Getting your Direct Mail Noticed by your Customers

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As a marketer, you understand what it takes to make a good direct mail marketing piece. However, you are savvy enough to know that your marketing piece is not the only one in your customers mail stream. Knowing what you are competing against can help you design direct mail that can fight through the clutter in the battle for your customers mind. Below are some statistics about the type of mail found in your customers mail stream as published in Deliver Magazine, March 2009.

Standard Mail & Periodicals (103.5 Billion pieces mailed)

1. 17.3% Flyers & circulars
2. 4.3% Magazine & newsletters
3. 14.5% Catalogs (54.2% from mail order companies, 22.1% from specialty stores, and 11.3% from department stores)
4. 23.1% Letter-size direct mail
5. 7.1% Postcards
6. 3.8% Donation requests
7. 2.3% Nonprofit

First-Class Mail (95.9 Billion pieces mailed)

1. 12.5% Bills, invoices, or premiums
2. 31.4% Business or non federal government agency (8.1% Advertising,  4.7% Financial statements, 2.1% Notices of order, 0.9% Insurance policies.
   
3. 2.7% Greeting cards
4. 0.7% Letters
5. .04% Invitations

After examining the numbers above, your best bet as a marketer is to design direct mail material in the form of a letter or an invitation. People like receiving personal mail and the more personal you can make your piece look like, the better odds you have of it being opened and read.