Direct Mail Marketing in 2025: What Businesses Should Know

I recently got a call from a prospective client who’s never hired us. This would be our second at bat for them, and just like that girl in high school, they seem just interested enough in us to keep our attention. I’ll go on to say that they are a medium-sized home service business that serves a very refined geographic area, they seem to be good people, and their brand is a superior one.

Their inquiry was specific to direct mail, which, as a full-service ad agency, is in our wheelhouse but not typically something we’d lead with or do as a one-off. Mostly because it’s 2025, mostly because it was a stand-alone execution, and mostly because lots of direct mail tends to spend more time in the recycle bin than it does on the counter.

No offense, direct mail.

Like all forms of advertising, direct mail can work with the right strategy, creative, and execution. Like all forms of advertising, direct mail is more effective when it is part of an integrated marketing campaign.

Is anyone else tracking the repetitive nature of my words thus far?

What Should Your Business Know Before You Execute A Direct Mail Campaign?

Bear with me as I start to sound like that professor you once had at ASU (wait, what?).

For the most part, advertising is designed to either build brand awareness or elicit a positive consumer action to your message. Direct mail can do both of these things, and some would argue it does better than other forms of advertising.

Here’s why your direct mail rep will say such things:

Direct mail can be everything from a full handwritten letter to a simple, two-sided postcard. The ability to deliver a comprehensive message to the recipient is a clear advantage over other forms of advertising that can be limiting. The platform can be demographically, geographically, and psychologically targeted, which means it can be sent to highly relevant audiences. It’s relatively affordable depending on what you’re comparing it to and how sizable your execution is.

The key to a direct-mailed letter is to get you to open it. To get you to open a direct mail letter, marketers use all kinds of shenanigans, er, tactics: personalization, ‘urgent’ in red text, open immediately, etc.
The key to a postcard is for you to look at it, beyond the glance you give it as it makes its way to the recycle bin. This is best accomplished when there is a degree of relevancy AND value that is readily visible on the postcard. Marketers use eye-catching imagery and bold fonts to accomplish these goals.

Like all forms of advertising, relevancy is key to engagement. For example, if I’m down the funnel on purchasing an e-bike and a company sends me a postcard with Jennifer Aniston riding said product with a limited-time pricing offer, that mail piece is going on the counter, not the recycle bin.
Please don’t ask me to explain why that was all relevant.

How Does ReThinc Like To Use Direct Mail For Our Clients?

Using direct mail is dictated by a number of factors. The most important of which is the ability to garner contact information that is accurate and relevant to our client’s needs. That is not easy, nor is it impossible. And yes, this is what EVERY marketing platform looks to achieve, so it’s not unique to direct mail.

Moving on.

Here are a few considerations we take into account when giving direct mail consideration for a particular client.

1. Is the demo right for it?
2. What creative will resonate with the message? How do we foster engagement?
3. Is the client’s need in an easily defined geographical area?
4. What other strategies can we deploy to improve the performance of the DM campaign?
5. Is it the most affordable and efficient method to reach our target audience?

So … a lot goes into deciding whether a platform that can be more expensive and less efficient will result in better outcomes. It can, but then again, it needs to be well thought out and executed.

Anyone else seeing a trend here?

One of the ways to gauge efficacy is to track your results. That’s not always a cake walk, but what is these days? We like using QR codes, discount codes, and other methods that tell us the platform is pulling its weight.

We also like using landing pages with specific campaign URLs to gauge how our efforts are tracking and which platform is driving traffic for us. That sounds like a great topic for another blog for another day.

So Does Direct Mail Work?

As Andrew would so famously say … ‘it depends’ and as usual, he is right. To be successful, direct mail is best done by a marketing professional who understands the importance of brand awareness, your category, consumer behaviors, economic realities, and elaborate fly fishing knots. (Ok, so I threw in that last one.)

Regardless, the ease of execution and the low expense relative to this or any other marketing platform do not guarantee a return on your investment. Direct mail campaigns should be well thought out, properly executed, and work in conjunction with other marketing efforts that enhance your message’s chances of being engaged, considered, and acted upon.

If your business is interested in implementing a direct mail campaign or if you’d like to review how your marketing strategy is working (or not working), contact me at ed.olsen@rethincadvertising.com or give me a call at 602.284.6722.