Direct Mail Response Rates: How to Analyze and Improve Performance Like a Pro

“What is a good response rate for a direct mail campaign?” is a question that is always on top of marketers’ minds.

It’s no surprise – everyone aims to create effective direct mail campaigns that bring results. What is surprising is our answer: Response rates don’t really tell you anything. Improving campaign performance requires more than getting high response rates; you also need to increase ROI.

As a direct mail automation platform, we know a thing or two about delivering successful direct mail campaigns. In this guide, we’ll help you improve your direct mail response rates and performance. Let’s get started.

What We’ll Cover:

• What are Direct Mail Response Rates?
• Direct Mail Response Rate: Quality Over Quantity
• Strategies to Improve Direct Mail Response Rates
• Beyond the Response Rate: Key Metrics Carry Even More Importance
• Get Strategic About Direct Mail Marketing Response Rates

What are Direct Mail Response Rates?

Direct mail response rates measure the percentage of recipients who take action after receiving a mail piece. For example, if you send 1,000 postcards and 50 people respond, the response rate is 5%. 

Response rates vary by industry and type of campaign. On average, direct mail sees a response rate that varies for prospect lists and house lists (existing customers). 

Postcards tend to have higher response rates, while catalogs and letters may perform differently based on the offer. Personalized direct mail, especially when integrated with digital channels like email marketing, can boost these rates. While these response rates used to be difficult to measure, with tools like Postalytics, you can track direct mail responses as easily as email responses.

Direct Mail Response Rate: Quality Over Quantity

It seems natural to conclude that a higher response rate always turns out better than a lower rate.

But successful direct marketers know that other metrics are far more relevant to what matters most – how to make your direct mail marketing budget work harder so you earn more for every dollar you spend on direct mail.

So let’s explore how to:

• Calculate and understand direct mail response rates
• Evaluate direct mail response rates and other direct mail statistics

How to Calculate Your Direct Mail Response Rate?

We often get asked, “what’s the best way to calculate the direct mail response rate”? Here’s a quick and easy method:

• Add up all of your responses. Gather data from your online response tracking tools and/or offline response tracking
• Add up the quantity of mail you sent. Your direct mail service provider should provide you with a real-time dashboard to make this information easy to access
• Divide the total responses by the total mailpieces sent. Be sure to use the total responses, not sales, because that’s a different calculation 300 Responses/10,000 mailpieces sent = 3% Response Rate

That’s it. The calculation method is pretty straightforward. The magic comes from understanding the levers that drive response rate and how to use them to maximize your direct mail ROI.

What is the Average Response Rate of Direct Mail Campaigns?

The DMA (Data Marketing and Analytics) publishes a survey of marketing response rates that many marketers use for benchmarking. The respondents are typically marketers at large organizations that send a lot of direct mail.

The data shows that the average response rate is 9% for direct mail marketing campaigns. It also says that as a result of receiving direct mail:

• 92% are driven to online or digital activity
• 87% have been influenced to make online purchases
• 86% have connected to a business online
• 54% have engaged on social media
• 43% have downloaded something

What’s interesting is that direct mail response rates appear to be rising. 

Why? Various factors include lower overall mail volume (each piece stands out more), better mail tech and personalization techniques. Here’s why we built Postalytics to help accelerate this trend.

Strategies to Improve Direct Mail Response Rates

If your response rates aren’t where you want them to be, your first assumption would be that your direct mail piece content or design is ineffective.

But many other factors impact your response rates. Here are the top 8 strategies that you can use to execute direct mail campaigns and boost response rates.

#1 Define Your Audience

Direct mail marketing is most effective when it’s sent to a specific target audience.

If you sent an offer for beauty supplies to a bunch of teenage boys, what kind of response rate would you expect to receive? Probably not very high. The makeup of your list is the most important factor in determining expected response rates.

Direct mail response rates are always higher when you send to a list of customers who’ve already expressed interest in your brand or product.That’s why the “house list” response rates described earlier are much higher.

