8 Solid Reasons to Consider Direct Mail Flyers for Your Next Campaign
Are direct mail flyers still effective in 2020? You bet they are! And we’re going to prove it.
Direct mail marketing can do what no other campaign can. And, statistically, it performs well compared with your other marketing options. It can even boost the success of your existing campaigns.
All this and more is covered in the direct mail marketing guide below. Read on to learn all about it.
Direct Mail Flyers Have a High ROI
Direct mail campaigns have an average ROI of 29%. And while that may be a lot smaller than the ROI of marketing emails (124%), it’s about the same as social media marketing (30%). That gives some very insightful perspective on direct mail marketing.
Specifically, most companies place a high priority on social media marketing. They download analytics tools, keep a strict posting schedule, and read/respond to comments. But with all that effort they put into social media campaigns, far fewer of them put as much into direct mail marketing.
Furthermore, the ROI of direct mail marketing is higher than that of other campaigns you might be investing in. Paid search marketing has an ROI of 23%. And for online display ads, it’s only 16%.
Direct Mail Also Has a High Response Rate
According to the Direct Marketing Association, the response rate of direct mail campaigns is 4.4%. That’s more than 36 times higher than the response rate of email (0.12%)!
Direct Mail Marketing is Highly Targeted
Super-specifically-targeted ads aren’t just for your digital marketing campaigns. Honing in on your target demographic with direct mail is easier than you may think.
You can even find a free tool for this at good old USPS.com. Their Every Door Direct Mail tool makes it easy to find your target audience.
Start by entering relevant target zip codes into the search tool. You can enter up to 5 of them per search. Then a map appears, highlighting relevant mail routes.
Now here’s the best part. You can get specific details about every addressee along each route by hovering your cursor over it. These include things like household income, the number of residents, and their age range.
This tells you the demographic-related information you need to know in order to target the right audience.
Direct Mail is Highly Trackable
Similarly, it’s very easy to see exactly how well your direct mail campaign is going. At least, there’s a very easy, very reliable tracking trick you can use.
All you have to do is to make your direct mail call-to-action something uniquely traceable to that campaign. For example, let’s say your direct mail postcards are inviting your audience to join your text marketing club. In this case, you would use a unique SMS number that you don’t use for any of your other campaigns.
This same idea works no matter what the call-to-action is. It can be a unique coupon, a unique landing page URL, or a unique QR code that links to your app. This way, you’ll always know when a customer’s action is in response to your mailers.
Direct Mail is a Great Help to Your Other Campaigns
Aside from the fact that direct mail marketing is great on its own, it can also be a great way to boost the success of your other campaigns. That is, you can use your direct mail call-to-action to point traffic to a different campaign.
If you want more email signups, mail out the invitations. If you want more visitors to your website, do the same. To bring more foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar locations, mail out a really good, exclusive coupon.
Direct Mail Can Do What Other Campaigns Can’t
The points above only show why direct mail is statistically a good idea. We haven’t even told you the best part yet.
Direct mail is one of the most unique advertising campaigns there is. This is because, unlike all your digital campaigns, your mailers are tangible. Here are a few reasons why this is a really big deal.
It is Impossible to Ignore Direct Mail Ads
This may be the most important point on this entire list.
At least some portion of the things we get in our mailboxes is vital information. Examples include utility bills and jury summonses.
In other words, there would be dire consequences if any of us were to throw all our mail away without looking at it. Hence, no one does that.
Every one of us checks each piece of mail we receive. Therefore when you mail an ad, it will be seen by every single person you send it to (one person per household, anyway). It is near impossible for your recipients to miss your direct mail ads.
This fact is extremely important because of the next point we’re about to make.
Direct Mail Is Cognitively Easier to Process Than Other Ads
That’s right: direct mail has neuroscience on its side. According to a scientific study by the Canada Post Corporation, direct mail ads take 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital media.
That means your mailers are easier to understand in a shorter amount of time than any of your digital ads. Your audience is able to process the point of your direct mail ads in one quick glance.
And that’s a really, really good thing because of our last point. Remember, your mailers are pretty much guaranteed to get that one quick glance from someone at each household you send it to.
Whether it goes straight to the garbage or gets a response, your mailer will get sifted. And in the brief moment it takes the recipient to analyze that mailer, your message is already successfully embedded in their brain.
Direct Mail Is More Memorable
Which is more memorable, an image of a teddy bear on a website or an actual teddy bear someone puts in your hands? Obviously, it’s the real teddy bear. And that’s because you engage it with multiple senses, not just your eyes.
You know what the image looks like. But you know what the real bear looks like from several angles. You can remember how heavy it is and if it smelled a little dusty.
The point is, even though you’re mailing printed paper rather than teddy bears, it still engages multiple senses. Plus, if you want, you can get creative with shaped postcards, scents, activities, word games, scratch-and-sniff stickers, etc.
Direct Mail Ads Are More Versatile
Beyond that, you actually can mail teddy bears to your clients if you want to. No one ever said direct mail ads have to be printed paper exclusively. Your mailers can be whatever you want (and can afford to mail).
Engage Your Audience With Direct Mail Marketing
Whether you send direct mail flyers, postcards, or even teddy bears, your mailers will (literally) touch your audience as no other campaign can. Use direct mail marketing for a deeply targeted and engaging campaign.
Check out our other lifestyle blog posts for more awesome tips like these.
Samantha Gaines wrote this article on behalf of FreeUp. FreeUp is the fastest-growing freelance marketplace in the US. FreeUp only accepts the top 1% of freelance applicants. Click here to get access to the top freelancers in the world.
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