Is Direct Mail A Waste of Money?

Updated March 3, 2025

Out With the Old, In With the New?

“Do What Your Competition Aren’t Doing” – this isn’t always the best advice, but in the case of direct marketing, or direct mail, it could be. Online Marketing is our thing, but that doesn’t mean we ignore everything else. A recent study carried out by the Experian Data Quality group on behalf of the US Postal Service showed that Direct Mail, far from dying off, seems to be holding strong in the world of the smartphone.

While mobile might be the future, that doesn’t mean that all of the old marketing channels have stopped working. So, see why you should think about direct mail:

• Not everyone is online. Only 75% of the population in the US is online, with only 50% of the world’s population having access to the internet.
• Of that 75% of online Americans, only 79% have social media profiles. Which means that if you’re doing social media ads, you’re only reaching 59% of the US population, at best. If you’re only using online marketing methods, you’re potentially missing out on a huge piece of the market.
• 70% of Americans feel that real mail is more “personal” than email. Having something in our home is a very different experience to receiving an email. Also, take into account that many emails are opened (or deleted) while on the move so don’t get the readers full attention all the time.
• The USPS found that customers who receive ad mail spend 28% more than those who don’t.
• USPS predict that direct mail AdSpend is increasing slowly and by 2020 will increase from 11% to 12% of all ad revenue. With print ad spend totalling around $1.4 Billion in 2014.
• The USPS also found that even when the mail looks like junk 70% to 80% of people still open it.
• Comparing this to spam email where the majority are filtered out before they even reach an inbox this is very important. While it might not feel like you’re wasting anything spamming people, you are damaging your company’s reputation and possibly opening yourself up to Can-Spam laws. Direct mail reduces that risk.
• Customers who receive direct mail are 28% more likely to spend more than others who don’t according to the USPS’s study.
• In 2015 over 10,000,000 catalogues were mailed out. That’s 1 for every 30 people in the US.
• Costco’s catalogue has a mailing list of over 8,000,000 people.
• Overall ad revenue spent on direct mail has an ROI of 16% which is around the same as that of social media

Direct Mail – Just Another Channel

Now don’t misunderstand us. We’re not suggesting you cash in all of your online chips and go back to direct mail and billboards. But marketing, like many things in life, works best with variation. Many of the advances in online marketing have led us to forget more traditional channels in favour of online platforms. But we suggest you keep an open mind and test all channels available.