What printed channels are thriving in a COVID world?

2020 has proven to be one of the greatest obstacle courses of our lifetime. It’s been one hurdle after another with many sectors facing constant adversity, redundancies, store closures, reduced budgets, huge increases in demands for services such as charities, amongst a host of other services. In an ever changing landscape, it has proven extremely difficult for brands to plan their marketing campaigns but amongst all the grey clouds, direct mail and door drops have proven to be the real silver lining delivering some incredible results when businesses really needed them.

COVID really has changed our habits both in business and as consumers. A huge 41% of consumers when asked, said that lockdown has made them realise how important mail is to them. This figure has been recognised and mirrored by brands with an equal 41% sending out more mail to consumers.

Back in March when COVID first hit, the UK Government chose door drop as the preferred channel to deliver and amplify its message surrounding safety measures and local restrictions. There’s just no questioning it, direct mail and door drop are highly trusted channels when compared to social media and emails which are so often plagued with “fake” news.

The latest JICMAIL (Joint Industry Committee for Mail) data confirms just how well received printed channels have been when they released their Q2 findings. Direct mail interactions were up an impressive 16% compared to this time last year, but this was nothing compared to its chart topping neighbour, the door drop. In the UK market, door drop interaction increased by a whopping 45%. At a time when health was high on many of our agendas, direct mail saw the largest increase in the medical sector up 11% to 5.02 interactions on average. Just as important, the item reach also increased by 9% to 1.23 as respondents were sharing mail with others within the home. As an example, if the NHS mailed out 1,000,000 packs to individuals at the height of the pandemic, it would have in fact reached 1,230,000 individuals and generated over 5,000,000 impressions.

Beyond the Government and Health categories, interaction rates with mail have increased across almost all categories across lockdown:

• Telco DM average frequency increased by +21% as households turned to more entertainment
• There was a 23% increase for travel and tourism DM reflecting perhaps, the disruption to holiday plans
• And utility providers benefited from 14% rise in their average frequency

If your brand needs help accessing and understanding these incredible channels in more detail, our fantastic team are here and ready to support you on this journey. Contact us anytime on  info@thedragonflyagency.co.uk and together, we can explore how these channels can deliver for you.

Sources: Royal Mail MarketReach – Mail matters more than ever, JICMail Q2 2020 figures