Recently I was talking with a customer regarding an upcoming project. The project was fairly tight in scope, a financial services product targeted to 55+ demographic. After talking over a couple of integrated marketing concepts for the project, it was concluded that direct mail would be a good course of action with Telephone based follow-up.
And certainly it is! However, by thinking outside the box I may be able to add more value to this campaign.
Consider this, an estimated 100 million people will be hip locked to digital communications and their personal device by the year 2020. How does this shape our decision? Marketers need to be sure that utilizing only analog channels, even one as great as direct mail, is our best action. Taking note of this, recent research shows that *38% of U.S. adults age 65 and older go online.
Looking in the review mirror is easy. But it certainly seems that with valuable information like this, an integrated marketing solution could have leveraged our investment in direct mail, allowing all channels to work as a team on the field and not as an individual touch points as in our case of direct mail and phone follow up.
My conclusion:
Why not extend our marketing reach and touch points to allow easier access to our offers, products and services? I think we missed the mark by not applying the tools we have to extend our reach into each segment and related segment we have.
*According to PEW Internet and American Life Project
Four in ten seniors go online
By Susannah Fox
Jan 13, 2010