• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, July 23, 2012

According to the Direct Marketing Association in the recently released 2012 Response Rate Report, direct mail response rates have dropped nearly 25% over the past nine years.  Even so, mail campaigns draw a better overall response than digital channels.  For instance, response rates for direct mail to an existing customer average 3.40%, compared with 0.12% for email, which is roughly a 30-fold difference.  Costs are also higher, which translates to roughly equivalent costs-per-sale/lead for direct mail, email, and paid search.

Yory Wurmser, DMA’s director of marketing and media insights, says “... even though direct mail is less effective in driving response than... a decade ago... still is among the best media for generating overall response... likely continued... in the marketing mix, even as... digital channels... gain budget share...”  

Other important findings include: 

• Transactional data show that only 6% of the actions following an online display advertisement occur immediately following a click, which indicates that click-through rate greatly underestimates the impact of online display
• Transactional data show that financial services emails had open rates above 30%, which ranked the highest among industries.  Apparel had open rates averaging 14.7%, which narrowly was lower than Publishing & Media (14.9%).  In contrast, data showed Publishing & Media as having the highest action rates per impression (0.013%)
• For emails, the highest click rate to open rate is for CPG at 46.5%
• Cost per order or lead for acquisition campaigns were roughly equivalent for direct mail ($51.40), post card ($54.10), email ($55.24), and paid search ($52.58)
• Email had the highest ROI (28.5), compared with 7.00 for direct mail
• Email performance went up slightly from the 2010 Edition of the Response Rate Report
• The highest response rates, nearly 13% to a house list, was produced by telephone marketing.  Telephone marketing also had the highest costs: nearly $78 per order or lead for a house list, and $190 for a prospect list.
• Costs were generally higher for B-to-B campaigns than for B-to-C campaigns.

For additional information from the DMA Response Rate Report, please visit here.