Are you wondering if direct mail is the right marketing strategy for your business? Read here for the pros and cons of direct mail marketing to help you decide.

Is direct mail marketing a part of your company's marketing strategy at the moment? If not, you might want to consider changing that ASAP.

According to a recent survey, almost three-fourths of marketing professionals say that direct mail is a more effective form of marketing than email. It's why you shouldn't rule out direct mail marketing when you're trying to decide which of these two types of marketing to use.

Some companies have decided to eliminate direct mail marketing from their marketing strategies in recent years. But many of them are paying the price for it.

Before you do this, you should consider the pros and cons of direct mail marketing. It'll help you decide if it's right for you. Learn about these pros and cons below.

Pro: Targets a Specific Audience

When you use email marketing, your goal is going to be to send promotional emails to as many people as possible. This will often include many people who might not care about your company or what you sell at all.

With direct mail marketing, you'll take a more targeted approach to send marketing materials to people. You'll typically only send them to those who have signed up to be on your mailing list or who have purchased things from you in the past.

Con: Takes Time to Create a Mailing List

Once you get a mailing list up and going for direct mail marketing, you'll be all set. You'll love being able to target an audience that cares about your company to some degree.

But the truth is that setting up this mailing list is going to take time, and it isn't always going to be easy. You'll need to work hard to convince people to give their mailing addresses to you when they make a purchase.

You may find that going through all this trouble will not be worth it. Getting people to jot down their addresses is not always as easy as it used to be.

Pro: Allows You to Share More Information

Less is going to be more when you send out emails as part of an email marketing campaign. If you're able to get people to open your emails (and that's a big "if"!), they aren't going to spend more than a few seconds reading in most cases. So you'll be limited in how much information you can share.

Sending out marketing materials in the mail to people will enable you to share way more info than you could otherwise. Just make sure you work with a company like 1Vision that can provide you with the high-quality printing services you'll need to display your information.

Con: Increases Your Marketing Costs

The act of taking an email and hitting "Send" on it isn't going to cost a company anything. It's a big part of the reason why email marketing has become so prevalent within the marketing industry over the last decade.

It's also why some companies think twice about using direct mail marketing. Direct mail marketing is going to force your company to invest in printed marketing materials. It's also going to put you in a position where you'll have to pay the postage to send these materials out.

Your company will need to make sure direct mail marketing is in the budget before you begin putting it to good use.

Pro: Helps You Track Your Response Rate

If your company is going to spend money on any type of marketing, you'll want to know whether or not they're working. It'll help you to figure out if you should continue to use them or look elsewhere for better marketing ideas.

Another great thing about direct mail marketing is that it'll make it possible for you to track your response rate. You can ask your customers to bring whatever they receive in the mail to redeem a coupon and monitor your direct mail campaign by looking at how many marketing materials you get back.

You won't always be able to do this with email marketing. It can be challenging to track the response rate for email marketing campaigns.

Con: Offers a Low Response Rate

The average response rate for a direct mail marketing campaign is low. It's actually very low in the grand scheme of things.

Only around 2% of those who receive marketing materials in the mail will do something with them. Everyone else will toss them without bringing any business to you.

But one thing that is encouraging regarding the response rate for direct mail marketing campaigns is that people seem to start responding at a higher rate as a company becomes more well-known. So if you keep on plugging away with different direct mail marketing campaigns, it may not be too long before you begin to see a much higher response rate.

Begin Embracing the Benefits of Direct Mail Marketing

There are some marketing experts who will try to tell you that direct mail marketing is dead. But so many companies have turned to email marketing that direct mail is now making a comeback.

Your company should try to cash in on this craze by testing out a direct mail marketing campaign. You might be pleasantly surprised to see the results you get from it. It may be enough to motivate you to keep on running direct mail campaigns moving forward.

Would you like to get more great marketing ideas for your business? Look for them in some of our other blog articles.