When attempting to promote products for your company, you, as a marketer, must decide which marketing strategy would be the best bet for your budget.  Especially in the current struggling economy, marketers need to figure out what will be the most successful and cost-effective option.

Sending out direct mail could be a very expensive option, especially in comparison to e-mail marketing.  All of the printing costs and shipping costs add up.  The question you must ask yourself is “Is it worth it?”  Does the return on investment outweigh the initial costs?  Also, the waste generated from direct mail does not make it the most environmentally-friendly option.  Although you can have your direct mail pieces printed on recycled paper with eco-friendly UV inks or renewable soy-based inks, there is no guarantee that the recipient will actually recycle the mail when they are finished.  There are benefits to direct  mail marketing campaigns.  They are able to gather a higher number of leads, compared to other marketing techniques.  They add a personal touch to your marketing campaign, and the recipients are much more likely to see a flyer or postcard, compared to an e-mail that can be deleted without even opening it.  A custom design CD/DVD mailer could attract more attention and the recipient might spend a longer amount of time looking at it.

E-mail marketing strategies are considerably cheaper than direct mail marketing campaigns, but they may not have as high of a return.  In fact, most e-mail service providers filter out junk or spam mail from being sent to the user’s inbox, and sometimes legitimate e-mail marketing subscriptions accidentally get flagged as spam mail.  There is a very small chance that the recipient will actually open and read the e-mail, even if they subscribed to the e-mail advertisements.  But if it does work, it can get out to a large number of people at little or no cost.

Both direct mail marketing strategies and e-mail marketing strategies have their advantages and disadvantages.  A campaign that has a mix of the two strategies could be very successful.  Direct mail pieces that are sent out should at least have a website on them that recipients could easily visit.  If there is no way that consumers could respond from the ease of their own home, without having to mail something back out, the response rate may not be very high.  This, in turn with e-mail marketing could increase your rate of response and online sales.