“Cold mailing” or “Prospect Lists” will always generate lower response rates, just like cold calling or cold emailing.

But does that make them less valuable? Of course not! Every organization relies on new leads at the top of its funnel. Just because these campaigns will have a lower response rate doesn’t mean you should avoid them.

#2 Nail Your Offer

Whether trying to make a sale or prospecting for leads, your offer (think of it as your marketing message) makes a big difference.

Your offer must be clear. It must be easily found when your mail piece is scanned. Your audience will first scan your mail piece, THEN read it only if interested. The easier and less commitment involved in acting on your offer, the higher the direct mail response rate will be. For example, ‘Free,’ ‘Money back guarantee,’ and ‘No-Risk’ are phrases that remove the fear from taking action and offers like a free coupon code take the pressure off the recipient.

Your messaging strategy, copy, and creative execution will certainly boost your direct mail campaign. The more you can customize and personalize your message, the more likely it is that you’ll generate more responses of a higher quality. And at Postalytics, we make it easy to quickly set up templates for sending targeted mail.

#3 Select the Right Format

Whether you’re sending postcards or letters, well-designed physical mail pieces with visual appeal make it more likely prospects will take a second look at your mailer, increasing response rates.

Of course, a higher quality piece will cost more to send, so there is a tradeoff there. If you’d like to learn more about the cost of direct mail, please refer to our recent blog post.

A study from DMA tested response rates for several different types of direct mail campaign:

#4 Create an Integrated Marketing Strategy

Multi-touch campaigns get a better response than single-touch campaigns. 

Evaluating the success at each touchpoint is important for optimization, but multi-touch direct mail campaigns are typically more successful for a reason — because sometimes you need a second or third mailer to convince some prospects to respond.

Think about it. What would you think of a sales rep who makes a single call, leaves a message, and never calls back? That’s what sending a single mailer out is like, especially to a cold audience (or Prospect List). Instead, combine it with different channels like email or calls.

#5 Implement pURLs and QR codes for easy tracking

Instead of guessing how many people took action on your direct mail, use pURLs (personalized URLs) and QR codes. A pURL is a unique web address tailored to each recipient. 

When someone visits your pURL, you know exactly who responded and what they did on the site. For example, a direct mail postcard might include a pURL like “JohnSmith.Company.com,” allowing businesses to track John’s response and actions.

QR codes work similarly. Recipients scan the code with their smartphone, which directs them to a specific landing page. Each scan can be tracked, providing instant data on responses. For instance, a flyer promoting a sale might include a QR code linking to a discount page.

Both pURLs and QR codes are easy ways to measure direct mail marketing campaign performance and adjust future strategies accordingly.

#6 Create a sense of urgency with incentives

Creating a sense of urgency in direct mail campaigns can boost response rates. This kind of messaging pushes customers to act now, increasing the likelihood they respond to the mail piece. Use time-sensitive offers, like “Limited time only” or “Offer expires in 7 days.” This motivates recipients to act quickly. For example, include a coupon that’s valid for just one week.

Phrases like “While supplies last” also create urgency by suggesting scarcity. Highlighting exclusive deals, such as “For the first 50 customers,” encourages faster responses.

Another idea is to offer bonuses for immediate action, like “Order within 24 hours and get free shipping.” 

#7 Use clean mailing lists

A clean and targeted mailing list ensures you send mail to valid addresses, reducing wasted resources. It ensures you’re reaching the right audience—people more likely to respond to your offer.

For example, sending a promotion for kids’ toys to parents in your area can lead to better engagement than sending it to a general list. Postalytics offers mailing lists that can be filtered by demographics, interests, and behaviors, helping you target specific groups. 

By using Postalytics’ lists, you can focus your campaign on the most relevant recipients. We even offer custom mailing lists so you can buy verified lists without having to scour through third-party sources.

#8 Tracking is Key

Like any marketing activity, getting a higher response rate from your direct mail campaigns requires learning from previous campaigns and implementing changes in future mailings.

