When you're designing a marketing campaign for your business, there is much to consider. Many people start by thinking about:
- What is the cheapest way to execute a marketing campaign?
- How can I reach the most amount of people?
- How can I ensure my message is relevant to everyone I reach?
- How can I get the best return for my marketing spend?
You’re probably already thinking that the final point is the most important. Still, you can only get to this by understanding all the others!
If direct mail is on your radar, let’s look at how you can work out what a campaign will cost.
What is direct mail?
As the name suggests, direct mail is the practice of posting your marketing materials to existing customers or a specific target audience.
However, before you start to think about the potential for you to post 5,000 leaflets through everyone’s door in a specific postcode, we need to go further! What we’ve just described there isn’t a direct mail campaign, but a door drop.
What’s the difference?
Well, with direct mail, you know who you’re sending mail to. This means you’re able to use elements like personalisation to engage recipients better. Better targeted campaigns mean you immediately have a better way of measuring their success.
Why do businesses invest in direct mail?
Conservative estimates are that UK businesses collectively spend over £2 billion a year on direct mail.
There are several reasons why businesses invest in direct mail, including:
- The potential to use direct mail to drive people to bricks and mortar locations or convert online.
- Only being able to send to people who have permitted you to contact them might sound like a clipping of your wings. However, it means you know they’re engaged with your brand and, therefore, more likely to convert.
- Direct mail response rates. These are typically around 30 times higher than that of email and even higher than other popular digital marketing channels.
Direct mail is a fantastic opportunity for you to “get personal” with your customers, build relationships, and maintain a database of people you know love your brand. This keeps your costs down and ticks every other box from the points we made earlier.
Speaking of costs, let’s explore these a little closer.
How much does a direct mail campaign cost?
Many businesses avoid using direct mail because it's typically the most expensive marketing vertical if you break it down into "cost per thousand." However, thanks to the higher response rates, and the fact that people spend around £600 per year, on average, because of direct mail, it’s still your best option for getting a healthy return on your investment.
As for the costs themselves, there isn’t a cut and dried answer to this question, as there are so many variables at play.
The most significant factor is typically the type of direct mail you want to send. For example, if we assume the sending of 5,000 pieces, then a postcard marketing campaign might be relatively cheap. In contrast, creating and sending the same number of brochures or fully-fledged catalogues is likely to be significantly pricier.
You’ll also need to think about the following factors that will influence the cost:
- The design of your direct mail. An effectively designed piece of mail will have a far higher conversion rate than something designed with little thought and planning.
- If you need to buy data from a third party to create a mailing list. If people have agreed to receive direct mail from third parties, you will be clear of any GDPR issues.
- How your direct mail is printed and distributed.
If you’re new to direct mail, you’ll already be thinking that you’ll need to outsource some of this stuff.
The good news is that it’s usually cheaper to outsource your entire direct mail campaign to one vendor. Not only will you save money, but because everything is done in the same place, the time from design to delivery will be shorter, too. Best of all, if you’re spending a significant sum of money on your direct mail campaign, you only have one party who is accountable for making it happen!
Breaking down the cost of your direct mail campaign
Building on the factors we’ve just discussed, here’s a more detailed breakdown of what you might expect to pay for each specific element of your direct mail campaign.
Again, we encourage you to focus on the potential returns! If you choose to outsource your campaign to one vendor, like ourselves, then all the associated costs for the services you need will be included in your campaign quote.
Design & Layout costs
Doing it yourself won't cost anything while hiring a decent quality designer might cost you a couple of hundred pounds. Unless you have some experience in direct mail design already, get an expert to do it. This will give you a much better foundation from which to improve your future campaigns.
Content costs
As with design, you can do it yourself and incur no fees or hire a professional copywriter to help you nail your message. Depending on the specific type of direct mail you're sending, you might not actually need to create any new copy. For example, if you're sending out a mailer to promote a specific product, you can use existing text from your website or catalogue.
Mailing list costs
If you've already built a customer database and your campaign targets existing customers, your costs are again zero here. However, if you're a new business or looking to target a new audience, you’ll need to purchase data. The cost here will depend on how many records you buy and the type of data you want. Typically, a great direct mail campaign will be built around personalisation, so you should be looking to acquire as comprehensive data sets as possible. You might pay as much as 20p per record, but it’s worth it if the data you get allows you to create a high-impact campaign.
Learn more about how Mams can help provide data or use your existing databases for your campaign.
Print costs
Your print costs will typically be linked to the type of direct mail you’re looking to send out. However, factors like whether you’re printing in black and white or colour, the quality of paper, and the volume you want to produce will also play a part.
When it comes to volume, your print costs will typically reduce pro-rata the more pieces you order. For example, if it were to cost £200 to print 1,000 leaflets, another 1,000 leaflets wouldn’t add another £200 to your costs, but far less.
In general, your print costs can be anything from 2 – 3p to £1 - £2 per piece. It depends on what you're looking for and your required volume.
Distribution costs
If you're looking at each "cost centre" individually in the context of executing your direct mail campaign yourself, this is your most significant opportunity to save money.
As with printing volume, you get more significant discounts the more you want to post.
However, the only way to get the very best distribution costs is to use a distribution company that can pass on super-low postage rates to you. For example, with Mams, you can save up to 20% on your postage costs compared to doing it yourself!
How to save costs on your direct mail campaigns both now and longer-term
You can do many things to ensure you keep your direct mail costs to a minimum both now and in the longer term. Remember, the lower your costs, the better the return on your investment!
- As a minimum, look to outsource your direct mail distribution to a third party with access to lower postage rates than you'll be able to get.
- However, you’ll likely save even more money by outsourcing your entire direct mail campaign, including design, copywriting, data analysis on top of distribution.
- You don’t need to reinvent the wheel each time you undertake a direct mail campaign. Use your previous campaign to benchmark your next one and to make minor tweaks and optimisations to your direct mail, rather than starting 100% from scratch each time. Audiences love familiarity and consistency, and this is a fantastic way to build up your brand!
Contact Mams here to discuss your next direct mail campaign, and enjoy lower costs and the best possible return on investment!
