Although digital advertising remains dominant, direct mail marketing is still one of the strongest, most tangible, and most impactful ways to engage customers with incremental touches.
Even though the marketing lens will continue to focus on email and social media advertising, direct mail is a platform that consistently produces results and provides overall response and revenue higher than digital channels.
If you are a brand in the marketplace looking to rise above the noise and disruption in the digital world, direct mail is an authentic opportunity to connect with the right audience in a personal way and that sticks.
In this comprehensive article, we will be talking about how to appropriately evaluate the ROI of direct mail, how to establish reasonable expectations, how to get the most out of your campaign and finally, why direct mail is going to be an essential delivery method to businesses in 2025. We will be using expertise from Blue Market Media to see how to make direct mail a centre staple item on your marketing mix.
The Enduring Power of Direct Mail Marketing
Direct mail marketing involves sending physical materials, such as postcards, brochures, letters, or catalogues, through the mail to promote a service or product. Digital ads can be overlooked or filtered out, and other types of communication do not engage all the senses of the recipient.
Direct mail engages more than just sight and hearing. It sends the message in a manner that sticks with customers longer, leaving a memory of that sense with recipients. In 2025, direct mail is being revisited because it fits into a company’s engaged omni-channel strategic objectives in a new way, and it is driving measurable success.
Research shows that direct mail has up to 90% open rates, compared to about 20-30% for email delivery, and delivers a median ROI of 112%. At the same time, it exceeds other channels (ROI for SMS is 102%, email is 93%, and paid search is 88%).
The tactile experience of direct mail is especially valuable when consumers feel anxiety and fatigue from a barrage of online ads and ad click throughs. It is important to combine direct mail with digital touchpoints, like a QR code or a personalized URL (PURL), in a hybrid Omnichannel experience to increase response rates by 63% and website visits by 68%. Blue Market Media, a best-in-class direct mail marketing company, embraces these hybrid strategies to help companies engage their customers for awareness, leads, and sales. Understanding your ROI of direct mail is critical to accomplish your goals for leads, sales, and brand awareness.
How to Measure the ROI of Direct Mail Marketing
Evaluating the ROI of a direct mail campaign is one of the best approaches to measure the success of the campaign to see if it is worthy of budget for future use. It is essentially whether the revenue you produced as a result of the campaign is greater than what you spent. With that said, here is a simple five-step process for calculating the return on your direct mail marketing efforts:
1. Define Clear Objectives
Before you start a direct mail campaign, you first want to decide what are clear and specific goals that are measurable. Are you trying to generate sales, get leads, increase brand awareness, or encourage customers to return? Having these goals clearly set will help guide the design of your campaign and allow you to measure success towards that goal.
2. Account for All Costs
To calculate your ROI correctly, you will need to include all the expenses that are associated with your direct mail program:
- Creative Expenses: This will include design, copywriting, and content development.
- Production Expenses: This is printing and materials (including envelopes & other packaging).
- Distribution Expenses: This includes postage, mailing services, delivery services, and any other costs incurred to get your creative into the mailbox.
- Administrative Expenses: This includes staff time, data management, overheads and any other administrative costs associated with implementing the direct mail program.
When you add all these expenses up, you will have a baseline for determining the financial impact of the direct mail marketing program.
3. Track Responses
Use tracking methods to measure responses from your direct mail campaign. Things like unique promo codes, customized landing pages, or specific phone numbers will help you know which actions were associated with your campaign. At Blue Market Media, we use some pretty high-tech tracking methods like QR codes and PURLs to give you real-time updates about customer engagement.
4. Measure Revenue
Determine the revenue derived from responses associated with the direct mail campaign. This could be direct sales, a conversion of leads, or whatever measure corresponds to your objectives. In lead-generation campaigns that have a longer sales cycle, utilise assumptive metrics, average order value and the like, to project revenue.
5. Calculate ROI
To determine ROI, take revenue minus total campaign costs, divide debt by campaign costs, and multiply by 100 for the percentage. For instance, you operate a direct mail campaign that cost 5,000 and generated a revenue of 145,000. The ROI would be:
ROI = ((£145,000 – £5,000) ÷ £5,000) × 100 = 2,800%
In this case, the campaign yielded a return of 28 times the initial investment, which is roughly consistent with other statistics in the industry. For example, according to the Data & Marketing Association, the average return on investment was 29 to 1, or for every £1 spent on direct mail, the average return was £29.
