If you’re thinking snail mail is passe as a marketing tool, especially when targeting millennials, consider this observation from Marketing Profs:
Even though kids live in a digital-online-wireless world of iPods, laptops, mobile phones, text messages and downloadable media, his daughters’ enthusiasm for the low-tech approach of direct mail is not unusual. According to Gronbach, Generation Y customers—who will number 100 million by 2010—watch little broadcast television, don’t read newspapers and rarely listen to broadcast radio. It’s a good thing for marketers, therefore, that they respond so well to this tried-and-true channel.
Quoting Kenneth W. Gronbach, author of the book The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm, Marketing Profs adds: Generation Y loves direct snail mail.
—————-
Now playing: John Mellencamp – A Ride Back Home
via FoxyTunes
Andy writes! 
I read this and thought of a student of mine who said he received letters from his grandmother and read them over and over because they were on paper and seemed much more personal than emails, facebook, etc.
To me, the real secret is sending them to a website where there’s something interesting or free. They may be excited with paper but they need their electronic fix. That’s their world.
I love MarketingProfs :-)
I feel like higher ed likes to take all-or-nothing extremes. If kids respond to electronic marketing, that means that traditional methods are death! The real key, as I’m sure most people reading this blog get, is that its all about integration.
Dennis – “[T]hey need their electronic fix.” Interesting point. (Don’t we all need our e-fix these days?)
Karlyn – Your comment about all-or-nothing extremes is spot on. We go round and round on our campus with discussions about that. As you said, the key is getting the right mix. (And I’m responding to this comment because after reading your 6 months post I felt guilty for not replying to comments. Good job. You struck a responsive chord: motivation-via-guilt.)
Direct mail rocks. Especially targeted DMs that you send out to communities. It’s still one of the most fun ways for brands to reach out to its customers. Sure, we hardly ever write letters anymore, but we’ll always be opening envelopes, no?