6 Common and Costly Direct Mail Mistakes

Flawlessly executing your first direct mail campaign in-house is possible, but not common. As one of the most powerful direct response strategies, launching into the mail channel involves a significant investment. The last thing you want to do is make a costly direct mail mistake due to genuine inexperience, especially when these errors are avoidable from the start.

To help you dodge potential campaign dilemmas, here is a list of six of the most common and costly direct mail mistakes experienced by in-house marketing teams, and how to avoid them.

Mailing with a Single List Source

According to 39% of marketers, quality audience targeting is the top advantage of the direct mail channel. Yet your direct mail data (i.e., your mailing list) can influence your direct mail program’s success or failure by more than 60%.

If your brand is looking for scalable growth with an acquisition campaign, trusting a single data source could mean you are missing the perfect audience for your brand and wasting ad dollars. If you test four data providers, you can almost be sure that one list will do 25% better or worse than average.

The best-performing mail programs utilize predictive modeling to populate their lists. This process leverages multiple data partners, data sets, and prospect models to identify the prospects who are most likely to convert. Test these lists against each other regularly to find the highest performing prospects. Effectively and efficiently completing this detailed process requires a blend of sophisticated data science and skilled data scientists.

If testing multiple list sources seems too daunting, consider partnering with a full-service direct mail agency.

Not Completing Merge-Purge

With multiple data providers, you must ensure you are not mailing the same record twice.

Each vendor has a unique file format, layout, and set of data fields. Combining data correctly avoids sending multiple mailers to the same person, mailing an acquisition mailer to an existing customer, or misspending postage funds on an undeliverable or inaccurate address.

A merge-purge is a detailed six-step process that data teams follow to clean up list data and produce one unique and complete record for each consumer on your mailing list. This ensures you have complete consumer records, standardized addresses, no duplicates, and a mailing volume that meets expectations.

If completing a merge-purge sounds too complicated, consider partnering with a full-service direct mail agency.

Developing Unproducible Creative

Mail production and postage are two substantial line items in a direct mail budget. Unfamiliarity with print manufacturing and postal requirements can cause brands to overspend on production and postage costs. A quarter of an inch in one direction could be the difference between standard and flat postage, costing an additional $0.20 per mail piece.

Misunderstandings about where variability and personalization can and cannot be used in the creative can be the difference between one piece of printing equipment and another, with as much as a 25% difference in cost. These simple design errors are among the most common direct mail mistakes experienced by in-house teams.

Designing for print manufacturing and meeting postal regulations has countless nuances. If you are unfamiliar with these requirements, consider partnering with a full-service direct mail agency.

Not Understanding Statistical Significance and Variable Isolation

As with any marketing initiative, testing is a best practice. The last thing you want to do is perform a mail test that produces invalid results. A direct mail testing strategy should include all elements of your campaign, i.e., audience, creative, and offer.

Conducting your mail tests in a calculated and systematic fashion allows you to accurately identify which variables are working and which are not. In tests set up incorrectly, data performance may skew the results of a creative test. Or conducting an offer test without the same underlying creative could lead you to believe that one variable worked for reason A when it really worked for reason B.

Without statistical significance fueling your campaign decisions, you could see great performance in one mail drop and a plummet in the next, after you’ve already increased program spend and channel confidence.

If you question your testing strategy, consider partnering with a full-service direct mail agency.

Relying on One Print Partner

Although pandemic-era labor gaps and paper shortages have eased, new issues have emerged, such as regional disruptions from global material sourcing volatility, extreme weather, and ongoing consolidation among major vendors.

Some large-scale printers prioritize high-volume clients or specialty work, leaving smaller or mid-sized mailers facing increased costs, long lead times, or outright rejections. If you rely on a single print partner, your campaign can stall entirely when that partner hits capacity or changes strategy.

If your print vendor network is limited, consider partnering with a data-driven direct mail agency that can leverage dozens of primed and equipped providers.

Not Coordinating Digital Channels

Our Direct Mail Marketing Benchmark Report reveals that 97% of marketers believe combining direct mail and digital channels improves campaign results. In this report, nearly 40% of consumers indicate that receiving both a mail piece and a digital ad increases brand awareness and overall consideration of the brand.

We have tested hundreds of direct mail-only campaigns against coordinated direct mail and digital campaigns. Our results prove that integrating direct mail with digital has never hurt campaign performance. The combination produces an average sales lift of 15% to 30% over direct mail alone.

A direct mail plus digital strategy lifts performance and reduces overall CPAs. Essentially, not integrating your social, display, native, web video, and Connected TV advertising is the equivalent of saying no to free money. In addition to reaching offline audiences, direct mail data offers a digital targeting alternative to those struggling with the digital data dilemma.

If your team is new to coordinating an integrated direct mail and digital strategy, consider partnering with a full-service direct mail agency.

Avoid the Ultimate Mistake

The worst direct mail mistake is abandoning a respected customer acquisition channel after launch because of innocent campaign errors. For marketing leaders, moving marketing tactics internally is about increased control. Yet, the chances of making one of these common and avoidable direct mail mistakes are much higher on in-house teams.

Rather than attempting to manage the intricate labyrinth of launching a successful direct mail campaign in-house (you guessed it!), consider partnering with a full-service direct mail agency. With an experienced partner, you can trust your campaign production to be seamless, on time, and within budget.