Digital marketing reinvigorates the traditional door drop
Some marketing professionals continue to overlook the strengths of door drops in the marketing mix, swayed by negative stereotypes of the media. But are they missing a trick?
In fact, door drops have a number of key strengths, some of which are unique to the media – such as the power to deliver a tangible piece of marketing material into the hands of consumers in the place where it is normally most relevant to them, the home.
Plus, the effectiveness of door drops is increasingly measurable, with the advent of digital media.
Recent DMA figures suggest the door drop market grew marginally in 2010 having suffered five years of continual decline. But why has the channel shown signs of revival, and how do door drops fit with the latest online technologies?
Chris Roxburgh, managing director of Link Direct argues that Door Drop is its own key marketing channel – “It is still the only media channel that has the versatility to deliver the mass market or exactly what you want to a targeted market”. Graham Dodd, managing director of the Letterbox Consultancy, agrees “It works efficiently in isolation or in combination with other media”.
Others see door drop as a facilitator for sales, either driving people to the web or to the store. Andy Halliwell, managing director of The Leaflet Company (TLC), the largest specialist media agency in the door drop market, is emphatic: “It can be proved through econometric analysis that door drop is a media channel that helps drive sales through the online sales channel, therefore it is working as an advertising medium in its own right”.
Mark Davies, managing director at TNT Post (Doordrop Media), reports that his company has created a strategy and evaluation team “who demonstrate the value and the return on investment the door drop can provide for clients such as Sky, Hillarys Blinds and Tesco.”
Nor has the recession impacted on the perception of door drop as a channel in its own right. John Broughton, media planning director of RAPP, sees very little correlation between money spent by TV advertisers and a potential switch to door drop because of the desire to use lower cost media. He believes: “They operate in completely different ways.”
Roxburgh agrees, observing: “During past recessions, we have always benefitted from people moving away from TV/Press/Radio, but we’re not seeing it so much this time. The advent of social media (Facebook/Twitter etc) where some companies can ‘advertise free of charge’ is causing a detrimental effect to our business on a small scale; but it hasn’t been around for long enough yet to understand the long term effects, if any.”
Many believe that Royal Mail’s decision to lift the maximum number of items it can deliver within a week to each postcode sector from three items to six – effectively doubling capacity – has helped to grow the market in 2011 and release pent up demand.
Dodd sees this as a positive step. “It’s helped enormously in terms of being able to provide clients with short-term booking solutions, as clients leave commitment to spend ever later.” Alan Richards, distribution manager of G&H Sheet Fed, agrees: “It’s helped us because we had problems with availability – that’s improved now the cap has been lifted.”
Richards also feels the retail sector has boosted the market; his company’s business from this sector “increased this year by 5%.”
Halliwell agrees that retail has been a driver for growth and estimates that nearly 50% of all door drop literature is distributed in the UK on behalf of retailers.
This belief is supported by Nick Smith, head of large customer marketing at Royal Mail, who believes its policy of allowing later bookings nearer the drop date has encouraged more customers from the retail sector. Financial Services, previously major users of door drops, has declined since the 2008 banking crisis but another sector to show an increase in use is charities, he adds.
Davies, on the other hand, reports growth from the FMCG sector, due to both an increase in sampling activity from clients such as Kellogg’s and Nivea and a return to couponing in both traditional and digital formats driven.
Door drop also works well with new digital media. For example, Graham Dodd says: “We’ve regularly dropped leaflets solely designed to drive consumers online – for instance for ferry operators and days out attractions, who take online bookings, and to drive consumers to websites for fmcg companies and a wide range of retailers.”
Halliwell states categorically: “We can demonstrate, through standard direct and linear analyses and also regression based econometric analysis, that there is a discernible effect on online sales”.
And, as Nick Smith points out, Royal Mail has been at the forefront of introducing innovation into the market: “We have introduced new technology to simplify the journey from the printed page to the online world using developments such as digital watermarks, invisible QR codes that interact with consumers’ smart phones.”
But one of the key issues in the market is the ability for advertisers to measure response rates post campaign and therefore their return on investment. This has traditionally proved difficult for a number of reasons, not least of which is the lack of feedback from the main customers to their media providers.
There are a range of new methods for doing this, but potential users of door drops are not necessarily aware of these; and Smith sees this as an “opportunity” for Royal Mail, as the biggest distributor in the market, to take the lead and educate the market.
Mark Holloway, managing director of Leaflet Distribution Services, admits there is a lack of knowledge in the market as to all the methods available. “It’s very difficult to get information back from clients as they tend to be very protective and cautious about letting data out of house,” he explains.
Most respondents believe that the door drop model is changing, but they are not quite sure how it will evolve.
Mark Davies of TNT, however, issues a timely reminder that advertisers should not be seduced by the glamour of online and social media into forgetting the very real impact of traditional methods like door drop.
Davies says: “Right now, the marketing fraternity is, in some corners, quite single-mindedly focused on digital and particularly social media. But I don’t actually perceive consumers on the ground.” He argues that, as yet, there are not large numbers of people “who are actually living their whole life in the digital space and [who] cannot be influenced by tangible, relevant communications delivered to the home.”