Junk 'mail' - nuisance or opportunity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Junk 'mail' - nuisance or opportunity - Essay Example For example, it would not make sense to send direct mailings in a mass strategy when there is only a fraction of the population with the cash resources to buy your product. At the leadership level, direct mail can be a disadvantage if the business does not have a well-trained and knowledgeable marketing staff able to ensure the information is targeted correctly. A recent study identified that many consumers would not even bother to open a piece of direct mail if they noticed an obvious mistake (McLuhan, 2008). This would require the company to closely monitor issues of editing and content when developing the direct mail literature. Sometimes these are sent out to third party printers, which make error correction and checking prior to mailing very important. Even in the electronic mail environment, if the information has grammatical errors it can be a serious disadvantage to company reputation. This is especially true considering that three quarters of all consumers surveyed said they would not even open the junk mail. There are advantages to junk mail, however, including growth in sales coming from catalogues. â€Å"The catalogue is seen as something of a renaissance marketing tool† which generated sales of over  £3.6 billion in 2004 (Marketing Week, 2005, p.37). This means that there are consumers who are attracted by the look and pictures of catalogues or they simply find them to be convenient methods to order merchandise. For the older consumer who might be intimidated by the online environment, catalogues sent to this group will likely have more sales results. Growth in the Internet across the world continues to climb as nations become more developed and have better electronic infrastructures. With more people online, this represents more marketing opportunity to reach more audiences and find more sales growth. Even