The Evolution of Direct Mail Outreach Getting the Most Out of Your Mailings

The Numbers

According to Fundera, 70% of consumers find direct mail more personal than online interactions, with 54% indicating that they want to receive direct mail from brands that interest them. 42% say that they read the direct mail they receive, and direct mail response rates are 5-9% times higher than that of any other advertising channel.

Direct Mail’s Evolution

Traditional
If your familiarity with direct mail dates to when the primary strategy in use was “spray and pray,” or geographic saturation, you should know that things have come a long way. That now largely outdated method for direct mail relied on flooding an area with your mailer based almost exclusively on zip codes (there are still some situations where this remains a valid practice, of course. See EDDM below). 

Targeted
As things became more sophisticated, additional selections became available to integrated marketers. Unfortunately, they were still not very personal. These included criteria, including age, household net worth, home value, location, education level, or the number of children in the home. The challenge with these broad lists is that there is no guarantee that your target audience lives within a specific zip code range. Secondly, these conditions often have little relationship to the mail recipient for many businesses. Lastly, you have no idea if the recipients are high-intent potential customers.

The more you can stack these measures, the more complete an audience profile you will have built. A more fully built-out understanding of your ideal audience allows you to customize your messaging for the recipient—down to including their name and other personal details—thus increasing the chances of direct mail effectiveness.

EDDM

It is worth mentioning Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) because there are some businesses and instances when blanketing every home in a neighborhood, regardless of the personal-level details of the homeowners or residents, are just what’s needed. A service of the US Postal Service, EDDM lets you select zip codes and neighborhoods to target with your mailing. If you are an integrated marketer for a small business, you know the importance of bringing in local foot traffic. When holding an event or sale, opening a new location, or if you want to share a coupon, you will find EDDM an invaluable option for reaching everyone within a certain radius of your location, or in specific neighborhoods.

We Can Help

If you’re ready to leap into using direct mail or would like to improve over past performance, contact us! We are a one-stop solution for your direct mail needs, from design and mailing lists to printing and fulfillment.