If you’re in control of marketing and you’ve ignored the direct mail channel you may be making a mistake. Easy to dismiss, direct mail is the Rodney Dangerfield of media. I’ll admit that’s a comedic reference but the Rodney's famous “I don’t get no respect” act truly fits here. Great direct mail campaigns lead to big time sales which ultimately yield respect.
Somewhere along the line though, people gradually began to doubt the power of the direct mail channel. For well over a decade we have had doubters question and condescend direct mail as being a dinosaur. It’s easy to see why. After all, do people really read their mail anymore? And the cost per impression can be comparatively high.
And yet, like the famed Energizer Bunny, the mail channel keeps performing. The Direct Marketing Association discovered that direct mail lays claim to a 4.4% response rate while email marketing lags behind at only 0.12%. And, the delivery rate for direct mail is nearly 95% compared to email at less than 50%!
There was a time that no one thought using offline media to drive online results made sense. Think again.
In fact I’d say, the best way to think about direct mail is as a sales channel. You can identify your target universe and work back from the point of sale to determine the metrics. The really exciting part is that your mail performance can and will be enhanced by other channels.
