I came across this report this morning, and found it interesting especially when thinking about all the time, money and resources companies are putting into their social media budgets to attract this exact audience.

- Steve

From: Epslion

North American Survey Results Show 2-1 and 3-1 Offline Preference Margin, Depending On Product

DALLAS, August 24, 2010 – Six years after the launch of Facebook, North American consumers in the valued 18-34 year-old demographic prefer by a wide margin to learn about marketing offers via postal mail and newspapers rather than online sources such as social media platforms, according to national survey research from ICOM, a division of Epsilon Targeting.

Additionally, the ICOM research shows that preferential attitudes about the trustworthiness of mail strengthened for consumer respondents in all age groups from 2008 to 2010.The 2010 study of 2569 U.S. households and 2209 Canadian households focused on consumer preferences in regard to the ever-expanding array of communications channels for the delivery of marketing information, offers and promotions. Responses came from consumers ranging in age from 18 to 55 and above.

By the numbers, here are some of the key results from ICOM’s 2010 study of North American consumers’ marketing communication channel preferences –

For household and health products, the preference among 18-34 year-olds for receiving marketing information from offline sources led by mail and newspapers is 2 to 3 times greater than online sources such as social media. Examples of consumer preferences for offline versus online are:

Travel was the exception, where 18-34 year-olds preferred online to offline information by a 42% to 35% margin, however, Insurance and Financial Services followed the overall trend, with the 18-34 age group preferring offline sources 43% to 21% and 44% to 19%, respectively.

The trust pendulum is swinging in the direction of mail for survey takers in all age brackets:

36% of US respondents in 2010 said information is more private if sent through the mail vs. email or online, up from 29% in 2008; corresponding responses in Canada were 38% and 35%

25% of US respondents in 2010 said a lot of online information can’t be trusted, up from 19% in 2008; corresponding responses in Canada were 28% and 24%

20% of US respondents in 2010 said they trust information received by mail more than online, up from 12% in 2008; corresponding responses in Canada were 25% and 18%.

For health information, consumers favor doctors and nurses (80% US, 83% Canada), but for general products they rank as most trustworthy friends and family (57% US, 52% Canada), newspapers (26% US, 26% Canada), company web sites (22% US, 20% Canada), television (20% US, 21% Canada) and brochures and flyers (18% US, 18% Canada). The numbers for social media sites, by comparison, were Facebook (8% US, 6% Canada), YouTube (7% US, 5% Canada) and Twitter (7% US, 5% Canada).

“A key takeaway from this research is that marketers targeting coveted 18-34 year olds who are tempted to invest solely in social media could be missing a significant portion of their audience,” said ICOM, a division of Epsilon Targeting Vice President Warren Storey.

“For example, a consumer goods company that relies heavily on a female audience, especially moms, could fall short of expectations if it uses only the social media channel,” Storey said. “Companies need to employ a multi-channel approach to gain maximum engagement with their customers.”

Other key findings from ICOM’s survey about channel preferences include the following:

45% of US men and 35% of Canadian men do not have any social media accounts, 36% of US women and 31% of Canadian women do not have any social media accounts

25% of respondents, US and Canadian, said they get more postal mail versus a year ago; 72% US and 66% Canadian said they get more email versus a year ago

In both the US and Canada, women are more likely than men to prefer addressed or unaddressed mail for many product categories, and men are more likely to prefer the Internet or email as a mode of receiving marketing information.

The factors driving consumers to certain channels – according to the ICOM research are trust, convenience, richness and relevance of information and environmental concerns.

“The finding that only 25% of respondents perceive they’re getting more postal mail compared to a year ago, while nearly three times that amount say they’re getting more email is telling, and signals to marketers there is an opportunity to gain key consumers’ attention and interest by using the direct mail channel,” Storey said.

“Overall, our research confirms the proliferation of channel choices but shows that a unique combination or balance of favored channels needs to be identified, and that combination likely includes direct mail and other offline options, despite the notion by some that offline is no longer effective,” he said.

More in-depth information about ICOM’s channel preference research is available in a report titled “Finding the Right Channel Combination: What Drives Channel Choice.” Click here to view this report.

I stumbled upon the following post this morning, written by the Ad Contrarian, it points out some very real facts that often times get omitted in the decision making process of marketing departments et al. While it doesn’t speak directly to Direct mail, it does in my opinion point to the fact that mail, while considered by some to be “old-school” is still quantifiable and viable.

enjoy -

steve

Top 10 Double-Secret Unknown Facts About Advertising

As all AdContras know, the marketing and advertising industries have been hijacked by web-addled digi-maniacs who don’t know a fact from a fart.

