3. Direct mail is a more forgiving medium
“The direct mail piece has a much longer shelf life, for it may still be getting a significant response several weeks later,” comments Michael Bloom, vice president of direct marketing operations for Datran Media. “With e-mail, that is not the case. It’s not terrestrial; you can’t put it on the shelf; you can’t take it with you.” E-mail can quickly get buried in an e-mail folder to never resurface, be sent to the junk dungeon or make an impression that’s fleeting at best. That’s why it’s a worthwhile test to follow up a direct mail contact with an e-mail effort to capitalize on latent interest.