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How do recipients perceive direct mail ads?
The most important aspect of a successful direct mail campaign is obviously postal address verification. After all, if a company's mailers aren't getting to the right people, there's no chance the initiative will bring in more business. However, other factors play a role in how a marketing initiative will perform. Was there enough lead time for people to act? Was the deal targeted to the right demographic? Was the ad in color or black and white?
Surprisingly enough, new research shows that whether marketing materials are colorful or not plays a role in the customer decision-making process. This has significant repercussions for companies that regularly engage in direct mail campaigns, as the right choice could help them see unprecedented success from a certain postcard or mailer.
What's the right choice - color or black and white?
Research from Ohio State University reveals that while black and white pictures allow our brains to see the full picture, color images lead us to focus on small details instead of major factors like price and reliability.
The study asked participants to pretend they were going on a camping trip on which they would have access to one radio station. They were given two choices for radios they could rent upon reaching their destination. One was a $10 per day analog model, and the other was an $18 per day digital model with lots of preset stations.
Three-quarters of participants who saw the black and white ad chose the cheaper analog radio. In contrast, 50 percent who saw the color image of the two radios opted for the digital version, even though its features wouldn't work in their location and it was more expensive.
"50 percent of people who saw a colored ad chose the more expensive item."
Study author and assistant professor of marketing at Ohio State, Xiaoyan Deng, noted that while color brings out details, black and white makes people focus on the "big picture" without any distractions.
"Color drew their focus away from the most important features to the less important features, and their choice shifted to the more expensive radio," Deng said. "I think that's surprising - that just by manipulating whether the product presentation is in color or black and white, we can affect people's choice."
Depending on if a brand wants to highlight the small details that set its product or service apart, or its overall details that make it a good buy, color or black and white ads can have a huge impact on whether or not consumers take action.
Another instance in which black and white may be superior to color is for companies that sell products or services that will be used at a later date. Deng noted that people tend to think of the future in black and white, rather than colorful hues, so direct mailers promoting insurance or retirement planning services could be better suited to neutrals, rather than rainbow tones.
To get the most out of a direct mail campaign, companies need to consider what they want prospective customers to focus in on, and use that as guidance for what type of design will be appropriate and attract the greatest number of responses.
