Is Direct Mail the Right Tool to Grow Your Business?

Direct Mail: Old fashioned, or Timeless?
In the digital age, mailings may seem clunky, old-fashioned, and expensive. Despite this perception, investment in Direct Mail is growing -- sales resulting from mailings hit $421.3 billion in past years, and are projected to increase by $8.3 billion. There's a reason why you receive so much direct mail-- advertising by mail can work with rare effectiveness and distinct benefits.

Targetability
With direct mail, an advertiser can target potential customers down to the finest detail-- based on income, interests, household type, education, and lots more. Nearly every household and business on the market is within reach, giving you an audience with your ideal market.

Maintenance & Tracking
Direct Mail builds and reinforces existing consumer relationships through personalized mailings.

High Impact, High Response
Because your message reaches prospects interested in your services, and because your advertising is tangible and engaging, the response rates for Direct Mail are exceptionally high. 50% of Direct Mail recipients read it immediately, and of those, over 40% find the information they received useful; consumers spend on average 10 minutes reading direct mail. Such rates are unthinkable in email marketing!

Costly, but Cost Effective
Ahh, but email marketing is much cheaper. This is true: with mailing list, printing, and postage, Direct Mail has a higher cost-per-thousand than many promotional methods. Because you're reaching the right audience with detailed information targeted to them, however, and because your mailing encourages customer interaction, wastage rates are very low. And Direct Mail is not necessarily prohibitively expensive: with smart postage discounts in quantity, you can find rates of $.28/piece, or even less. This is considerably less than even search engine marketing to give you face time with your best sales prospects.

Direct mail is not for every marketing need, and works best coupled with sharp copy, and the right call to action. For speaking to your ideal marketing audience, promoting your brand, and filling the parking lot, good old Direct Mail has a lot of life left!