With the advent of e-mail marketing, direct mail began to lose some of its appeal for marketers. Maybe it’s because recipients became more likely to throw away paper marketing pieces. Maybe it’s simply because e-mail is cheaper and faster.

“I have done expensive and slick mailing pieces, targeted and pre-approved,” says CUES member Cynthia S. Breslin, VP/marketing at $439 million/40,000-member Florida Telco Credit Union, Jacksonville, Fla. “[I’d get] 10 responses out of 10,000 mailed. Another pre-approved mailing [got just] two responses out of 6,000. I’m sticking to e-mail marketing now because of the cost. People just aren’t paying any attention to snail mail now, and it goes right in the trash. Our e-mail, however, is doing great.”

But many credit unions still get their money’s worth out of direct mail. $488 million/52,000-member Alabama Telco Credit Union, Hoover, Ala., uses direct mail as an advertising channel to contact both prospects and current members.

“Recently, we actually did some focus groups of users and non-users and asked how people wanted to receive information about their current financial institution or another one that they are not currently with,” says VP/Marketing Stanton Davis. “Direct mail, surprisingly, ranked very high in that category.”

CUES member Brett T. Noll, CME, SVP/chief marketing officer at $1.6 billion/175,000-member Langley Federal Credit Union, Newport News, Va., admits that response rates for direct mail have decreased over the past decade. There’s a lot of advertising in the marketplace, he says, and it’s hard to get people’s attention no matter what medium you use. But for him, direct mail is a valuable tool in a larger arsenal.

“You can use direct mail by itself, and if you do that you’ll have a certain response rate,” he says. “However, if you use it in combination with some other forms of advertising, your response rate will be significantly increased. It often takes multiple impressions, or hits, in order for a person to take action. You can also convey a lot of information with direct mail, and that’s a strong benefit. You can provide the person with a lot of options in order to react and take action on whatever you’re trying to sell.”

The bottom line is direct mail won’t work for every credit union in every situation. But there are times when it can be extremely useful. Here, CU marketing professionals offer a few hints on getting the most out of the medium.