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.

My understanding is that 3 different printed direct mailers went out; new for new customers, one lapsed customers and one for current customers – all that carried personalised content and personalised images – and all driving customers to their personalised websites. All nicely timed for the start of the new season.

The cool bit for me is that on the site http://www.skybet.com/dream/ there’s a great tool for delivering online personalised UK football fixtures. The generic landing page, collects details about you and your club, along with a shirt number and then presents you back your own personalised RURL which not only contains the club fixtures of your chosen club but also a personalised image of your shirt. This is done quickly and with great effect.

What is also very nice is that they haven’t stopped there – Alphagraphics and Sky have also implemented a viral element to the campaign which is integrated into the primary campaign. If you click on refer-a-friend you are asked for a friends details and their email address. Again a personalised email is created, incorporating a personalised image and sent to the recipient.

It would’ve been outstanding if the refer-a-friend element of the campaign was directly linked to the original landing page – so that it knew that I was referring a friend; and therefore not asking me to re-enter my own details. However it still works beautifully.

I am hoping that we can get some ROI figures from the campaign; which may be hard from an organisation like SKy – but talking to the folks at Alphagraphics North East the campaign has been a success; driving uptake of people to the site, and delivering results to sky. I believe that I heard, “a 50% increase on respondents” in there somewhere!

All in all a great high-profile campaign using XMPie to create dynamic Direct Mail as well highly personalised and creative web sites with on demand content and images – and with a viral element as well. What is great to see is that all the pieces are connected, in the same style and working together to drive customers. Good going Alphagraphics!

One whitepaper that caught my attention was one entitled, “Understanding Direct Mail Impact and ROI” and contains some interesting facts and figures as well as some common sense approach to implementing successful direct mail and integrated campaigns.

Marketers can expect a return of $43.52, $22.75 and $19.97 respectively, for every dollar spent on email marketing, direct mail and internet marketing.

It’s certainly worth a read and acts as a good reference to those still debating whether or not to take the drive into using direct mail in more effective ways; as well as providing compelling evidence to service providers about the potential from embracing this technology as soon as possible.

Other whitepapers available at the same location

• Best Practices for Effective Email Design
• The Bond Between Email & Direct Mail for Lead Generation
• The Power of Web-to-print Portals