Tips for Boosting Your Direct Mail Response Rates
There is an overflowing amount of research showing how much marketers value direct mail. For instance, Target Marketing's "Marketing Mix Trends 2010-2016" results showed 69 percent of respondents either increased or maintained use of direct mail during 2016.
Research from various sources confirms similar findings: Direct mail is tactile, personal, positive emotion-inducing, memorable and likely to "strongly reinforce emotional engagement and decision-making."
The latter quote comes from David Eagleman, a Stanford University neuroscientist profiled in Ricoh research released in January 2018.
But there could be other reasons direct mail holds such high status in the marketing mix. It could be the channel's high quality - images must be high-resolution for print marketing vs. the literal "Web quality" that can be backlit on devices. It could be the fact that consumers can spend as much time as they like gazing at the piece, because the printed word won't go dark as a device does when it "times out." But it could also be that print marketing stimulates all of the senses, not just sight and sound. (Think of the smell of a book and the feel of textured paper.) What's clear is that direct mail is a highly impactful medium when used in omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Ricoh also featured findings from Daniel Dejan, the print and creative manager for ETC, the "education, training and consulting" division of worldwide paper manufacturer Sappi, who says consumers learn with all of the senses and print pieces satisfy far more of them than does digital marketing.
This is an excerpt from an article originally featured on
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