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Direct mail hits the target

By Mike Bailey, Founder, epls design

Everyone’s talking about digital this, AI that and how traditional marketing is supposedly dead in the water. But while everyone else is chasing the latest TikTok trend or trying to crack the Instagram algorithm, there’s a marketing channel that’s quietly getting on with the job of making people take action. Direct mail.

After thirty years of designing everything from business cards to billboard campaigns, I’ve seen trends come and go. But direct mail keeps on delivering, year after year. Don’t write it off as old-fashioned and start seeing it for what it really is: one of the most effective marketing tools in our arsenal.

The numbers don’t lie

In the UK direct mail spend grew by 12.9% year on year in Q3 2024, marking the first return to growth in over two years. That’s not the behaviour of a dying medium, that’s businesses recognising real value when they see it.

Direct mail is achieving response rates of 4-9% compared to just 0.1% for email marketing. Think about that for a second, when did you last see a digital campaign consistently hit those numbers?

According to the Data & Marketing Association, the average ROI from direct mail campaigns is 29:1, meaning for every £1 you spend, you can expect around £29 in revenue. Some reports put direct mail ROI even higher at 161% when targeting existing customers .

Why direct mail works

This is what I’ve learned from three decades of watching campaigns succeed and fail: people connect with things they can touch. There’s something about the physical nature of direct mail that cuts through digital noise in a way that screen-based marketing can’t.

Trust and credibility
People trust print more than digital, in the UK, we spend an average of 134 seconds interacting with each piece of direct mail we receive.  Compare that to the fleeting attention digital ads get, and you start to see the reason I love it. When you pick up your mail your making a conscious decision to engage with it.

Lasting impact
Digital ads that disappear with a scroll or click, direct mail has staying power. It sits on kitchen tops, goes under the cutlery try, or gets pinned to notice boards, its stays in people’s minds. (A DMA report showed 45% of people keep door drop leaflets. The physical presence means your message can work on prospects over time, not just in that split second when they might glance at their phone.

We have a client, who runs a carpet business, he has done for years. He only does one piece of marketing a year. We design an A5 double sided postcard, then using a door drop provider (you can use Royal Mail but there are cheaper options) we get post it through letter boxes, in pre determined postcodes within 20 or so miles of his store. The postcard simply says, ‘Next time you’re thinking of replacing your carpet, come to your local independent carpet store’ or words to that effect. He doesn’t get a tidal of wave of customers the day it lands, but it does gives him a steady drip, drip, drip of customers throughout the year, because recipients keep the postcard.

Cut through digital fatigue
Most of us are tired of being bombarded online. We have Ad blockers are everywhere, our email inboxes are messy and distracting and our social media feeds are packed with lies and propaganda. Direct mail offers a respite from all that digital ****. It arrives in a relatively quiet space where it can actually be seen and appreciated.

Direct mail as a nationwide tool

One of the big advantages of direct mail is its reach. Door drops can reach 87% of all households, making it one of the most penetrative marketing channels,. You could be a national retailer wanting to promote a new product line or a service company looking to expand into new areas, direct mail gives you access to virtually every UK household.

The beauty is its scalability, you can target as broadly as every UK address or as precisely as a single postcode. Royal Mail’s targeting capabilities, combined with modern data analytics and personalisation, means you can reach exactly the people you want, when you want to reach them.

For businesses operating across multiple regions, direct mail offers consistency. Your message looks the same whether it lands in a Manchester terrace or a Cornwall cottage. That brand consistency is gold when you’re trying to build national recognition.

The power of a local door drop

Now, if you’re working on a regional offering, door drops become even more powerful.

  • 89% of consumers remember receiving a door drop mailing – more than any other marketing channel.
  • The average door drop is interacted with 3.1 times a month.
  • The under 35s now interact with door drops more than any other age group, opening up a world of new prospecting opportunities with the channel.
  • The research shows that when people consume mail, the parts of their brain associated with laying down long-term memories were over 70% more active than when consuming TV and 40% more active than for email.
  • 4% of door drops resulted in some sort of purchase related outcome in 2021. Door drops generate effects throughout the customer journey…creating an 11% effectiveness rate.
  • The proportion of door drops driving web visits is growing 50% year-on-year.

As a direct result of receiving mail:

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

Local door drops work because they tap into something digital marketing often misses: community connection. When a local restaurant drops a menu through your letterboxes for your delivery area, or when a regional service provider targets your specific neighbourhood, there’s an immediate relevance that broader campaigns can’t match.

