More proof that Direct Mail is highly effective

According to WARC, DM is perceived by marketers as the tenth most effective medium. This, alongside the massive swing to digital spend, may explain why DM has become increasingly unfashionable over the last few years.

However, a recent survey by UK mail media industry body JICMAIL published in WARC, proves just how responsive DM is as a medium. The rotating survey of 1,000 households which ran between Q2 2017 and Q4 2020, showed that 8% of all addressed mail prompted a visit to the sender’s website. (This figure drops to 2% for door drops – showing the power of personalised communications). And 6% of business mail produced calls to the sender.

Perhaps more importantly, the survey also shows that 6.5% of mail items prompted a purchase, payment or donation – which is a staggering figure.

We’ve always been huge advocates of the power of DM to engage and stimulate response here at BURN. These figures prove why. However, many people still claim DM is valuable in certain sectors only – Financial Services, Charity etc. We disagree.

Taking on-line, off-line with eBay

One of the most successful DM campaigns we have run was for online retailer eBay. Not surprisingly, the brand had relied on email communications with its sellers for many years. But email was becoming less and less effective as a medium and just didn’t have the necessary cut-through. So, they asked us to create a DM campaign which would build awareness of important changes taking place on the site. The pack we created, which included a useful wall calendar of key dates, achieved 95% awareness amongst recipients in post-campaign research – a dramatic uplift on what might have been achieved through a standard email campaign.

So, if you’ve not used DM to promote your brand for a while, maybe now’s the time to give it another go. You might be pleasantly surprised at just how effective it is.