Broker Roundtable: Popular Direct Mail Formats for 2011

Welcome to Broker Roundtable, where each week we ask list brokers to give their opinions on issues that matter to the marketing community. This week’s question: What direct mail package designs are going to be popular in 2011?

Our current panel includes Matt Kaiser of Veradata, Jeff Kobil of LDS Group, Herb Torgersen of Directinnovations and Kerry Tranfa of Infocus Marketing. Would you like to be considered to be a member of our roundtable? Contact Larry Riggs at [email protected].)

Matt Kaiser, executive vice president, Veradata
Package designs are interesting to me. Which designs will be popular are somewhat dependent upon the audience. Current personalization technology coupled with the amount of behavioral data available to marketers leads me to believe that cultural anthropologists will be the ones driving package designs in 2011 through 2012. Infinite variability with packages, even high end premiums which drive incredible response rates, is what I see gaining popularity. Traditional package designs still work, but as mailers slowly adopt the trends, those not standing out in the mailbox will be forced to make the leap, whether they want to or not. Highly personalized dimensional mail is something I think will take on a broader role in our industry in 2011.

Jeff Kobil, Co-CEO, LDS Group Inc.
Since we do a lot in the publishing area, we continue to see the voucher package as the main control with many paid circ publications. In addition, the magalog remains a strong package along with variations of sample issue offers. What we seem to be seeing more of is packages tied to specific list markets or packages where there might be segmented pricing.

Herb Torgersen, president, DirectInnovations Inc.
I have seen an increase in postcard mailings and a host of department stores using incentive mailings to drive traffic to their stores. Kohl’s is a perfect example of a national department store chain that effectively uses direct mail to get relevant and money saving offers into the hand of consumers. Cost is still an overriding factor for all direct marketers so I see us in some way going back to simplistic package designs.

Kerry Tranfa, senior consultant, Infocus Marketing:
In 2011 I think we are going to see a larger number of customers looking to do more email based campaigns. Now that there are more options in the association world for email marketing, old customers that have only used snail mail are open to testing email to expedite the process of getting information about their campaign in front of the recipient.