Regardless of what industry you’re in or what your budget is, direct mail advertising can help you convert more prospects into customers, strengthen customer relationships, strengthen brand awareness and so much more.

However, before you get started, you’ll need to know what the average direct mail response rate is so you can know if you’re getting good results.

Let’s take a look at tracking your results, what the average response rate is, and some tips you can follow to improve your direct mail response rate.

Can I Track My Direct Mail Response Rates?

While there was a time when one of the only ways you could track direct mail response rates was through coupon cutouts, this isn’t the case anymore. In fact, it’s now extremely easy to track if your direct mail pieces were delivered on top of how effective your direct mail campaign is by tracking responses.

Here are a few simple direct mail tracking methods you can take advantage of to successfully track your direct mail response rates:

QR Codes: One of the easiest and quickest ways to lead your audience to a specific page on your website or app while allowing you to easily track who visits.

Discount Codes: Discount or coupon codes give your audience an incentive to make a purchase while also giving you insight into how many people respond to your direct mail campaign.

Personalized URLs: Just like tracking response rates in digital marketing, personalized or unique URLs allow you to send your direct mail recipients to a specific website page and by simply monitoring your web traffic, you can easily see how well your direct mail campaign is doing.

Unique Phone Numbers: There are ways and platforms that allow you to create special phone numbers so anyone who calls that number, you know they are calling based on your direct mailer.

Does Direct Mail Have a Good Response Rate?

The average direct mail response rate is 9% which is great, especially when compared to digital marketing channels like emails which have a 1% average response rate, online display ads which have a 0.3% average response rate, and social media and paid search which also have a 1% average response rate.

Of course, to generate such an impressive response rate with your direct mail campaign, you’ll need to consider a few things which we’ll go into more detail below.

Why Is Direct Mail Better Than Digital?

There are many reasons why direct mail receives a better response rate than digital advertising efforts including:

Less Competition: There is less competition for direct mail because over the years the use of online marketing has increased, and the use of direct mail marketing has decreased, giving brands who use direct mail the opportunity to stand out.

People Prefer Direct Mail: A recent study showed that 73% of people prefer direct mail as an advertising method.

Direct Mail Is Easier: Direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than online ads making direct mail easier to understand, engage with, and remember.

Direct Mail Reaches a Wider Audience: While your audience may not be on social media, they may use ad blockers, and your email may be getting pushed to spam, your entire audience has a mailbox and is likely checking it regularly.

Direct Mail is More Trustworthy: What we see on the internet can’t always be trusted and your audience is aware of this. Which is one of the reasons why in a recent study, 82% of people said they trust direct mail over digital ads.

Tips For Improving Your Direct Mail Response Rate

Create An Effective Design

Anything less than an eye-catching design will most likely result in your audience ignoring your direct mail pieces.

You need large and bold text to grab your recipients' attention, crisp and clear images, high contrast, and a call to action that stands out and attracts your audience to respond. For more direct mail design tips in detail, and to ensure your design helps improve your direct mail response rate, check out our blog “10 Effective Direct Mail Design Tips.”

Use Personalized Elements

A recent study showed that personalizing your direct mail pieces to be customized for each recipient can increase your response rates by 135%.

What types of personalization can you include, you ask? You can add personalized elements like names, images, locations, and more. So, for example, women typically respond to images of women more while men respond to images of men more. So, for any woman on your mailing list, you can include their name in the copy and a picture of a woman, while for men, you can also include their names in the copy while using an image of a man in your design instead.

Target The Right Audience

Your direct mail response rate will only be as good as the audience you target. If you’re reaching an audience who isn’t interested in what you’re offering, can’t afford what you’re offering, don’t live close enough to take advantage of your offer, etc., then you can expect results much lower than the average direct mail response rate of 9%.

For example, if a brewery sends people who live far away and don’t drink beer a postcard or a veterinary clinic sends people a brochure who don’t have pets, then they aren’t going to get the results they are looking for.

By reaching the right audience you can expect much better direct mail marketing results. For tips on how to reach your target audience, check out our blog “How to Perfect Your Direct Mail Targeting."

Integrate Your Direct Mail with Your CRM

By integrating your direct mail with your CRM or marketing automation platform using Direct Mail CRM Integration, you can significantly improve your direct mail response rates.

This is because integrating your direct mail with your CRM allows you to set up automatic direct mail campaigns, so they reach each of your recipients at the exact right moment. For example, if someone clicks on your email link showing interest but doesn’t make a purchase right away, you can trigger a direct mail piece with a coupon code to entice them to place an order. Or if a customer hasn’t ordered in a while you can set up a trigger to send them a postcard to increase the chances, they make a repeat purchase.

For more ways Direct Mail CRM Integration can help you improve your direct mail response rates, click here.

Combine Direct Mail with Digital

Omnichannel marketing has a purchase rate 287% higher than that of single-channel marketing. So, while direct mail might be getting better response rates than digital marketing, if you combine direct mail with at least one online marketing channel, you could see results that are even better than the average direct mail response rate of 9%.

What is The Average Direct Mail Response Rate I Can Expect with My Campaign?

With the average direct mail response rate being extremely impressive, you still need to execute your direct mail campaign effectively so that you can expect an impressive response rate as well.

By tracking your direct mail results for optimization, reaching the right audience, creating a stunning direct mail design, combining your direct mail with digital and/or all other tips above, you can expect a response rate that exceeds your goals.

For help getting started on a successful direct mail campaign contact our direct mail experts to discuss the best options for your goals and budget or click below to discover Conquest Graphic's most effective direct mail solutions today!