How Effective is Direct Mail Marketing?

With so many modern marketing options available, you might wonder whether the old ways are still effective. The results are in: Direct mail still works. Here’s the proof.

Statistics on direct mail campaigns

According to Zipdo, direct mail marketing has:

1. A success rate of over 31%
2. An open rate of 80-90%
3. A great rep
   • 92% of consumers think it’s more effective than digital marketing
   • 73% of marketers think it’s an essential part of their strategy

These stats show direct mail can be effective, but incorporating direct mail with other marketing channels is key for successful marketing campaigns. Here’s our guide to creating a direct mail strategy for effective print marketing.

Direct mail marketing strategy

Your direct mail strategy depends on your objectives. Define it using the steps below.

Step 1: Define your goals

You first need to decide what the purpose of your campaign is. You may need to engage stakeholders to ensure these align with wider business goals.

Step 2: Study your customers

The more information you have about your customers, the better. Interviews, focus groups and surveys are a great way to find out what they want. Produce customer personas to maintain consistency throughout all campaigns.

Step 3: Review your market

As with your customers, you also need to assess competitors. Who’s doing what and how is it working?

Step 4: Get SMART

Looking back at your objectives from Step 1, you can create SMART goals. That’s specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Step 5: Develop your USP

To stand out amongst the sea of marketing your target audience receives, you need to clearly define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). How do you provide more value than your competitors? This should be something unique to your brand, and something your customers need.

Examples of USPs

Price point

Is your product or service more affordable?

Quality

Is your product/service better than others?

Niche

Is your brand designed with a specific customer in mind?

Values

Does your company give back to the community?

Step 6: Create a Plan

A content plan lets you steer your overall marketing strategy towards target audiences, making each piece more likely to reach potential customers.

We recommend starting with a 3-month calendar. You may only send your direct mail marketing 1 or 2 times a month, but planning gives you time to make sure each piece makes great use of your marketing dollars.

Your calendar should include:

Dates

One date for each draft, final edit and sending.

Copy

More on this below.

Images

Any images you use should be approved and royalty-free.

Call to Action

What is the reason for your direct mail campaigns?

Step 7: Write, edit and send

You may want to hire a good copywriter to make sure your message makes sense, can grab attention and drive prospects to take your call to action. If you do want to write it yourself, check out this article on writing effective direct mail marketing copy.

Your direct mail marketing copy should include the following:

Headline

Your headline does 80% of the work, so you should spend 80% of your time (and budget) getting it perfect.

Body copy

The copy for your direct mail

Offer

Direct mail offers are the call-to-action that prompts conversion.

You also need to clearly define your direct mail recipients. For the best results, you should try to segment your audience and target your content towards them. The best direct mailers do this by starting with in-depth customer research.

Step 8: Measure your impact

While direct mail marketing is an offline strategy, you should still measure its effectiveness online. Today’s digital world favours a varied marketing strategy, so combining digital media with print advertising gives you the best chance of reaching customers.

QR codes and personalised URLs let you track offline movements as part of your marketing strategies. Use insights from all your marketing to gain an in-depth overview of your target audience.

You can also use benchmarks from the direct mail industry to assess how effective your campaign has been.

Analysing your direct mail campaign

Tracking the performance of your direct mail pieces lets you guide future campaigns and make each effort more effective than the previous one. For more information on measuring the effectiveness of your direct mail marketing efforts, check out this article on the average response rate for direct mail marketing.

Fully managed direct mail marketing campaign

In our increasingly digital world, it’s easy to forget about using direct mail in favour of digital advertising. While your digital campaigns are important, what makes direct mailers effective is the ability to link the two for a seamless sales funnel and multichannel marketing strategy.

Direct mail gets the attention of your prospect lists in a way that digital ads no longer can. It yields a higher average response rate, making it more cost-effective for getting your brand in front of those that matter.

Active Mail is your direct mail marketing partner from planning through to execution and analysis. Whether you simply need a printing partner, or you need guidance on an effective strategy, we are here to help make every campaign as profitable as possible.

Contact us to get started.