Yahoo! and Direct Mail

Omni received a direct mail piece from Yahoo! Search Marketing recently.  It’s a pretty slick piece encouraging advertising agencies to sign up and use Yahoo! and their team of experts for online marketing strategies.  The fun part is the push-button included in the piece that delivers the Yahoo! jingle, you know the yodel “YAHOOOOOOOO”.  My co-workers love it when I continue to push the Yahoo button and that annoying, LOUD yodel reverberates through the entire workspace for all to hear (I can’t help myself, it’s too fun!).  I found it interesting to see new media (Yahoo!) utilizing traditional media (direct mail) to promote their services from business to business.  Even Yahoo! knows that traditional media is not dead, as many internet marketers would like to claim, but is still a viable option to reach the target audience. 

I also know that both traditional and newer media can be effective in communicating our clients’ messages, and we work to develop strategies using all different kinds and combinations of media that will be effective based on the marketing goals, target audience and client budget.   The only fault I find with this Yahoo! direct mailing is that we already utilize Yahoo! Search Marketing.  This direct mail piece probably cost quite a bit to produce and mail, and Omni already knows the potential and benefits of search engine marketing as part of an overall campaign strategy.  So maybe a little bit of Yahoo’s direct mail budget was wasted?