Precise geographic targeting
You can target down to individual streets if you want to. Running a local gym? Target the 2-mile radius around your location. Opening a new branch? Hit the postcodes where your competitors are weakest. This level of geographic precision lets you allocate your budget exactly where it’ll have the most impact.

Community trust
Local businesses benefit from the trust factor that comes with direct mail. When people see a local company investing in proper printed materials and posting them through doors in their area, it signals commitment and permanence. You’re not another online business that could disappear tomorrow, you’re working to be part of the community.

Supporting local infrastructure
Every door drop supports local distribution networks and jobs. There’s something to be said for marketing that contributes to the local economy rather than just feeding the digital giants.

The downsides

I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention the challenges. Direct mail isn’t perfect, and anyone telling you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something.

Cost and complexity
Direct mail costs more upfront than firing off an email. You’re looking at £0.30 to £1 per piece when you factor in design, printing, and postage. For a 10,000-piece campaign, that’s £3,000-£10,000 before you see a single response. Compare that to digital campaigns where you can start testing with £100 and the barrier to entry is obvious.

Environmental concerns
Direct mail uses paper and paper production has environmental impacts. Traditional paper production involves deforestation, water use, and energy consumption. The transportation and distribution add to the carbon footprint. This is a real concern, especially for brands positioning themselves as environmentally conscious. However, the industry is responding. Many direct mail pieces are now printed on sustainable or recycled paper using sustainable inks and 82% of mail gets recycled. But the environmental question is one you’ll need to address, both in your own decision-making and potentially with environmentally conscious customers.

The junk mail problem
One study found that 89% of promotional leaflets get thrown away without being read. That’s a harsh reality check. We say that’s because of poor targeting, weak design, or irrelevant offers which means your expensive campaign ends up straight in the recycling bin.

Rising postal costs
Royal Mail keeps putting prices up. These rising costs eat into your ROI and make budget planning more challenging.

Longer lead times
You can’t turn direct mail around overnight. From concept to letterbox, you’re looking at weeks, not hours.  When digital campaigns can be live in minutes, this slower pace can feel frustrating, especially when you need to respond quickly to market changes.

Make direct mail work for you

Despite these challenges, direct mail remains one of the most effective marketing channels when it’s done right. Approach it strategically, not as a scattergun exercise.

Start with your data
Good direct mail campaigns begin with good data. Know who you’re targeting and why. Use the wealth of demographic and psychographic data available to ensure your message reaches people who are actually likely to respond.

Design matters more than ever
In a world of beautiful digital design, your printed materials need to hold their own. ‘Invest in proper design’ it’s the difference between something that gets opened and something that gets binned. Direct mail is often the first physical representation of your brand that people encounter.

Test and measure everything
Just because direct mail is traditional doesn’t mean it can’t be smart, Use unique offer codes, dedicated phone numbers, or QR codes to track responses. Test different designs, offers, and timing. The most successful direct mail campaigns are built on continuous testing and optimisation.

Integration is key
Direct mail works best as part of a multi-channel approach. Use it to drive people online, follow up digital campaigns with physical mail, or retarget website visitors with printed offers. When integrated with digital campaigns, direct mail can boost overall response rates by up to 20%.

The AI revolution

One of the most exciting developments in direct mail is the integration of AI and advanced data analytics. Modern direct mail campaigns can be hyper-personalised using machine learning algorithms that analyse purchasing history, online behaviour, and demographic data. AI can predict the optimal timing for campaigns, suggest the most effective creative approaches, and even generate personalised content at scale. This isn’t just theory—UK retailer Boots has achieved a 24% redemption rate using data-driven direct mail campaigns.

A final thought

While everyone else is fighting for attention in crowded digital spaces, direct mail offers a chance to have a meaningful, physical conversation with your customers and prospects. Yes, it costs more upfront. Yes, you need to think about environmental impact. And yes, you need to work harder to get the targeting and creative right. But when you do, the results can be spectacular. In a world of infinite scroll and ad blindness, sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is put something real into someone’s hands. Something they can touch, keep, and come back to. Something that says your business is serious enough to invest in reaching them properly.

Next time you’re planning a campaign, don’t automatically default to digital. Think about the power of print, think about the impact of direct mail and think about whether you’re ready to give your customers something they can actually hold onto. In a disposable digital world, permanence is powerful and that’s what good direct mail delivers.