The ONE marketing channel I’d use if you held a gun to my head and told me it has to work… (no – it’s NOT email!)

Next year will be 10 years since I started my lifting/bodybuilding journey.

And I have noticed something peculiar after dealing with supplement brands over that time…

It didn’t matter who… where… how big, small, domestic or foreign they were…

I have NEVER received something in the mail from them.

(Aside from orders, of course.)

Never have I received a Direct Mail about some kind of promotion they’re currently running… or anything really.

Which is a shame – because I believe Direct Mail is…

THE most powerful marketing channel.

Even though I’m an email supremacist through and through…

And I do believe email is the king of all ONLINE marketing channels…

…I simply can’t put it above Direct Mail.

Why?

Because most businesses – not just in THIS industry – have completely written off Direct Mail.

“Nobody uses that anymore.”

Yes, that’s PRECISELY all the more reason to use it – when the crowd abandons a channel because it’s „outdated“, that channel doesn’t become ineffective…

It becomes LESS competitive.

Your customers’ social feeds are chaotic… the digital ads they see are ignored through „banner blindness“… their inboxes are flooded…

(Albeit not as much as they should be because I have also seen – in the past 10 years – a sizeable chunk of supplement brands not emailing AT all…)

But their physical inbox?

It’s relatively quiet – mostly getting credit card, utility, medical bills and the likes…

Direct Mail has elements that NO digital channel can simply replicate – it occupies space in the physical realm… the real world…

It can sit on someone’s desk for a few days and be picked up during a quiet moment – free of distractions – and convert THEN…

As much as it pains me to say this…

Email simply can’t replicate that.

Emails usually convert either on the first view…

…or not at all.

(Yet another reason why I’m so adamant on emailing DAILY – Blind Spot #2 in my book.)

You simply can’t beat holding a handwritten letter from someone in your hand – no matter what digital platform comes out…

…it will never be beat.

(A good example of what goes through somebody’s head when you use Direct Mail properly… is in one of the previous emails I wrote: „Why so many smoking-hot, intelligent women end up with idiotic abusive a-holes…” I’ve put it on my Email Echoes page if you’re interested.)

„Urghh durrhhh, but Direct Mail isn’t scalable – I have 23,568 customers, how am I supposed to HANDWRITE 23,568 letters!1!1 Not to mention that it’s expensive, I pay no postage for emails.“

If that’s your line of thinking then I truly can’t help you – just put this email on the shelf for some later time when you’re off the skooma.

There are companies out there which provide letter-handwriting services

(So yes, you can send out your 23,568 letters out HANDWRITTEN.)

And if you get your economics around Direct Mail figured out…

It’s a money printer.

You’re reading this email RIGHT NOW…

…largely because I’ve FedEx-ed you a letter at one point.

A courier stopped by your place with a package one day… someone signed for it… you either acquired it yourself or it was forwarded to you… you put the package with the FedEx label on your desk… you opened it… you saw a white envelope with your name handwritten on the back of it… you opened the envelope to uncover a letter… you saw something attached to the top of the letter and began reading it… and so and so on.

Now you’re here today – subscribed to this newsletter, reading this email.

In short:

I’ve acquired EACH and EVERY single one of this newsletter’s subscribers via nothing but Direct Mail.

Not a dime spent on ads, no emails sent out, no relying on content…

(In fact, I deliberately go out of my way NOT to optimize any of my content and/or website pages – read this if you’re curious why.)

It’s MY primary acquisition method.

And after being deep into Direct Mail for quite some time now…

…I’d like to believe I hold a certain amount of authority on the subject of it.

So I’ll say this:

When something INTERESTING arrives in your customer’s mailbox – something that looks personal, substantial, relevant, worth opening – it gets held, it gets opened, and it gets attention.

(Emphasis on „interesting“ – Direct Mail is not a get-out-of-jail-free-card to send people blatant sales pitches… like most brands use email for.)

That’s the physics of scarcity working in your favour – which other supplement brand out there does something like that?