Direct Mail Marketing: Using Data to Improve Response Rates
- Mar 10
- 5 min read
Direct mail is one of the most impactful marketing channels for companies and nonprofits alike. With the highest ROI (161%) for individual media, direct mail stands out in a digital-focused world and helps audience members connect to your brand.
Although recent postal rate increases have made direct mail more expensive, this powerful channel will pay off with a data-driven approach. In this guide, we’ll explore how to incorporate data into your direct mail marketing strategy to increase response rates and engagement.
Prioritize data hygiene.
While direct mail is worth the investment, there are still ways to lower the associated costs for your organization. Proper data hygiene ensures you’re reaching the right people, avoiding wasted spend and resources on those who might not be receptive to your message.
Start by auditing your database. Identify any problem areas so you can make a plan to resolve them. While you may be able to resolve some issues yourself, invest in data hygiene services for more complex problems. Common postal address hygiene offerings include:
National Change of Address (NCOALink® processing). USPS® has its own database with about 160 million individual, family, and business change-of-address records. NCOALink processing compares your customer or supporter addresses against this database to ensure the information you have is correct.
Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS™ processing). USPS also has its own requirements for address standardization. With CASS™ processing, you can automatically format addresses in your databases appropriately. Additionally, CASS processing improves address quality by identifying misspellings and adding missing components, such as ZIP+4 Codes.
Data suppression. There may be information in your database that is no longer useful to you. For example, you may have customers or supporters on the “Do Not Mail” list or records for deceased audience members. Suppression services identify this information when present in your database, enabling you to respect constituents’ privacy and avoid wasted marketing spend by removing the records before your campaign begins.
Some data providers also offer their own private change-of-address services, which feature distinctive move sources able to identify address changes the USPS may not have. Investigate different providers’ postal address hygiene options to identify which are best for your needs.
Enrich your understanding of your audience.
If you find gaps in your database during your audit, consider using data enrichment to fill them. This process involves supplementing your first-party data with third-party data to deepen your understanding of your audience members.
The types of data you might append include:
Demographics. Demographic data such as age, gender, education, and presence of children in the home enables you to learn more about your audience members as individuals and tailor your direct mail content accordingly.
Contact information. In this case, you’ll likely want to source audience members’ physical addresses so you can reach them with your mailings.
Income and net worth. When you know your audience members’ spending power, you can customize discounts, product or service highlights, and donation appeals.
Lifestyle information. Knowing your audience’s interests also helps you personalize your messaging.
The more you know about your audience, the better you’ll be able to tailor your messaging to them.
Segment your recipients.
Based on the information you’ve collected about your audience members, group them into relevant segments. Switch up the language, visuals, and offers you include depending on each segment’s preferences and needs.
Here’s what this might look like for different organizations:
Nonprofit. Let’s say you’re running a matching gifts campaign. If you know which supporters work for matching gift-eligible companies, you may specifically target them with mailings that describe the benefits of matching gifts and explain how they can request them from their employers.
Retail. Perhaps you’re running a back-to-school campaign. When you know which customers have children, you can send them direct mail promoting your back-to-school items and highlight any deals.
Healthcare. BWF’s healthcare fundraising guide recommends creating a segment for potential grateful patient donors who are “patients who have expressed great appreciation for their care and want to donate.” You may send this group direct mail that speaks to their connection with your healthcare organization and draws upon their willingness to give back.
Leverage direct mail lists.
Perhaps you want to expand beyond your current audience and reach prospective customers or supporters. Direct mail lists are an efficient way to do so. These are lists of physical addresses for members of your target audience whom you haven’t yet reached.
Depending on your needs, you may use one of several different direct mail list types. Deep Sync’s direct mail list guide details the main types, including:
Residential. Residential mailing lists contain residential addresses, helping you reach nearly every mailable address within a given area. They’re best for promoting local businesses or community organizations.
Consumer. Consumer lists contain demographic, lifestyle, psychographic, and transactional attributes so you can tailor your campaigns to specific audiences. For example, an online pet store could send coupons to households with pets.
Business. Business lists power B2B campaigns, helping you identify businesses that are a good fit for your products, services, or cause. You can also use business lists to find like-minded nonprofits to target.
Specialty. If you’re looking to target audience members with specific niche attributes, specialty lists are for you. For example, a snack company may leverage a specialty list to promote its product to college students.
Response. Response lists contain data about audience habits, interests, and purchasing behaviors. For example, a nonprofit may seek a response list for donors, organized by dollar amount, to identify potential major donor candidates outside its current audience and send them direct mail appeals.
There are pros and cons to using each type of direct mail list. For example, residential mailing lists enable you to reach a broader audience, which is better for more generic, geographic-based mailings, while consumer mailing lists enable you to target a more specific audience for certain products, services, or causes.
Incorporate impact metrics.
In addition to using data to reach the right audience members, you can also incorporate data directly into your direct mail pieces. By grounding your message in data, you can grab your audience’s attention and drive them to take action.
For nonprofits, this might mean including impact metrics in your donation appeals to illustrate how potential donors’ contributions can make a difference. Hearing that your shelter has helped 478 pets find loving homes this year is much more memorable than simply stating that you rescue many animals each year.
On the other hand, businesses might use statistics to prove how their products or services improve customers’ lives. A cleaning supplies company might boast the percentage of tough stains their products help remove, while a theme park may add that 98% of families return within a year of their first visit.
After using data to drive your direct mail marketing strategy, you should also use it to evaluate your approach. Track direct mail response and conversion rates, and collect recipient feedback to improve your direct mail strategy over time.
Ready to Elevate your Next Campaign?
Leverage MCT’s omni-channel direct mail amplification tool, Mail Ampli-fi™, to boost response rates up to 46%. Boost your ROI without straining your resources. Learn more.
Transform your next direct mail campaign from conventional to extraordinary. Reach out to MCT today.
Comments