How to Use Direct Mail to Increase Your ROI

Businesses thrive when they retain existing customers and convert new leads into customers. It’s nearly impossible to find success until you can achieve both of those goals. That helps explain why North American companies spend more than $350 billion on marketing.

Every business wants to get more in return for their marketing dollars. The data shows you can increase ROI with direct mail, especially when you take a personalized, automated approach. As people receive more emails and fewer pieces of direct mail, your postcards, brochures, magazines, and letters have a better chance of standing out.

Of course, it costs more money to design, print, and send direct mail than emails and other forms of electronic communications. If you manage your campaign well, direct mail gives you a more robust ROI by converting more people and increasing sales. Even when you spend more on direct mail marketing, your higher revenues help the business grow.

Recommended reading: The Price of Direct Mail

Use intelligent mail to give touchpoints more impact

Intelligent mail uses data to help your brand to benefit more from every interaction it has with customers. For example, research published in The State of Direct Mail Consumer Insights shows that each age group tend to interact with different types of mail. When choosing which kind of mail to send a lead, you should know that:

• Postcards predominantly appeal to people between 35 and 54 years old.
• More than 50% of all age groups like receiving catalogs and magazines.
• 46% of people between 18 and 34 respond most to letters and envelopes.

Insights like this can increase ROI with direct mail by targeting your leads with the types of materials that interest them.

Improve your ROI with direct mail automation

Data helps you make informed decisions about your direct mail campaigns' strategies. Putting data to use can require a lot of effort, though. Direct mail automation removes barriers so you can conduct personalized, measurable campaigns that don’t need a lot of effort on your part.

Lob’s automation features will continuously optimize your campaigns by using unique URLs and QR codes to track conversions. For example, you could use direct mail automation to personalize every item sent to customers and leads. If the system finds that your leads don’t respond to postcards, it can recommend switching to brochures, magazines, or other formats that appeal to your target audience.

You can already access data that tells you what most people want from the direct mail they receive. You gain insights into each specific campaign with direct mail automation and analytics to drive better ROIs. You can pivot toward a more successful strategy when you don’t get the expected results.

Recommended reading: 10 B2C Marketing Automation Tools To Try in 2022

Combine direct mail and email to reach more people and boost ROI

Some people prefer email because they don’t want companies to waste paper on direct mail. At least 30% of consumers choose paperless statements from every brand that gives them the option. It makes sense to give people the option to choose paperless experiences. However, paper communications make it much easier for you to connect with your audience.

You might assume only older people still want paper mail. That isn’t true! About 72% of people between 18 and 24 receive some paper statements.

Older consumers indeed have a stronger preference for paper mail, though. Among people 55 and older:

• 62% prefer direct mail from brands they don’t know.
• 56% prefer direct mail from brands they know about but don’t have relationships with.

Still, less than half of people prefer emails regardless of whether they know a brand or have existing relationships with them. More than half of consumers think they get too many emails, which explains why many email marketing campaigns fail to reach and convert leads. It’s inexpensive to send emails, but they don’t get the high ROI you can expect from direct mail.

Email marketing campaigns face a lot of problems:

• People don’t want their inboxes clogged with unrequested messages.
• Spam filters remove potentially annoying emails before they even reach consumers.
• Existing customers often choose to opt-out of your email campaigns.
• Slightly incorrect email addresses mean people never receive messages.

Some people prefer getting emails over printed direct mail so it's imperative to track results from both channels so you can segment your customers so they get their marketing messages on their preferred channels, which in turn drives higher ROI.

Recommended reading: How Do You Choose Between Direct Mail and Email?

Lob makes direct mail more affordable and effective!

Get the 2022 State of Direct Mail from Lob and Comperemedia to learn more about the best ways to increase your ROI with direct mail. The publication presents insights, trends, and statistics from more than 150 enterprise marketing leaders across the United States. Another way you can learn more about how modern marketers are using direct mail to reach their ROI goals is to watch the webinar recording of our recent event, Real-Life Direct Mail Strategies to Crush ROI and Budget Goals.

If you're more interested in your own numbers, be sure to check out our Direct Mail ROI Calculator to see how this channel can impact your revenue.