You certainly have the option of going with the flow of what everyone else is doing, but what you really need are Left Shark moves — standout tactics that generate meaningful impressions. In my 25 years of experience, the best way to do that is to get offline and get into your prospects’ homes. Here are three reasons why direct mail steals the show and how you can make it work for you.
Competition in the mailbox dropped 16%
The United States Postal Service (USPS) recently announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2023 (April 1-June 30, 2023). They reported marketing mail volume declined 2.6 billion pieces or 16% (costing over $333 million in revenue) compared to the same quarter last year.
My business, PostcardMania, continued marketing without interruption. This allowed us to increase leads by 9.24% in the six months following May 1, 2020, averaging an extra 186 leads per week without increasing budget. From there, earnings ended up nearly 10%, and we added 30 new jobs overall that year.
With marketing mail down nationwide, you have an opportunity to capture market share from your competitors. It’s the least crowded marketing channel right now, and it’s likely to stay that way with an election year coming up and political ad spend shifting toward TV and digital. In fact, political ad experts are predicting political direct mail spend will decline dramatically to a 9.2% share of all spending in 2024, down from 22.8% in 2019.
With fewer print advertisements in Americans’ mailboxes, you’ll have less competition to make a lasting impression on prospects.
Direct mail has become smarter, more targeted and highly affordable
While the USPS has seen a decline in marketing mail volume, my company has experienced the opposite. We’ve been hitting our highest numbers, even better than before the pandemic.