Direct Mail and Branding

I graduated from the school of thought that any form of marketing communication (and even non-marketing communication) between you and your target publics is an exercise in branding. After all, your brand is comprised of the thoughts, messages and images that people store in their head and pull out when they think of your company.

But what about direct response marketing? I just came across an interesting opinion piece in the Sept. 2005 issue of Deliver Magazine (focuses on direct mail marketing). The author, Robert W. Bly, said:

Direct response copywriters...have a responsibility to do one thing and one thing only: to maximize return on investment (ROI) from every promotion they write. Direct response isn't a branding tool...Whenever copywriters subordinate ROI to worrying about the impact their work has on the brand -- or anything else -- they compromise the ability of a promotion to maximize response.

I went back to a previous issue (July 2005) for an opinion written by Steve Cuno, who held a contrarian view:

...markets respond to strong brands...though brand perception is not its primary calling, direct marketing leaves an impression among far more people than those who respond. While we might throw wild parties to commemorate a 4 percent response, non-respondents -- the other 96 percent -- also receive an impression about the brand.

I'm not an expert at direct marketing, but I suspect the truth lies in the middle: people respond to recognized brands, so leverage them in your direct mail, but focus your copy on getting the highest response rate from your audience.