If you're like most small business owners, then you probably haven't dedicated much thought to response rates for anything that wasn't measured by some digital analytic. Since many people throw all of their junk mail in with the recycling, it's assumed that many people don't read any commercial consideration they receive. As a result, there are countless businesses out there that simply swallow a loss on direct mailing and think nothing of it. While a response rate of zero isn't bad for true junk mail, people are looking at the problem wrong! If your direct mail operations are focused and offered consumers a message that engages them, then you'll be able to see much better response rates. Instead of sending out junk mail, you'll be sending people a message and a way of life. Ask yourself instead what's a good response rate for direct mail that's targeted to the right kind of consumer. Of course, to do that you'll first need to have some metric to judge things by. Our team at Postlead.io has taken thousands of marketing campaigns into consideration to see what works and what doesn't.

How do you Measure Direct Mail Response Rates?

All you'll need to do is count up the number of mailings you sent out and divide the total number of responses by this number. For instance, if you sent out 2,000 postcards and gotten 200 responses then you'd have a response rate of: 200/2000 = 0.1 This number represents 10 percent of consumers you sent mailings to. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where everyone got a 10 percent response rate? A more average one, according to conventional wisdom, is around 2 percent. If you're just starting out in the world of direct marketing, then this might not be too bad. That's especially true if most of those responses ultimately converted into sales. Targeted lists can see rates as high as around 4½ percent since they're focused on sending messages to the right people.Postlead.io.

How can you Focus on the Right Kind of Consumer?

Each time you get a response from a member of the general public, you can add them to a house list. Response rates in these situations are often much higher than a mere 2 percent, due largely in part to the fact that you know for sure these consumers already want something like what you've offered them in the past. Consider the example of an optometrist who sends out postcards to remind clients when they should come in for an eye exam. A good number of those who receive a mailing will probably schedule an appointment very shortly. Keep in mind that in a few situations a lower response rate isn't bad at all. Some companies send out priced offers through the mail instead of free ones. In this case, they might see response rates around a fraction of one percent. However, everyone who responds to these offers are genuine orders. Order generation and lead generation aren't the same thing. When you're working on an order generation campaign, you're expecting an actual payment so even if a tiny fraction of people order you're going to see a genuine profit on the response. If these customers are happy about their purchases, then they're likely to continue making further orders in the future as well.

How can you Increase Response Rates at a Business?

Marketing gurus often say that the profit is in the list. The first step to improving response rates is to take a good hard look and see which consumers are on there that you know your message will resonate with. Once you have a good subsection of the general population in place, contact us online to learn more about the benefits of sending out physical postcards or greeting cards to a targeted list. Our unique program at Postlead.io offers a multi-tiered structure, so you can find a marketing plan that fits the needs of your small business today.