±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Clients
As Royal Mail controls 'the final mile', ie the actual delivery of a letter to a consumer's letter box, the assumption is that clients' only recourse is to use an alternative supplier for the other stages of the postal delivery chain.

But there are strong signs that the latest strikes could be a nail in the coffin for direct mail in the minds of users. British Telecom, the UK's second biggest spender on direct mail, had been "heavily focused on direct mail but now we realise there are many more ways to do direct response," says BT's retail marketing director Matthew Dearden.

"We use a lot of channels for direct response - the traditional channels of direct mail, door drops and inserts - and we also use TV for direct response and quite a lot of online - pay per click," Dearden says. "We're testing some other channels - we're testing some ads for our BT Vision TV service on music service Spotify. It's a mix of channels but all direct response."

Postal middlemen
Post-Switch.com claims it has seen a "three-fold increase in business" in the past three months.

"We identify the best rates and earn our commission every time there's a switch," says Jonathan DeCarteret, founder of Post-Switch.com. "We only put the argument for clients to move their budget across if there's a financial reason but now with the strikes there's a service level imperative to move as well."

OnePost's Graham Cooper denied his company was benefiting from the strikes. "We don't get extra fees – just extra phone calls from clients who need their post delivered," he said.

Door drops distributors
D2D distributors that rely on Royal Mail say they have seen "an immediate negative impact" as a result of the strikes. "We had some campaigns scheduled to go out in the Autumn and clients are waiting to see what happens but there has been an immediate negative impact," said Mark Davies, managing director of TNT Post Doordrop Media.

"If the worst comes to worst we are committed to continuity of service at the end of the day - and as we did with 2007 strikes we would provide some level of substitution if a client has already committed a campaign to print."

Couriers
Private sector competition to Royal Mail in the higher-margin parcel delivery market was already mushrooming before the current set of strikes. While not financially viable for direct mail, couriers are coming to the fore in the delivery of e-commerce generated parcels and packages.

A spokesperson for TNT Express told that it often sees an increase in demand when a postal strike occurs. "We always see a spike in demand in the one or two days before a Royal Mail strike," the spokesman told the newspaper. "This always lasts for the duration of the strike and then gradually falls away again when the strike comes to an end, but there is always a residual number of people that stay with us."

Home Delivery Network is understood to have been award one contract from Amazon, the Royal Mail's second-largest customer, for the crucial pre-Christmas period.

TNT Doordrop Media's Mark Davies sums up the pessimistic mood amongst response handling suppliers. "We will all be the losers if clients vote with their feet and go to other channels. For direct mail especially, the big risk is e-substitution."