Direct Mail Remarkable Results 2016 - Interactive Infographic

Contrary to all the noise you’ve probably heard direct mail is dying and the constant blabbing about the digital media taking over the marketing, the latest release of the DMA Response Rate Report 2016 (fees apply) is packed with great news about direct mail. 

You can read our previous article about the Direct Mail Response Rates according to the DMA’s 2015 Report. I do not understand, why the DMA released the 2016 updated report almost in silence, a report full of positive numbers for any direct marketing channel, physical or digital.

In 2015, direct mail took over 30% of the $153.2 billion spent on local marketing - the highest percentage for any single medium, and it is rising since! For comparison, in 2013 direct mail had less than 30% of the $130 billion spent. (BIA/Kelsey, 2014)

It’s true, 98 percent of the people through

Opposite to the believe young people

But enough chatter, here are the latest trends in direct mail response rates.

1. Direct Mail response rates made a huge upswing in 2016 to the

2. The digital channels make a slight jump in the response rate as well, but nowhere near the direct mail numbers, so the gap between them is growing bigger and bigger.

3. Email continues to score the highest ROI among all direct marketing channels - 122%, followed by social media (measured for the first time) and direct whopping respectively 28% and 27%. All other digital channels fall far behind. Calculate the ROI of your next direct marketing campaign.

4. Financial institutions and services, retail, and travel & leisure industries are still the largest users of direct mail. Over 60% of their marketing efforts

5. Sadly, regardless of the great results, direct mail use is expected to decline in near future. Probably now is the time for small companies to take a chance to enter the direct mail space, with high response rate numbers and lesser competition?

6. Email response rates took a slight improvement as well, especially for the house lists.

In conclusion, I would say no respecting itself business should rely on one marketing channel alone.

TIP: Combine the high response rates of the direct mail with the efficiency of an email and bump your response and conversion rates as little as 40%, see growth in repeat orders up to 48% and over 30% increase in revenue.