Two recent news items combined to present a bleak outlook for those in the direct mail industry. First, the U.S. Postal Service announced that, pending approval, the price of first class postage will rise by 3 cents, to 37 cents, as early as June 30. Secondly, a study by GartnerG2, a research arm of the consulting firm, Gartner, Inc., concluded emphatically that "direct mail is on the decline," quoting the enormous rise in e-mail advertising revenue (from $948 million in 2001 to $1.26 billion in 2002).

For marketers in the trenches, these trends pose important questions, namely: given the (growing) cost advantage of electronic media, does it make sense to consider direct mail as an ongoing part of your marketing mix?

The answer is less black-and-white than you might assume. Marketers would do well to consider two basic questions before deciding to go "cold turkey" on direct mail strategies:

1. Is my target audience one that can readily be reached online?

Direct mail lists have one distinct advantage: they enable you to "drill down" with much more specificity than is currently possible with most e-mail lists. That's not an issue for some companies, but if you're targeting a particular B2B niche or narrow consumer demographic, the relative effectiveness of direct mail is likely to be increased substantially. (Note: just because individuals in your target audience are likely to have e-mail addresses, don't assume they're automatically an appropriate target for an e-mail campaign. Fortune 1000 executives are almost all online, but try finding a quality, opt-in e-mail list that enables you to target this group with any precision or reliability.)

2. Is the universe of qualified, opt-in e-mail addresses that meet my criteria sufficient to drive my entire marketing plan?

Here again, the more narrow your audience, the more likely direct mail will play a role in your marketing mix. Though the overall universe of opt-in e-mail names is growing, companies often need to integrate direct mail with electronic media simply because there isn't (yet) the "critical mass" of either e-mail names or e-mail publications sufficient for them to meet their overall marketing objectives.

In sum, marketers would do well to take advantage of all options open to them, mix-and-match as necessary, and continue to choose those tools and strategies that provide the best fit for their specific audience.