Is direct mail dead?
Dying?
How about alive and well, unlikely to die any time soon?
That's the reality, and here's an article in Target Marketing that shows why: Why Direct Mail Won't Die.
Here's what direct mail has over its nimble young competitors:
Research reveals comprehension is better when information is consumed in print. And there's more: millennials ... who today are in their 20s and 30s, prefer print.
Did you get that? Print is better at getting information into people's mind than other channels. That includes Millennials, the so-called digital natives.
Sure, the response rates of direct mail are trending down. But they're still orders of magnitude higher than digital channels.
(The thing that's hurting direct mail as an effective fundraising channel is the ever-rising cost. That's another issue, and is causing us to change the way we work with it.)
If you're serious about fundraising, you should be serious about direct mail.
Also read Direct Mail Will Outlive Us All at The Agitator.
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. 
