Could Direct Mail Be Your Next Marketing Breakthrough?
In this digital age, most marketers have pivoted to online channels, creating an unexpected opportunity in traditional direct mail marketing strategies.
This overlooked channel offers a tangible, personal touch that cuts through the digital noise, providing businesses with a strategic advantage in an increasingly crowded online marketplace. In fact, recent research shows that the average conversion rate for direct mail is 0.5%-2%. That means for every 100 mailers, brands can anticipate one to two sales.
With lower competition and promising response rates, direct mail is a powerful marketing medium that’s on track to grow in 2025, offering marketers a faster, more targeted and even more personalized path to conversions and repeat purchases.
Start by determining your target audience, campaign goals, budget and what success looks like. Then, follow these 7 steps as a guide to create a winning direct mail campaign:
- Lay out a timeline. Carefully plan out when each stage of your campaign will be executed to ensure maximum impact — from copywriting and design to your print vendor’s production schedule to holidays that could impact postal delivery. Keep in mind the average direct mail timetable below (and build in some buffer days to account for unexpected delays).
| Planning | 1-2 Weeks |
| Creative Development | 2-4 Weeks |
| Production | 2-4 Weeks |
| Delivery | 7-10 Business Days |
Be sure to take into account seasonal events and holidays specific to your industry — back to school for apparel brands, ski season for travel & hospitality marketers, or 4th of July for retail.
- Use data insights to understand your target audience. With campaign goals set, it’s time to leverage buyer data to inform your messaging.
Data insights turn guesswork into a highly effective direct mail strategy. By analyzing data like purchase history, website activity and customer behaviors, you can create highly targeted segments and deliver personalized offers that resonate with each group.
In addition, geographic data can help you fine-tune campaigns, ensuring your messaging aligns with regional preferences or seasonal promotions.
Finally, predictive analytics enable you to anticipate future purchases, ensuring you send the right message at the right time. By leveraging these insights, you can ensure your direct mail is as relevant, engaging, and as effective as possible, ultimately driving better response rates and stronger ROI.
- Select your direct mail format. The format you choose can determine your postal campaign’s success. While each mailing format serves different purposes, 6″ x 9″ postcards strike an optimal balance of visibility and design space. These larger postcards command attention in mailboxes compared to smaller sizes, while offering ample room for compelling content. Their efficient production and mailing also make postcards perfect for acquisition campaigns and quick retargeting efforts.
Letters create a more intimate experience, letting you craft detailed stories that resonate deeply — ideal for nurturing relationships. Meanwhile, brochures and catalogs excel at featuring multiple products, offering versatility through their multi-page format.
- Create an omnichannel When digital and direct mail are combined, marketers see a 60% increased ROI. Integrate your direct mail campaign with other marketing channels, including email, social media and digital advertising, to create a cohesive (and more effective) experience for your audience.
For example, add a QR code on a brochure so potential customers can click to visit your website to browse more inventory. Or incorporate a personalized URL (PURL) to link prospects to an exclusive page where recipients can access a discount for making a same-day purchase or claim their free shipping offer.
- A/B test your mailers. A/B testing, also known as split-level testing, gives you an opportunity to compare different versions of your direct mail pieces to see which performs better. This empowers you to make data-driven decisions about future marketing strategies and refine creative approaches as necessary.
A/B testing can involve testing different elements of your mail piece, such as headlines, calls to action, design, offers or even the mailing list. By measuring the response rates of each version, you can identify which elements are most successful in driving conversions.
- Harness the power of retargeting. Omnichannel campaigns that include a personalized direct mail retargeting component can send a postcard to those most likely to convert —all within 12-24 hours of a digital interaction.
By leveraging customer data and insights, you can build customer profiles, identifying those with a high likelihood to make a purchase. For example, when you can identify all the prospects who showed interest in your products, but never made a purchase, you can automatically generate a direct mail postcard, enticing them to return to the website and finally click the checkout button by offering an exclusive discount or promotion.
- Execute and track performance. Metrics like response rates and conversion rates let you know if your campaign hit the mark.
Use unique tracking codes, personalized URLs or QR codes to see which calls to action are fostering the most engagement. Tracking allows you to attribute sales or other metrics directly to your direct mail efforts, helping you measure ROI, providing valuable insights for future planning and helping you achieve maximum return on advertising spend (ROAS).
Direct mail: The future of strategic marketing
For 2025 and beyond, direct mail is making a name for itself as the strategic differentiator in a digitally saturated marketplace. The savviest players in the marketing game know that sometimes the best way to push the envelope is to actually push an envelope.