From targeting the right audience to optimizing response rates, helping your clients navigate the complexities of direct mail can be challenging. 

As a reseller of direct mail marketing services and products, you’re expected to provide expert guidance on direct mail campaigns. But, what happens when your clients ask data- and campaign-related questions outside your day-to-day scope?

This resource will equip you with essential insights into direct mail strategy, effectiveness, list selection, and campaign optimization. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to answer your clients’ questions, provide informed recommendations, and help your clients achieve better results.

How Effective is Direct Mail Marketing?

Direct mail can be a powerful tool for brands, particularly when used in conjunction with other marketing channels. Recipients are more likely to open and interact with physical mail, especially when it’s personalized and suited to their needs. In fact, 95% of direct mail is engaged with—whether that means opening the piece or responding to the call to action.

It’s also more deliverable; direct mail data is anchored to a consumer’s name and address, which makes it more reliable than some other identifiers, many of which are anonymous.

Direct Mail Response Rates: What to Expect

Over the past several years, direct mail response rates have steadily increased. In fact, direct mail has the highest ROI for individual media (161%) despite rising postal costs. This is likely due to a number of factors, including the increased use of personalization and the ability to physically interact with the mail piece itself. 

According to the Association of National Advertisers’ Response Rate Report, marketing executives reported a 15.6% response rate for campaigns utilizing house lists and a 10.8% response rate for prospect lists used in 2023. Campaigns using first-party data often see even higher response rates!

Using multiple channels to amplify overall campaign effectiveness can also increase response rates.

What are the unique benefits of direct mail?

Direct mail has many advantages that are unique to its physical, tangible nature. Here are the 7 top benefits of direct marketing: 

1. Nostalgic

The tactile and personal nature of mail can invoke nostalgia and excitement and help cut through consumers’ digital fatigue. People enjoy receiving mail—whether it’s an invitation from a friend or a coupon to a local restaurant—so it creates a tangible connection between the brand and the recipient.

2. Personalized

Direct mail is personable; brands can apply images and messaging that appeal directly to the intended recipient. Since 64% of consumers are more likely to engage with personalized messaging rather than generic marketing, this can help improve response rates.

3. Adaptable

Direct marketing is adaptable to all types of businesses, products, and services.

4. Convenient

It’s ideal to deliver news of products, services, and new store openings directly into the hands of the consumer. Well-designed, well-written mail pieces can help to build brand awareness and improve the overall perception of your brand.

5. Targeted

Direct mail offers precise targeting, so messages can be directed to a specific audience or geographic market. Audience segments that display specific attributes can be targeted with messaging that is relevant to their behaviors, needs, and wants

6. Actionable

Respond-by dates create a sense of urgency for consumers to respond quickly, making direct mail exceptionally actionable. 

7. Optimizable

All aspects of a direct marketing campaign can be measured and tracked, making it easy to report on campaign performance. And with direct mail, it’s easy to test campaign variables to determine which performs the best. Direct mail learnings can be applied to future campaigns to enhance their effectiveness.

What are the key components of a direct mail campaign?

A successful campaign should have the following components clearly outlined prior to the launch date:

• Objective: Identify the primary objective of your campaign, along with how you will measure your success. 
• Target Audience: Determine who your intended audience is, including their attributes and characteristics.
• An Established Offer: Generate excitement with an offer that is relevant to your recipients and has a high perceived value. 
• Clear Call To Action (CTA): When someone receives your direct mail piece, it’s important that they know what to do next. Tell your recipients exactly how to respond, and include an expiration date to encourage them. 
• Compelling Visual: Emphasize high-quality design, copywriting, materials, and printing. 
• Follow Up: Have a follow-up plan that includes additional touchpoints to keep building awareness.
• Tracking and Optimization: Have a system in place to track responses, which will enable you to calculate conversions. Improve your overall results by understanding how simple changes impact responses.

First-Class v. Marketing Mail: What To Use

To determine the class of mail best suited for your client’s campaign, consider the type of mailing list, the creative being used, and the needed delivery date.

For example, residential mailing lists (also known as saturation mailing lists) are designed to be mailed via Marketing Mail; sending them via First-Class Mail can result in a very high rate of returned mail pieces (up to 20%). 

When you have specific in-home dates, First-Class Mail delivers within 2 – 3 business days and will provide you with return service for addresses that were undeliverable. On the other hand, Marketing Mail typically takes 3 – 10 days. 

Direct Mail Lists: How to Get Addresses

If you don’t have enough data to build a direct mail prospecting list on your own, providers like Deep Sync can help. Here are some frequently asked questions about our direct mail lists.

How are direct mail lists obtained? 

Direct marketing lists can be obtained directly from list compilers as well as from trusted partners that have relationships with these compilers. Our lists are available for purchase online or through our expert Client Success team. 

To explore our online options, visit AccuLeads. Here you can review many of the most popular lists available on the market today as well as several complementary data services. Through AccuLeads, you (or your client) can run counts and place orders on demand, 24/7. 

