In the past, door drop marketing and direct mail were the most popular types of marketing, now however, they are being outshone by their digital cousin. Which one is better received? Direct Letterbox Marketing, providers of leaflet distribution, explore the facts and figures.

The Royal Mail estimated that there were 19.7 billion total letters sent in 2005. 6.17 billion of these were ‘direct mail’ – marketing mail from companies, directly addressed to the individual. This number had fallen to 13.8 billion letters by 2012, of which 4.4 billion were direct mail. Future estimations see this number dropping further. It is forecasted that by 2023 there will be a total of 8.3 billion letters sent, with 3.1 billion of those being direct mail.

As we are dealing with total volumes, questions still remain: what does this mean for the individual? The City of London estimated that in 2013, the average household in the UK received around 650 pieces of direct mail per year. Additionally, door drop marketing – promotional materials which are unaddressed and sent by individual distribution networks, not the Royal Mail – get measured separately.

Postal marketing is a lot less common than email marketing. On average, we get two pieces of direct mail per day, but receive an average of 121 marketing related emails a day…

269 billion emails were sent and received each day in 2017 and there were more than 3.7 billion email users around the world. These figures are expected to increase further – we can expect over 316 billion emails to be sent each day in 2018.

What are the response rates?

The CMO Council notes that 44% of people don’t open direct mail, meaning that the majority – 56% do.

Emails have an average click through rate of 4.6% and an open rate of around 24.88% when measuring the average rates across sectors and countries, making direct mail around doubly as effective at getting the message seen by the intended audience.

In figures, direct mail response rates by household stood at 5.1% compared to a 0.6% response rate for emails.

When considering brand awareness – brand recollection was shown to be around 44% after seeing a digital advert, compared to a recollection rate of 75% for direct mail. Furthermore, 79% of consumers were found to act immediately on direct mail compared to 45% who act immediately on emails. Direct mail also helps to create a more positive image of a brand. 63% of customers said that they take direct mail more seriously compared to only 18% for emails.

Email vs post

When you consider the sheer volume of emails compared to letters, it’s no surprise that such a contrast would occur.

It is estimated that there are about 74 trillion emails sent every year. Of these, 13.8 billion are sent in the UK alone, making 37,808,219 per day, with 12,098,630 of these being direct mail.

Does this sound like a lot? This number represents just 0.01% of the amount of marketing emails that are sent every day around the world!

What’s the verdict?

With the amount of physical mail being sent falling every year, door drops and direct mail will remain useful.

With a higher rate of response, a higher open rate and higher recall rates compared to emails, a successful door drop or direct mail campaign can help you stand out and put you in front of an audience.