7 Amazing Direct Mail Marketing Statistics

With bottom-line results having an increasingly bigger impact on advertising budgets, marketers have to be more accountable for the strategies they choose in order to maximize their ROI. Using direct mail marketing as part of an integrated marketing plan, marketers have realized increased customer traffic and sales. Moreover, the results are measurable, so it is possible to identify to assess the success of each campaign by looking at the ROI.

Direct mail marketing is big with businesses of all sizes to help increase the response rate and ROI of their marketing campaigns. Here are some interesting statistics to show just how big direct mailing is:

• According to the USPS 2011 Revenue, Pieces, and Weight Report, businesses sent an excess of 84 billion direct mail pieces in 2011. Moreover, 51 percent of mail sent that year was direct mail. In 2014, the percent of direct mail had increased to 57 percent.
• 79 percent of consumers claim they find reading mail more convenient than browsing the web. Consequently, 80–90 percent of direct mail is opened, compared to 20–30 percent of email.
• 42 percent of consumers aged between 25 and 34 years claim that they find mail to be useful and therefore read or scan it immediately.
• 58 percent of households with an income of over $65,000 follow up on a purchase from direct mail advertising. Actually, the response rate for direct mail is 3.7 percent, compared to 1 percent for social media, 1 percent for email, 2 percent for mobile, and 0.2 percent for Internet display.
• 59 percent of US consumers and 65 percent of Canadian consumers claim they like to receive promotional mail from brands of interest. This is compared to 49 percent who subscribe to receive email promotions at a frequency of their choice; 38 percent who visit the company’s website when they want updates and promotions; 28 percent who prefer to receive promotional offers in-store; 20 percent who follow brands of interest on social media; 17 percent who prefer to get the info via text; 15 percent who prefer to download an app to stay in touch; and 9 percent who attend local events for promotional information.
• 56 percent of consumers claim they find print marketing to be the most dependable type of marketing.
• 70 percent of consumers find mail to be more personal than the Internet. Moreover, brand recall is 70 percent higher among consumers exposed to direct mail brands as opposed to digital ones.

Bottom Line

Although many people continue to debate whether direct mail marketing is dead or alive, these statistics clearly demonstrate that marketers can still benefit a lot from direct mailing. But perhaps the greatest results come from an integrated marketing strategy that includes direct mail.

Interested in adding direct mail marketing to your advertising mix? Please call our Toronto mailing house at 1-866-486-0423. Troi spells success, one letter at a time!