Direct Mail Trade Shows & Telemarketing are Dead

You heard it here first, folks. They are truly and totally dead.

I used to think of these old school mediums as backup plans. Maybe if I couldn’t get a client traffic from the web, or the web wasn’t as effective as first hoped, there was always plan B. Plan B could easily be executed by leveraging old media (Print, Radio, TV, Direct Mail, Telephone) to drive traffic to the website.

Obviously the website should always be that main goal as it has a much more affordable maintenance plan behind it. If you think about it, in man cycles (man hours for layman’s terms), a call center, an office and even TV and radio take more human hours than say.. email marketing or blogging or any other medium.

Today,  A report was released (with so many insights I can’t share them all here…) revealing the most surprising facts you’ll ever hear. Remember, sign up to our newsletter if you wanna catch an eye of this stuff.

(C) HubSpot 2010 - I borrowed this without permission so here's a link to the full report that includes their opt-in (hope that makes them happy)

It’s beginning to be more obvious that these old school methods of marketing and peddling a product or service are going to die a slow and painful death as those 50 some aged folks who can’t let go of things slowly realize these are disappearing and can’t do anything about it.

It costs MORE to execute direct mail and telemarketing and other such strategies than it does to market them on the web. But that’s not the only issue here.

Inbound Vs Outbound Marketing.

Outbound… Beg the customer… Phone them, knock on their door.. Mail them something, drag them through a trade show and yell at them… Old school.

Inbound… Customer searches the web for something and YOU jump in front of them already knowing what they need and provide it! You jump into the conversation when they’re actually thinking, talking and interacting ABOUT your product… New School!

Other game changing and interesting revelations…

• 434% more indexed pages for companies that blog
• 97% more inbound links for companies that blog
• 55% more website visitors
• 30% more sales when blogging at least once a day
• Company blog & twitter are two top best recommendations

Anyway, they include 50+ Charts in this eyeball popping report. I strongly advise you read it. This isn’t a suggestion…

Daniel J Deyette