Direct mail: a premature obituary

In the UK direct mail volumes have been dropping, but in 2006 the medium still accounted for 12.2% of advertising spend.

Direct mail: a premature obituary

Drayton Bird

Recently, a writer in this journal (1) suggested that direct mail is about to fade away and be replaced by email. How likely is this?

Well, as Sam Goldwyn observed in one of his better lines, 'Predictions are difficult – especially about the future', but this does not diminish the enthusiasm with which people keep trotting them out.

VESTED INTEREST

Moreover, as all good marketers know, human beings tend to believe what they want to believe, so such predictions often come from people with a vested interest in their coming true.

For example,...

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