Websites, smartphone sites, internet ads, flyers, brochures, newspaper ads… the ways to promote products and services grow more diverse every year, but one method that remains firmly popular is direct mail (hereafter DM).

DM is an approachable form of advertising: even people who have rarely advertised before can easily picture what will reach the end user and in what form.

On the other hand, when it comes to actually sending one, you need a mailing list, you have to decide what to put inside, and in terms of cost, if you ask a production or printing company to handle the design, there are design fees, printing costs and postage as well. Some of you may have given up after thinking, "Once I got a quote, it turned out to be pretty expensive…" or "Even sending it just once is surprisingly hard work…"

It is true that DM requires preparation and a certain amount of budget (depending, of course, on the number of copies printed and the number of recipients).
However, if you think carefully about your targeting, your message and the contents of the DM, you can expect a certain level of response.

So just how much is that "certain level of response"?
Can you expect a high return on investment?

This time we will talk about the response rate of DM.

DM response rates differ depending on who you send to.

First, the "response rate" of DM here essentially means the rate of responses—the proportion of recipients who take action such as making an inquiry, placing an order or applying.

For a DM that encourages product orders, an order is a response; for a DM that encourages people to apply for a seminar or workshop, an application to attend is a response.

This response rate varies depending on who you send the DM to.
The key distinction is between "existing customers," who already know or have used the product or service you want to sell, and "new customers," who know nothing about it and have had no dealings with you before.

The figures (response rates) given below are only what is "generally said," but they vary considerably by this distinction, so please read on after first identifying which category the people you plan to send DM to fall into.

What is the response rate when you send DM to new customers?

This is the response rate when you send DM to "new customers" as described above.
Let's assume you buy a list from a list vendor that sells DM mailing lists segmented by address, age group and so on, and then send your DM.

In this case, the response rate for new customers is generally said to be around 1%.
In other words, if you send to 100 people you get 1 response, and if you send to 1,000 people you get 10.

Of course, this does not mean you will definitely get a 1% response.
Depending on the quality of the list, the content of the DM and the offer (the action you want readers to take), the response rate may fall below this figure.

That said, if you do not know this general response rate, it is hard to forecast your return on investment, and even after sending the DM you might blame the DM for not producing the sales you expected, when in fact the response rate was not bad at all. That is no different from throwing money around blindly.

In that sense, while these figures are not absolute, it is useful to keep them in the back of your mind.

What is the response rate when you send DM to existing customers?

Next is the response rate when you send DM to "existing customers."
Let's say you send DM using a list kept at your own company, made up of people who have already done business with you.

In this case, the response rate for existing customers is generally said to be around 10%.
That means 10 responses if you send to 100 people, and 100 responses if you send to 1,000.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, just as with DM to new customers, this does not mean you will definitely get a 10% response.
The reasons are the same as before.
Please use it purely as a benchmark for forecasting and for reviewing your results.

It depends on how you have built the relationship up to that point, but as you can see, the response rate changes this much depending on whether there is a track record of doing business.

It is easy to understand if you imagine yourself receiving a DM: between a DM from a shop where you have bought something before and a DM from a shop you know nothing about, you are more likely to read the one from the shop you have bought from before, and to shop there with confidence.

The DM we at Merci have used for advertising so far has produced roughly these response rates as well.
If you are about to run a DM campaign, or you have run one but aren't sure whether it went well or badly, please use these figures as a reference.