It’s my view that the online marketing community can gain much from traditional direct marketers. It’s also my view that direct marketers are being too slow to adopt online media. So for me at least, it’s always great to see any evidence of convergence between traditional direct marketing and online direct marketing.

Such convergence is evident in the Hitwise Analysts Blog which has been reporting the changing demographic profile of web users through MOSAIC - a traditional segmentation tool of direct mail marketers. And it shows up some interesting findings. Most notably, Heather Hopkins, Hitwise UK’s Director of Research, reports that ‘Symbols of Success’ and ‘Urban Intelligence’ are among the most active MOSAIC groups online.

Now anyone who’s sat in a meeting discussing MOSAIC targeting of any “ABC1″ product or service will be aware of the commercial attractiveness of both ‘Symbols of Success’ and ‘Urban Intelligence’. They are highly desirable from many marketing perspectives - affluent, confident, professional etc.

Because of their commercial attractiveness, these are also two of the most heavily mailed MOSAIC groups. If direct mail response rates are indeed falling (and it’s almost impossible to make an accurate generic comment about that, but intuitively, I’d agree), then direct mail marketers should start to see the web as an alternate route to some of their most treasured, but increasingly less responsive prospects.

Against this background, I wonder how many direct marketing agencies are brave enough to say, ‘these MOSAIC groups are some of the heaviest consumers of online media. Perhaps we should shift some budget out of direct mail and run some online media to reach them’. If they are not ready yet, the time will soon come.