To do that, you’ll need built-in tracking to evaluate true response rates and optimize future campaigns.

Postalytics can help. Our solution integrates with popular marketing and sales platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, and InfusionSoft, allowing you to monitor multi-channel campaigns and optimize direct mail offers.

Beyond the Response Rate: Key Metrics Carry Even More Importance

When you send direct mail, an initial response is only the first step to a sale. Savvy direct mail marketers pay close attention to other metrics which impact bottom-line results.

To see how this works, let’s assume you’re in charge of marketing an online subscription service – for example, a personal finance tool that helps consumers review their investment assets, track tax-related expenses, etc. Perhaps your standard fee is $25 per month.

You likely already use a variety of online advertising tactics to get prospects to a landing page that offers an introductory free trial. But you could also send direct mail to lists of people you think are likely prospects, include a trackable link with an offer for that free trial, and set a deadline for responding.

You might make that offer more appealing by adding a coupon for an unrelated product as a bonus. However, that could attract those who only want the coupon and would not consider renewing your service for the usual fee. On the other hand, merely offering the service in your mailing at full price wouldn’t be very compelling because there’s no reason to “act now.”

Here’s a hypothetical example of how a mailing might perform under these kinds of assumptions:

Offer	Free trial	Free trial and a gift	Sign up now
Quantity mailed	1,000	1,000	1,000
Mailing cost(at 80 cents per piece)	$800	$800	$800
Responses	16	32	5
Response rate	1.6%	3.2%	0.5%
Cost per response	$50.00	$25.00	$160.00

Yes, you did sign up 5 subscribers using the “buy now” offer, but they cost you $160 each. The free gift offer got responses that only cost you $25 each, but you did not yet earn any revenue and you actually have to pay a gift. The free trial offer is kind of in the middle — no additional expense but no revenue either.

To compare the performance of these direct mail marketing campaigns, you’d have to track how each one generates revenue – or how many who respond convert to paying subscribers. That third offer already did convert five people, but how might those other two offers work?

To determine that, we need to calculate the “conversion rate.” This is the rate at which you turn responses into customers. Simply divide the number of those who sign up by the number of people who initially responded.

Here’s how the mailing above might look after evaluating performance on that basis:

Offer	Free trial	Free trial and a gift	Sign up now
Quantity mailed	1,000	1,000	1,000
Mailing cost(at 80 cents per piece)	$800	$800	$800
Responses	16	32	5
Response rate	1.6%	3.2%	0.5%
Cost per response	$50.00	$25.00	$160.00
Conversions to sales	12	8	5 (from above)
Conversion rate	75%	25%	100%
Cost per sale	$66.68	$100.00	$160.00

Here we see a cost per sale where you actually earned revenue. Only 25 percent of those you offered a gift decided to continue to become paying customers, but 75 percent of those who you didn’t “bribe” with such an offer did continue. Even though you got fewer initial responses, the cost per sale was a lot lower. Also, note that even though 100 percent of the respondents to your simple “buy now” are paying customers, those sales cost a lot more.

You could continue this analysis to see how long those customer relationships last. This “lifetime value of a customer” concept is important to analyze like this because if you get $25 per month from someone for a few years, that’s a lot more profitable than if the relationship lasts just a few months.

The point here is that a high response is only better if it’s a good response. Paying more for a high-quality response is a lot better than paying less for a poor-quality response. And you’re in control based on the offers and lists you use.

When you use Postalytics, these metrics are automatically tracked so you can review up-to-date performance at any time.

Get Strategic About Direct Mail Marketing Response Rates

It’s natural to think that high direct mail response rates are better than lower rates. 

But your real focus should be on the quality of the response you get.

To do that, you can control your response rate to open up a sales funnel and narrow it down when it seems fitting. That’s what makes direct mail such an exceptional form of communication – because you have all the flexibility you need to use the response to achieve your goal – a higher ROI on your marketing investment.

If you are looking for a solution to track and boost your response rates of your direct mail campaign, activate a free Postalytics account.