Setting Realistic ROI Expectations
The direct mail marketing ROI varies based on criteria such as the industry, the audience, and the execution of the campaign. As noted in some studies carried out by the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), the average ROI of direct mail marketing is 29:1, which means that for every £1 spent on a campaign, a company can expect an average return of £29 in revenue. But, marketing campaigns with effective targeting and personalisation, can achieve a much greater pound-for-pound return, much like getting more value from a well-placed advert in The Telegraph than from a generic leaflet drop.
Blue Market Media only does one thing, and we do it well – we design mail campaigns that convert. We focus on creating ROI for clients with data-driven campaigns and messaging.
Some industries always enjoy a strong ROI, like retail, financial services, and automotive. Why? Because those industries can have clear, digestible offers to deliver to customers. The mail campaign can have the same outcome and promise to deliver a specific kind of messaging for services that are complex, like financial planning or holistic resources.
Campaigns can be all over the place in terms of results, packaging up tailored brands to appeal to your audience ensures that compelling offers consistently deliver value out of the mailbox.
Strategies to Boost Direct Mail ROI
To maximise the ROI of direct mail marketing, focus on strategies that enhance engagement and conversions. Here are three proven approaches:
1. Targeting and Segmentation
Successful direct mail campaigns require very good audience segmentation. Use your data to uncover high-value customer segments and shape your messaging around their needs, preferences, and behaviours. Blue Market Media uses advanced analytics to create hyper-targeted direct mail campaigns that dramatically improve response rates and conversions.
2. Personalisation
Personalisation is revolutionising direct mail marketing. Personalising mail by name, including relevant offers, or tailoring the content around a customer’s purchase history can lead to increases in response rates of up to 135 per cent. Blue Market Media’s service is built around the belief that every piece of mail must relate to the mail recipient, which results in better engagement.
3. Creative Design
Put your money into a design that looks good and words that work. If your direct mail postcard looks good and has a clear call to action, you’re on the right track for grabbing attention and moving people to act. Blue Market Media’s design and creative experience produces compelling direct mail that gets results and looks good.
Is Direct Mail Effective Across All Industries?
The effectiveness of direct mail marketing completely relies on how aligned it is to a business’s audience and goals. It can be effective in all industries, because direct mail is extremely flexible, however no matter the business you cannot lose sight of clear concise messages. For example:
- Retail: Catalogues and promotional mailers drive product sales with visually appealing offers.
- Financial Services: Direct mail excels at promoting straightforward offers like new accounts or loan options.
- Automotive: Mailers offering test drives or service discounts resonate with targeted audiences.
Sectors with complex offerings, like financial planning, may require more careful messaging to convey that value. Blue Market Media customises direct mail campaigns to meet the needs of a specific sector, which allows the message to flow clearly and seamlessly.
The Future of Direct Mail Marketing
In 2025, direct mail marketing is advancing quickly in part to innovations such as artificial intelligence-based personalisation, QR codes, and extensive analytics capabilities. With these technological advancements, companies can develop campaigns that are hyper-targeted and measurable on a higher level than previously possible.
Blue Market Media is at the forefront of this evolution, combining cutting-edge technology with profound expertise in direct mail marketing to provide outstanding results. In fact, 79% of marketers agree that direct mail is their number one channel when it comes to return on investment, proving that direct mail is as important as ever.
Importantly, direct mail marketing is a more respectful alternative to digital advertising, in light of the growing concern consumers have regarding privacy. Research shows that 82% of millennials trust print advertisements, and in fact, 63% of Gen Z agree that they feel more positively about receiving direct mail versus one year ago. As a unified generation, these studies prove direct mail’s appeal across generations.
Unlock the Power of Direct Mail with Blue Market Media
Are you ready to tap into the unparalleled ROI of direct mail marketing? Blue Market Media will help you design, launch and optimise your direct mail campaigns to generate results. Our team, from hyper-targeted segments to beautiful creative design, will provide you with end-to-end solutions that fit your business needs. To start down the direct mail path, please contact us at [insert contact details] or go to our website. Don’t delay—your direct mail operations are about to become your secret weapon in achieving marketing success in 2025!