INSIGHTS | Digital Marketing, Email Marketing

Does Direct Mail Marketing Still Work?

Remember Direct Mail? You Should…It Works!

A lot of marketing experts will tell you that the Age of Direct Mail marketing has come and gone.  Before the Internet took over all our lives, a huge sub-section of advertising was focused on designing brilliant mail pieces to send to prospective and existing customers, with a lot of time and effort spent on drilling down on demographic groups and Zip Codes to find that sweet spot of good response.

Then came email, and social media, and paid search and a lot of companies stopped mailing customers information.  Still, research shows that 63% of direct-to-consumer marketers still invest in Direct Mail programs.

Why? Because it works, that’s why.

On a basic level (and that’s where marketing works best), people like to get mail. You go to your mailbox, pull out the letters and flyers, take them back inside and sift through them. But you usually glance at, and sometimes read, almost everything you get. 

Direct Mail has an open rate of 90%.  Compare that to a typical email message: average open rate is 23%. For the rest, you hit that delete button.  That’s a significant difference, and it explains why Direct Mail marketing gets better response rates.

Here’s another explanation. American consumers are saturated with digital marketing messages. The average household gets a dozen or more email messages a day. Then they get more by reading their favorite social media platforms. Then they search for something on Google and get even more ad messages as a result of that search for days to come.

That’s why 42% of Internet users, ages 16 to 64, employ some kind of ad blocker on their browsers.  So, almost half the people you try to send an email message to will block it. Or their email providers will helpfully send that message to the Junk Mail or Promotions folder, sometimes never to be seen again!

But again, send them a colorful promotional piece in the snail mail, and 90 percent will look at it.  55% will respond. That’s an impressive number.

70% of consumers believe that Direct Mail is more personal than email. If a letter (or a promo piece) comes addressed to you, the response rate increases by 135%.

That’s why those 63% of companies are still investing in Direct Mail campaigns. Done properly, creatively and in conjunction with other advertising and promotional events, DM is still a winning part of your marketing mix.

We have plenty more statistics we can share with you about Direct Mail. Give us a call and let’s review your marketing mix and see if DM might be an element to add to your advertising program.