Direct mail isn’t just for pushing offers anymore. It can also help along your branding efforts.

I’m not a direct marketer by any stretch of the imagination and, to be honest, despite my immense respect for the industry, I can’t say I’ve ever completely understood it. Of course, I can’t say I feel any closer connections to the ephemeral, esoteric and ambiguous brand-marketing industry either these days.

Perhaps that’s part of the problem. Two industries on opposite ends of the spectrum, and with extreme and arguably mutually exclusive traits, become very hard to unify. Whereas brand marketing is all about vague and conceptual storytelling, direct marketing is head-down, no-nonsense, nuts and bolts. Whereas brand marketing suffers from a desperate need for a reality check, direct marketing has a distinctly cold and lifeless demeanor. Could direct mail bridge that gap? Yes. Despite what we may think, direct has potential in terms of both response and branding.

I’ve always looked at brand marketing as at best a conversation starter and at worst an uninvited intruder, sticking its foot in the doors to our lives, homes and attention spans. In a largely analog space, brand marketing is a constant barrage of push communication, with limited interactivity, utility and fulfillment.

That’s where direct mail comes in. Isn’t this the perfect opportunity to pass the baton to an inherently more efficient, data-driven process, one that intimately understands how to qualify and convert interest and intent?

On the flip side, direct mail suffers from its own problems, not the least of which is the same one-way approach to customer communications. Seems that the industry is so focused on acquisition that it loses perspective of the soft sell that it takes to prep a customer to buy.

What if both industries came together, partnered up to meet their leads halfway? It’s the kind of integration that is so sorely lacking in the marketplace today. Instead of connecting the dots between various touch points, we just attempt to make sure that the direct mailer has the same color coordination as the glossy print or flashy 30-second spots.

But why not try another approach? Why not put the “prospect” in the driver’s seat to unify two industries that, up until now, either cancelled each other out or went their separate ways on parallel, not intersecting, paths?

Indeed, when explicit consumer permission is involved, a “lead’ or “prospect” is likely no longer a faceless statistic or number — but an engaged and valuable customer.

Joseph Jaffe is president and chief interruptor of crayon, an advisory group. He is also author of the recently published Join the Conversation.