Those of us who like to operate our businesses on the basis of facts, not “buzz”‘ and baloney, are in an ongoing state of war with web marketing hustlers and their endless feedback loop of misleading information.

So, as a service to my loyal, long-suffering AdContras, I have put together the Top 10 Double-Secret Unknown Facts About Advertising. It is a little crib-sheet to help you fight the forces of ignorance and trendiness wherever you may find them.

Top 10 Double-Secret Unknown Facts About Advertising

1 ) 99.9% of people who are served an online display ad do not click on it.

2 ) TV viewership is now at its highest point ever.

3 ) 96% of all retail activity is done in a store. 4% is done on line.

4 ) DVR owners watch live TV 95% of the time. 5% of the time they watch recorded material.

5 ) 99% percent of all video viewing is done on a television. 1% is done on line.

6 ) The difference in purchasing behavior between people who use DVRs to skip ads and those who don’t: None.

7 ) Since the 1990s, click-through rates for banner ads have dropped 97.5%.

8 ) Since the introduction of TiVo, real time TV viewing has increased over 20%.

9 ) Baby boomers dominate 94% of all consumer packaged goods categories. 5% of advertising is aimed at them.

10 ) TV viewers are no more likely to leave the room during a commercial break than they are before or after the break.

If you would like to print a nice, clean copy of this list and pin it up on your boss’s wall, you can find it here.

Here are my sources:

1. DoubleClick, Benchmark Report, 2009

2. Nielsen Three Screen Report, Q1 2010

3. U.S. Department of Commerce, Q2 2010; Nielsen Three Screen Report, Q1 2010

4. Duke University, Do DVRs Influence Sales?

5. Nielsen Three Screen Report, Q1 2010

6. Duke University, Do DVRs Influence Sales?

7. Li, Hairong; Leckenby, John D. (2004). “Internet Advertising Formats and Effectiveness”. Center for Interactive Advertising. And DoubleClick, Benchmark Report, 2009

8. NielsenWire, Nov. 10, 2009

9. Marketing Daily,  July 22, 2010

10. Council for Research Excellence, May 10, 2010

(from Digital Nirvana)

By Michael Paladini, Director of Analytics, Wilde Agency

It’s no secret that all of us in marketing are under increasing pressure to show results. Every marketing effort and expense must be quantified and justified. However, sometimes the numbers aren’t what they seem. Higher response rates don’t always mean better results. Conversion rates don’t always tell the whole story. And average order value can be misleading. So how can you make sure your programs receive the credit they are due?

Let’s take two direct marketing campaigns in the same industry, selling the same kind of product or service, both with a target audience of 100,000 people. The first has a response rate of 1.2%, the second a response of 1.5%. The second one is better with the 1.5% response, right?

Not necessarily. Suppose the campaign is two-step. That means the initial responses are just leads that now must go through the sales process.

The 1,200 leads from the first campaign go into a process that converts a third of them to customers, while the 1,500 leads from the second see only a 20% conversion. So the first one produces 400 customers, while the second produces 300. Now the first campaign, the one wit the lower response rate, is in fact better because it delivered more qualified leads. Right?

Maybe not. The 400 customers had an average order value, or AOV, of only $400. But the 300 had an AOV of $600. So it looks like the first mailing generated only $160,000 in revenue (400 x $400), while the second generated $180,000 (300 x $600). Okay, so now we’ve got it. The second campaign is better after all!

Ah, let’s not be too hasty. Because it turns out that those 400 sales in fact encompassed 450 products or about 1.13 products per customer. In fact, it was each product that had an AOV of $400. Meanwhile, the 300 customers from our second campaign indeed represented only 300 sales. So we really got $180,000 from the first mailing after all (450 items x $400). It turns out that both campaigns are the same!

Or are they? Because we haven’t even discussed the profit margin on the products or services sold, downstream purchases, any effects of non-payment on some customers’ part, the impact of referrals, the relative cost of the original campaigns, and so on.

In the end, it’s not a matter of response rate, conversion rate, AOV, or any one metric alone. It’s about the metric that wraps them all together, ROI:what did we earn in profits, for what we spent.

You’ve surely heard the famous remark that only three things matter in real estate: location, location, location. Similarly, in direct response, the three most important metrics are ROI, ROIand ROI. Marketing’s ultimate goal should be to deliver as much revenue as profitably as possible. And that involves managing a host of mathematical interactions that we must manage from start to finish.