JEDDAH, 31 August 2007 — Electronic communication — be it instant messaging or email — has become the benchmark of modern communication. What it gains is speed and mobility over traditional postal systems, however, it loses in one important area — the personal touch. This, say researchers in the direct-mail market, is a key element in developing a marketing relationship with existing or potential clients. Direct mail still has the advantage in quality and acceptance over the faster, but impersonal and ephemeral, electronic communications.
In Saudi Arabia, where direct mail is now developing, it will carry all its proven strengths with it. In addition to the “human touch”, direct mail has unique advantages other media cannot offer and has established itself as a unique medium for several distinct reasons.
People simply like to receive mail that is addressed to them on a piece of paper. It’s up close and it’s personal.
Direct-mail marketers like it because it is a proven, cost effective and measurable medium for businesses to market their products and services to their customers. Internationally, it has become and remains one of the most effective means of creating and maintaining customers. Through the post, mail is sent to a list of customers within the target market covering a narrowly defined given area or selected individuals who can be addressed by name. That makes it personal and the mailer has one-to-one contact with the prospective customer the minute your mail is read.
The combination of the human touch and accurately selectable customer groups which direct mailing embodies offers a valuable tool to direct-mailers in the developing Saudi Arabian market.
“Already we can see the advantages it has over other forms of communication,” said Yousef Hamidaddin, CEO of Direct Marketing Services (DMS), the leading direct marketing company in Saudi Arabia. “The field of marketing is maturing rapidly in Saudi, we see this first hand with the high demand from our clients for services such as direct mail.” He added that, providing solid support, the Saudi mail system was developing and expanding so that it could better serve the need of the community and growing market.
The element of personal interaction will feature strongly in the developing direct mail market of Saudi Arabia.
“In a society where face to face contact still holds a very important place in any business transaction, the relatively personal contact established through getting in touch with a prospect using his or her name on a letter or document should have far greater emotional weight than just another piece of spam from cyber-space,” said Dr. Mohammed Benten, president of Saudi Post.
Despite the advantages that electronic communications have in some areas, by its very nature it loses out in others. Automatically generated advertising directed by computer programmes — compared with the very physical pleasure of receiving an envelope containing a message directed personally to the recipient — are impersonal. Direct mailing embodies will carry even greater importance and firmly establish it as still the most effective way of delivering the marketing message.
Robert J. Muma, chairman of the US Envelope Manufacturers Association Foundation’s advisory council for the “Open for Business With a Personal Touch” public relations campaign, feels the envelope itself is the core element in developing the relationship with the customer. “It offers the security, privacy and the intimacy that maybe some of the other print vehicles don’t have.”