Happy Thanksgiving and best wishes for a profitable holiday season. The U.S. Postal Service is adding workers to handle an estimated 15 billion mail pieces over the holidays, a 10.5% increase from 2014. Hopefully, bulk mailers are prepped for the delivery rush, too, and have scheduled around mailing deadlines, starting with Dec. 8 for Priority Mail Express International and ending with Dec. 23 for Priority Mail Express. For a list of mailing deadlines, check out the recent Direct Marketing News magazine article: http://www.dmnews.com/postal/usps-prepares-to-deliver-15-billion-pieces-of-holiday-mail/article/452076/
David Kanter, President and CEO of AccuList, is a list brokerage and direct marketing expert. For more than 30 years, he has helped companies and nonprofit organizations achieve their marketing goals. With David's Direct Marketing Forum, he shares, and invites others to share, helpful direct-marketing industry news, trends, analyses, resources, and tips for success. Please read our Comment Policy.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Brand Marketers Are Ignoring Consumer Preferences
U.S. brand marketers model communications on a dictatorship rather than a democracy, consistently ignoring consumer preferences for channel and frequency, according to a recent study by MarketingSherpa. Indeed, the gap between consumer preference and marketer practice is often wide enough that many brands shouldn't be surprised at a profit-burning customer revolt. A useful infographic of research results, based on surveys of more than 2,000 consumers and 455 brand marketers, was recently created by Direct Marketing News magazine. Among the findings, although 54% of consumers say they prefer to receive promotions via print mail, only 19% of brand marketers send out print materials. Instead, 90% of marketers blast e-mails, even though only 60% of consumers say they want to get e-mail promos. And once they've chosen to woo consumers via e-mail, marketers time messages to suit themselves; 76% of companies base e-mail frequency on their own needs, even though only 24% of consumers want that brand-determined frequency. Of course, marketers are enticed by social media popularity, so 77% of those surveyed offer customers the opportunity to follow brands on social media. The problem is that only 20% of consumers want to receive company updates and promotions via social media. Similar overfishing of digital waters occurs with online ads, with 60% of marketers using online advertising, even though just 27% of consumers say they discover new products via online ads. For more details from the DM News infographic, go to http://www.dmnews.com/infographics/marketers-ignore-consumers-right-to-vote-infographic/article/453627/
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