{"id":240736,"date":"2025-05-14T03:44:38","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T03:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/analytics\/direct-response-vs-brand-pendulum\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T03:44:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T03:44:38","slug":"direct-response-vs-brand-pendulum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=240736","title":{"rendered":"Direct Response vs. Brand Pendulum"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Here’s USPS marketing mail volume since the fiscal year ending September 2008:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Aside … when people tell you that #printisback, they fail to realize that every year the USPS publishes facts saying that marketing mail volume is contracting. The facts, publicly shared by the USPS, suggest otherwise.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

When a marketing channel dies, costs within the channel disconnect with the reality of the marketing channel. Post-COVID, that is the reality of print … paper \/ printing \/ postage costs escalate, while the effectiveness of the channel erodes. This causes those who use the channel to spend less, which causes service providers to charge more. If you believe this story doesn’t end well, trust your instincts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those of you paying more for clicks in paid search and paid social … pay attention to how this story plays out … your destiny is connected.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember your homework assignment<\/a>?<\/span><\/p>\n

In some ways, it feels like an era is ending in ecommerce. Now, ecommerce is thriving, don’t get me wrong. But an era is ending. The “direct response” era is ending. Is it “ending ending”? No. But it is ending.<\/span><\/p>\n

Think about ecommerce as a pendulum. On one side is Direct Response. On the other side is Brand Marketing. Neither side gets along. Both sides serve a very different purpose. You don’t leverage Direct Response marketing to get a customer to buy a Toyota Highlander. You can leverage Brand Marketing to get a customer to purchase Griot’s Garage Speed Shine<\/a>, though Direct Response is likely more appropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n

The importance of Brand Marketing becomes painfully apparent when a Direct Response channel either becomes too expensive, unresponsive, or both. All of which is happening in 2025 … paid search and paid social yield expensive clicks that are less responsive than they used to be. Marketplaces are a logical outcome of expensive clicks … the Direct Response marketer leverages “somebody else’s” traffic from a Marketplace to overcome expensive clicks … paying a fixed percentage for each order instead of a variable cost for each click. Marketplaces are death, of course … do you really want to be known as a supplier for Amazon or “that Etsy person with the cute stuff?”<\/span><\/p>\n

Marketplaces are the digital version of a Mall.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We all know what happened to Malls.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your homework assignment should lead you to a realization.<\/span><\/p>\n