Module 1: Direct mail and its place in the media landscape

• Understand the development of direct mail and its place in the history of marketing
• Identify the features that contribute to making direct mail uniquely powerful
• Appreciate the strengths of direct mail and the role it plays at different points in the customer journey

Module 2: Planning for direct mail

• Understand and evaluate your marketplace
• Develop a business case for direct mail
• Be able to set goals and formulate budgets

Module 3: Defining your customers

• Identify why targeting is central to the planning of your direct mail campaign
• Be able to pinpoint the right target audience for a given campaign
• Assess how to use audience information to refine a campaign

Module 4: Databases and lists

• Know how best to maintain your customer data in-house
• Identify what data you need to capture in order to communicate with your target audience
• Be able to select and buy quality/reputable external mailing list data

Module 5: Creative

• Develop an awareness of the formal approaches to generating good creative
• Understand the basic principles of good copywriting and design
• Be able to put together a creative brief and evaluate it

Module 6: Production

• Be aware of the key processes involved in the physical delivery of direct mail
• Understand the different formats and materials and what can successfully be mailed
• Identify what represents ‘quality’ in respect of direct mail
• Assess what is needed at each stage in the direct mail production process
• Be able to confidently brief stakeholders at each stage in the process and evaluate briefs produced by others

Module 7: Evaluating your campaign

• Identify the role of testing and analysis in developing direct mail
• Be aware of the basic principles involved in testing
• Understand the infrastructure requirements in developing a successful testing programme
• Identify basic benchmarking skills

Module 8: The law and social expectation

• How Direct Mail fits into the GDPR
• Mail’s GDPR advantage
• Direct Mail and cross-border campaigns
• Using Direct Mail and personal data
• Consent and Direct Mail
• Legitimate Interests and Direct Mail
• How to communicate Consent and Legitimate Interests
• Special categories of data and Direct Mail
• Using and selling lists – implications for Direct Mail

Module 9: Integration

• Assess the comparative strengths of a range of media
• Understand how to approach planning and buying as part of an integrated campaign

Module 10: Direct mail ‘Hall of Fame’

• Be aware of how some direct mail campaigns have achieved success
• Identify how various marketing tools and techniques are used to enhance direct mail campaigns and achieve positive response/sales
• Consider existing creative approaches that make direct mail a welcome and enjoyable experience for the recipient

Online

Royal Mail and the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing (IDM) announce the launch of The IDM Award in Direct Mail – the first-ever professional qualification in the UK focused solely on direct mail.

The course has been created in response to demand from brands for greater specialism in direct mail, both in their own marketing departments and in the agencies they employ.

The IDM has worked with Royal Mail, the UK’s third largest media owner, to create this professional qualification. The online course, which includes expert video content from industry experts including Royal Mail, equips marketing professionals and students with the skills required to produce and promote direct mail.

The course is made up of ten modules which encompass all the professional skills required for creating and executing direct mail. It will include the unique role of direct mail in the multichannel marketplace, how to plan a direct mail campaign from creative to production, as well as databases, lists and the law.

The IDM, as the only government approved institute for the professional development of direct and digital marketers, has recognised the current gap in UK’s marketing industry for skills specific to direct mail.

Jane Cave at The IDM, comments: “Clients tell us that there is a dearth of skill around direct mail in UK marketing industry. With university courses increasingly putting their primary focus on digital and emerging channels, it is no surprise that marketers are joining the industry with little or no exposure to mail as a marketing tool. Direct mail is uniquely placed to enhance digital multichannel campaigns and is returning as a vital communication channel, our course aims to ensure that the industry has the skills to exploit the opportunity.”

Jonathan Harman, Managing Director of Royal Mail MarketReach, said: “Within the digital-enabled media ecosystem, direct mail remains a unique communication channel for fusing together the personal and physical. To ensure that mail continues to deliver on its promises for consumers and advertisers, we are committed to providing mail users with support to help them get the best results possible from mail. We do that through our on-going research and insight programme and by directly up-skilling practitioners as we are doing through this course.”