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Direct mail might be less common nowadays, but it's still a highly effective way to reach customers outside of digital marketing.
Today’s marketing channels are primarily digital, with email marketing and social media marketing growing in popularity because of their ease, reach and low cost. However, physical advertising can have a significant positive impact on your customers and bottom line.
Integrating direct mail marketing with your other marketing channels can provide your customers with a unique, personalized experience that helps your business stand out from the crowd. We’ll explore direct mail for business and share how you can create a successful, impactful direct mail campaign.
Direct mail marketing is any physical correspondence you send to customers via mail to gain their business. If you’re sending mail to customers, you should include the following details:
While it may seem that the entire world has gone digital, traditional mail still has a solid place in marketing. According to a 2020 MarketingCharts survey, direct mail can increase your return on investment (ROI) when combined with other marketing channels. Among survey respondents, 59% said that adding direct mail into a multichannel approach resulted in a good ROI. Another 7% said their ROI was very good.
The same was also true of target customer response rates. Among survey respondents, 69% said that adding direct mail resulted in a good response rate. Another 8% said their response rate was very good with direct mail marketing in the mix.
The direct mail marketing service Jet Mail has also reported that its customers continue to see high engagement rates. In its 2021 analysis of the direct mail marketing space, Jet Mail noted that some campaigns involving 2,500 mailers yielded a 30% response rate – 750 responses.
By comparison, according to GetResponse’s 2022 email marketing benchmarks, North American marketing email open and click-through rates are 23.53% and 3.86%. These numbers are certainly lower than 30%. Clearly, direct mail can still be valuable.
Direct mail marketing performs well for several reasons. Here are some key advantages to incorporating direct mail into your marketing strategy.
Direct mail provides numerous advantages, but you should also review its downsides before planning a campaign. Here are some disadvantages of adding a direct mail marketing campaign to your advertising budget.
Direct mail campaign prices depend on various factors, including the following.
Launching a direct mail marketing campaign is similar to the digital process; the only difference is the distribution method. Follow these seven steps to create your direct mail marketing campaign.
Consider what you want to achieve through your mail campaign. Do you want to generate more leads? Bring more traffic to your store or website? Tell customers about a new service or product? Having a clear goal at the beginning of your campaign makes it easier to make decisions later in the process.
For a campaign to be successful, ensure it will entice your audience to engage. Consider their needs and how your goal fits into those needs. How can you marry the two?
If you’ve sent out marketing campaigns before, you likely have analytics on your customer base that can provide information on your audience demographics, likes and dislikes, and behavior. Use this data to inform your campaign.
These are the two primary mailing list types to use in your direct mail campaigns.
Focus your efforts on your house list since those customers are already familiar with your brand; purchased lists can be of questionable quality.
Your CTA is crucial; it’s why determining your goal first is so essential. Tell the customer why you took the time to send them this piece of mail and what you want them to do with it.
A good CTA is attention-grabbing and memorable. Take your time crafting one, or consider using a copywriter to help.
Next, choose a format for your mailer. Direct mailers come in all shapes and sizes. Your budget and marketing goals will dictate the type of mailer you need for your campaign. Below are some of the standard mailer types.
When designing your mail, make your goal and CTA its focus. Don’t bury your CTA in busy graphics or too much text. Consider using a modern direct mail template system that makes it easy to move components around and customize your design.
Many businesses find mailing challenging; printing and sending large volumes of mail to hundreds (or thousands) of different addresses can be a logistical nightmare. Most businesses work directly with a direct mail processor, print and mail shop, or other direct mail solution to handle the direct mail campaign’s printing, postage and mailing.
Check out a few successful direct mail marketing campaigns to get inspired about your own direct mail efforts.
Source: Athens Business Group
To celebrate World Water Day, this company got creative and clever with its direct mail campaign in Belgium. To emphasize the importance of water, the mailers were a blank blue until recipients held them underwater to make the message appear.
Source: Ads of the World
In an effort to encourage large companies to conserve electricity and shut off their lights, Earth Hour sent yellow candles in boxes designed to look like buildings to CEOs and industry leaders. The act of pulling the candle out of the box signified turning off the lights.
Source: D&AD
To promote its new range of environmentally friendly e-bikes, Smart sent customers a helmet kit made from recycled cardboard for recipients to assemble themselves.
Source: Ads of the World
In a great example of knowing your brand, Hell Pizza sent out fortune cookies to their customers with a dark twist on the messages inside. Instead of optimistic fortunes, Hell Pizza included lines like decade-old expiration dates and joke calls for help.
There are many ways to succeed in direct mail marketing, since it’s an open-ended and creative space. However, here are a few tips on using direct mail for business to help ensure your campaigns’ success.
Direct mail arrives where your customers live or work. When they open their mailboxes, they’ll come face-to-face with what you’ve sent them. If your mailers look compelling and include clear information, you might find yourself in a great position to move customers down your sales funnel. With direct mail’s high potential, you have an excellent chance of success.
Max Freedman contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.