If you’re unsure about what list to select, we’re happy to help! Our team can provide an objective recommendation based on the goals your client has for their campaign and guide you through the list-purchasing process.

What type of targeted mailing lists are available?

One of the most critical decisions your client will make in the campaign planning process is which list to use. The goal is to choose an audience whose needs are likely to match the products/services their company offers. This can be accomplished with demographic targeting for consumers, firmographic targeting for businesses, or the selection of a hyper-focused niche list. 

Here are some of the most popular attributes used to create targeted direct mail lists. 

Consumer Mailing List Attributes 

• Age/Date of Birth 
• Family Composition 
• Hobbies and Interests 
• Homeowners/Renters 
• Income 
• Net Worth 
• Occupation 
• Presence of Children 

Business Mailing List Attributes

• Job Titles/Functions 
• Location Type 
• NAICS/SIC Codes 
• Nonprofits 
• Number of Employees 
• Office Expenses 
• Sales Volume 
• Years in Business 

If you need assistance identifying your client’s specific market, a list of their current customers can be used to create a highly customized lookalike audience model.

How are direct marketing lists compiled? 

Deep Sync has a 35-year history of compiling our own residential, consumer, business, move-related, property, and student datasets, as well as long-standing relationships with the nation’s leading data compilers.

Direct marketing lists are compiled from numerous sources that are most commonly linked to public records, proprietary sources, and self-reported data. Some of the most common sources are resident data, postal intelligence, business directories and publications, consumer surveys, and more.

How often are direct marketing lists cleaned? 

In the majority of cases, Deep Sync’s datasets are updated monthly. Our move-related and new homeowner offerings are updated weekly to ensure that the freshest, most relevant data is available to our clients. 

We maintain our data quality through data hygiene and suppression processes. In addition to keeping address information up to date, these processes help to prevent undesirable profiles from entering the marketing stream. Deep Sync’s preferred providers take the same approach to maintaining the highest-quality data. 

What is the deliverability of direct mail lists?

Even with a complete suite of USPS®-licensed postal hygiene, address standardization, and change of address processing regularly applied, the direct marketing lists used in your clients’ campaigns may produce some undeliverable addresses. 

When mailing to consumers, your client can anticipate a deliverability rate of 90% or higher. For a business mailing, your client can anticipate that 85% or more of the records will be delivered. Do encourage your client to mail as soon as possible after receiving their list to maximize deliverability.

How to Optimize a Direct Mail Campaign

The success of a direct mail campaign can be improved by increasing the number of touchpoints across channels. Here are our recommended strategies for adding other channels to your campaign. 

Add Phone Numbers & Emails to Your Mailing List

A data append can help add telephone numbers and email addresses to a client’s mailing list. This process involves supplementing a client’s customer data with additional data from external sources.

Deep Sync can also add phone numbers and email addresses to our third-party mailing lists. 

Integrate Digital Components into a Direct Mail Campaign

Pairing direct mail initiatives with digital campaigns creates additional opportunities for engagement where consumers spend their time online. In fact, 60% of marketers have reported increased ROI when direct mail and digital marketing channels are combined.

Consistent messaging across channels drives awareness and a variety of touch points makes responding easy. Deep Sync offers a variety of solutions to activate audiences online, including Enhanced Onboarding for first-party data. Contact us to learn more.

Start at the Envelope 

The first step in attracting attention is delivering a design that sets the mail piece apart from the rest. Emphasizing quality design, printing, and materials will go a long way as direct mail is tangible and will be handled by the recipient. 

Here are some additional ideas to recommend: 

• Send a colored envelope and print your letter on matching paper 
• Enclose a sample or premium to add volume and weight to the envelope 
• Use a padded mailer to pique the recipient’s interest 
• Send an oversized postcard that is printed in color on both sides 

The following direct mail formats are the most popular among marketers utilizing prospect lists for their campaigns. 

• Letter-Sized Envelopes: 67% 
• Postcards: 62% 
• Catalogs: 48% 
• Oversized Envelopes: 29% 

When mailing to their customers, postcards, letter-sized envelopes, catalogs, and dimensional mailers were most preferred.

Apply Personalization 

In direct mail, personalization is key. With personalization or customization, your clients can create a mail piece that has a “one-to-one” appeal as opposed to that of standard mass mail pieces. 

When thinking of personalization, you can recommend that your client: 

• Use the consumer’s name within the messaging 
• Vary the images used based on the demographic/lifestyle interests of the recipient 
• Adjust the messaging to appeal to the needs of the audience 
• Use a hand-addressed envelope

With these tips, you can help support your client in a successful direct mail campaign.

---

Want more direct mail resources for resellers?

• To assist you in providing your clients with prompt and thoughtful responses, we have compiled the most frequently asked direct mail questions received by Deep Sync into one comprehensive resource. Download our guide to learn more.

• Want to learn more about why the nation’s leading printers, mail houses, and marketing service providers trust the Deep Sync reseller model? Check out our reseller partner solutions.