Why keep wasting money on traditional marketing?

Earlier today I was having a discussion with one of my colleagues at work about how you reach customers in today's market.  We got on the discussion as a tangent from my previously life at Comcast, one of the most set-in-stone, traditional "marketing" companies out there.  When I worked there, it was the same.  Each month send 2 direct mail pieces, run weekly newspaper ads, make radio spot, repeat next month.  The idea of a creative change was going from yellow to purple.  Or doing a letter instead of a postcard.  He thought there must be some information somewhere that indicates that this cycle must drive responses, or they wouldn't do it.  I contended that they did it because they didn't know any better and had money to burn.

I get that feeling with a lot of companies.  They have to do "marketing" so they just do what they've always done.  I remember times sitting in a room looking at the call results (direct mail had a different phone number than the general 800-number for tracking purposes), and having people be excited when the response rate neared 1%.  When 99% of pieces were discarded with no response, that was considered a success (as opposed to the failure when 99.7% are discarded).  Millions of dollars get thrown out, and wasted.  What's the point?  Today when I came home there was a mailbox full of mail.  How many pieces did I open? Zero.  Straight to the recycle bin.

The way consumers respond to information from companies and about products changes very rapidly, so companies need to be able to respond in a similar fashion.  Why does it make sense to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on newspaper advertising when most of the consumers have moved online (especially if you are a technology company that provides the access to go online!)?  Traditional "marketing" has been passed by (I keep putting marketing in quotes because in this case, it really is more advertising and less marketing).  Yes, there is still a place for television and radio spots, but they have to be different to keep me from skipping them with Tivo or changing the station.  Yes, there is still a place for direct mail, but it has to absolutely standout and be relevant to me.

Make sure that you consider how your customers learn about your products, and get ahead of the game.  Don't do the same old thing because you have the money and you don't know any other way.  Heck, if you can't think of a better way to spend your money than to have 99% of your direct mail pieces wind up in the garbage (and I can tell you that's tens of millions of dollars), why don't you start by giving some of it back to your customers?