic shift away from traditional marketing spend onto new interactive media; things like search, display, email, social and mobile marketing. In summary an increase from $20 billion to over $55 billion over the next few years. And where is this new spend coming from? Certainly not from an increase marketing budget – but instead by reducing the spend in other areas.

When surveyed 60% of marketers said that they would be reducing their budget away from traditional marketing. 40% would be cutting direct mail spend, 35% would be cutting newspapers spend and 28% would be cutting magazine spend.

This is a huge swing away from traditional printed media – and in some ways my doorstep will feel better for it.

However, would I be happy to have the amount of direct mail reduced only to see a dramatic increase in junk that is coming through to me via email, mobile and online medias? I do not think so.

It seems like marketers and organisations alike are desperately moving away from traditional medias because they are expensive and not cost effective – whereas online is cheaper and has potentially better results. However I come back to ‘me’, the customer – what would I prefer?

In contrast  within the Infoprint survey (Click here for the report) 50% of respondents stated that they would prefer to receive marketing information about new products or services via traditional mail rather than email. Three out of four respondents said that they would consider opting for traditional mail it they were informed it had less of a negative environmental impact than email.

This is interesting – given the choice many consumers would still prefer traditional mail opposed to email. I think that given the choice of highly relevant and personalised marketing – even more people would prefer traditional print than digital communications.

So if that is the case – are marketers running the wrong way with their marketing budgets. Shouldn’t they stop and take stock of WHAT they are actually sending out via traditional means and then revaluate how they can develop a more targeted conversation with that customer; opposed to flooding them with expensive and wasteful direct mail?

Sure, increase the spend on interactive medias – but don’t just do it at the expense of traditional mail because it’s expensive and unfriendly. A targeted, relevant and timely personalised piece through my door using recycled paper will beat a thousand emails and text messages!

What do you think – let me know – and take the poll. Would you prefer paper, or digital media if it were personalised? Take the poll here or click on the answer below.