8 Reasons Why Millennials Engage With Direct Mail

It is hard to believe that a generation that has grown up in the digital area, glued to their mobile devices and obsessing with selfies, would take a minute to go through direct mail, and then follow up on an offer or deal.

While this assumption is fair, with studies suggesting that people aged between 19 and 36 years own an average of 7.1 devices and refer to their smartphones 43 times a day, they are compelled by other channels of communication.

In fact, many millennials prefer direct mail over other forms of marketing, as suggested by the following statistics:

1. Interest In The Product/Service: 75 per cent of millennials claim that they find the mail they receive to be valuable.
2. Make A Connection: 92 per cent of millennials are influenced to make a purchase decision by direct mail, compared to 78 per cent who are influenced by email.
3. Promotional Items: 90 per cent of millennials claim they prefer postal delivery over email when receiving promotional items.
4. Engagement: 82 per cent of millennials claim that they read direct mail from a range of retail brands, while 54 per cent actually look forward to receiving printed retail catalogues in their mail. Furthermore, 63 per cent of millennials who respond to direct mail make a purchase within three months.
5. Incentives: 73 per cent of millennials use coupons delivered via direct mail when making purchases.
6. Reliability: 90 percent of millennials consider direct mail advertising to be reliable. In fact, those between 18 and 21 read mail immediately if it arrives 62 per cent of the time.
7. Quality And The Image: 25 per cent of millennials claim that reading mail is a leisure activity because of this reason.
8. Entertainment: 80 per cent of millennials expect brands to entertain them, and direct mail fulfils this need.

Generally, these statistics imply that millennials are not very different from other age groups when it comes to responding to direct mail marketing. That said, it is clear that millennials’ expectations about the product/service they’re investing in are higher, and that they are unlikely to respond to obvious promotional attempts.

But if the direct mail is personalized, with the marketer focusing on enhancing the experience of their young customers, millennials are likely to respond as well as any different demographic.

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!