Another Toppled Bollard letter
I have now ventured into the second Toppled letter of the new season – having been told by colleagues that the last one was incomprehensible. Maybe this one makes a little more sense.
The headline is …
“We only do email marketing now – direct mail is so passe” (with an accent on the “e” but I can’t get that to work)
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Last week I attended a lunch time presentation at the Toppled Bollard on the future of the economy. Apparently it doesn’t have one. Everyone present had to say in a few words what he/she did for a living, so I said, “I get teachers to do what you want them to do”. One man at the event (a Mr Black) also said that his firm sold to teachers – so naturally I went and had a chat.
Black told me that he had stopped doing mailings to schools because direct mail was so passé. He told me I ought to wise up and join the 21st century and get into email.I told him that my company was so far ahead of the rest of the world when it came to email marketing that we had fallen off the edge and had to wait until it spun around so we could jump back on next time around. He gave me a strange look, but I can take such things in my stride
We researched the issue in a telephone survey in March,” I added, and we found a very high number of schools prefer all correspondence in the post. In fact 80% of schools still correspond with pupils’ parents via letter rather than email
“I agree it is vital to stay in touch with teachers and develop a relationship,” I said. “Email can be great, but not every teacher can be reached in this way, and that’s why the number of customers you get can via email can be modest. Each mailing might only cost you a penny a school – but that’s no much comfort if you only get a handful of sales.
“But it’s so cheap,” he said, “and so post-modern.”
“Ideally you should do both email and shared mail,” I said, “but if you have to do one, I’d stay with a shared mailing. It can be as low price as email, but with much higher response rates.”
He made a noise rather like a tone deaf goat humming the Marseillaise, and wandered off to talk to a couple of bankers on the far side of the room.
Tony Attwood
PS: Over the long term shared mail is an ideal way of keeping up interest, and encouraging people to buy from you for the first time – and it has the benefit of reaching teachers from as little as 4p each.
See www.shared.org.uk for more details or give us a call on 01536 399 000.
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