Direct Mail Response Rates (And How to Improve Them)

How to Improve Your Direct Mail Response Rates

Whether your direct mail campaigns have had mixed results, or you’ve already seen a positive response, there’s always room for improvement. Here are a few tips on how you can use the latest tools and strategies to make the most of your direct mail marketing campaign:

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  Track Every Step of Your Campaign

  If you’ve ever clicked on a link in an email campaign and seen a long list of numbers and letters show up in the URL, then you’ve likely clicked a trackable link. These links uniquely identify the email campaign that it came from, providing the marketing team with valuable analytics.

  But you don’t need to use email marketing to make use of these tools. Coupon codes, trackable URLs, QR codes, and trackable phone numbers make it easy for you to measure the results of your direct mail campaign. A trackable URL or phone number allows you to see which pieces of mail generated the most clicks or calls. You can even use a personalized URL that directs each customer to a unique landing page that greets them by name.

  Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by data. But at the very least, you can use this information to decide which customers to target in your next mailing and which to remove from your list.

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  Target Your Mailings Right out of the Gate

  This brings us to our next tip: targeted mailings. If you’ve done your job right, you know what areas are most relevant for your market, and are already planning to start a direct mail campaign there. From there, all you have to do is pare down the breadth of your campaign to fit into your budget.

  Be sure to remove irrelevant addresses from that area that don’t have customers you need to target - PO boxes, drop addresses, seasonal dwellings, businesses, and so on.

  Generally, you don’t have to worry about paring down chronic non-responders until at least three mailings, and even then it’s best to look at the entire carrier route rather than targeting specific individuals.

  Conversely, you may not need to keep mailing someone who’s already an active customer - chances are, they’re already actively engaged with your sales team, so it makes sense to remove active prospects and customers from mailings. That can help clean up your lists and spend more time finding new customers who haven’t already committed to you.

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  Know Your Audience

  It isn’t true that millennials don’t respond to direct mail advertisements. In fact, the U.S. Postal Service itself calls this a myth! However, it’s important to understand the different approaches that various age groups and demographics take to their mail.

  For example, a third of millennials currently subscribe to subscription box services, more than any other age group. But they’re also more likely to move, meaning that your targeted mailers could end up in the wrong mailbox when they pack up and leave for a new city.

  You can address this, of course, by running your mailing list through the National Change of Address (NCOA) dataset, so your mailers can go where they need to.

  Take these factors into account when deciding how to target your mailers. Addressing your mail to your customer “or current resident” can ensure that your campaign is still relevant to whoever lives there now. Likewise, include a URL or a QR code that can be scanned by a smartphone if you’re targeting a younger demographic since they’re less likely to call a phone number.

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  Choose The Right Design

  Direct mail advertisements come in many forms: enclosed mail, postcards, catalogs, and more. Remember when AOL sent CD-ROMs to almost everyone in America? Some businesses send out USB flash drives in their direct mail campaigns, although security-conscious individuals may be unlikely to plug them in, out of fear of ransomware.

  Of course, the pricier the item, the more your campaign will cost overall, but depending on your product, the investment may be worth it. A branded calendar that you send your customers can provide 365 days worth of free advertising if it’s pretty enough for them to hang on their wall.

  Don’t forget to customize the outside of your mailers too. Even if the offer itself is personalized or confidential, a flashy envelope can increase your brand recognition when friends, neighbors, and passersby see it sitting on a table or in the mailbox. That’s partly how Netflix became so ubiquitous — those bright red envelopes are hard to miss!