Direct Mail Vs. Email Marketing: Comparison and ROI

If you've ever wondered whether to choose direct mail vs. email marketing for a campaign, the answer depends on the audience and your approach. Email marketing may be more effective for reaching customers, members, or supporters who already know and trust you. However, for unsolicited outreach, direct mail likely has the advantage.

Here are some interesting statistics from the US, UK, and Canada that have implications for American consumer and business response behavior and decision-making patterns:

1. Open Rate Advantage

Direct mail has an open rate at least 3x higher than email. In Canada, over 85% of recipients read every piece of mail they receive (source: Canada Post research), whereas unsolicited email open rates average about 20% when received (source: Omnisend email benchmarks).

From what we see at our facility in New Paltz — processing thousands of mail pieces weekly — these numbers track. Physical mail gets opened because it's in your hands. Email gets skimmed because it's in a sea of 100+ messages.

2. Response Rate

The Data & Marketing Association has stated that direct mail marketing has a 5X to 9X response rate over email marketing. In a 2023 study, the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) DMA Statistical Fact Book found that direct mail achieved around a 2.5% to 4.5% response rate compared to an average email response rate of about 0.1%.

Those aren't small differences. For a local business sending 5,000 EDDM postcards, a 3% response rate means 150 potential customers. The same audience reached by email at 0.1% response means 5 responses. The math speaks for itself.

3. Longevity

In one survey, American recipients spent an average of 1.6 minutes with direct mail advertisements — many times greater than email advertisements. Not surprisingly, mailers or postcards "hang around" longer than emails (think: your kitchen counter), and therefore get more eyeball time.

One study by the DMA found over 25% of direct mail to be still "live" in a household after one month. We've had clients tell us customers walked in holding a postcard they received weeks earlier. That almost never happens with email.

4. Brand Awareness

In a legacy study from the USPS in 2012, Americans received approximately a handful of advertising mail pieces for every 150+ emails. By now, the oversaturation of email has only increased, leaving direct mail holding greater relevancy for the consumer.

Even aside from neuroscience studies such as the 2017 research at the Fox Business School at Temple University, direct mail is slightly easier to process mentally for brand awareness because it requires less cognitive effort to absorb, understand, and recall than digital media. Direct mail doesn't operate in a web-surfing context and isn't subject to the distractive elements (pop-up ads, banner notifications, competing tabs) that are part of a digital environment.

5. Trustworthiness

Approximately 60% to 70% of consumers trust the source of direct mail they receive. According to the USPS Generational Research Report, 70% of American Gen Z consumers are excited to get direct mail each day — a statistic that surprises most people but makes sense when you consider how little personal physical mail younger consumers receive.

6. ROI (Return on Investment)

At the end of the day, your bottom-line assessment likely comes down to an ROI comparison — what are the time and cost benefits of direct mail vs. email marketing?

At Cornerstone Services, we find that generalized statistics don't give a simple answer due to the variables involved in each method. While our staff set up Mailchimp email campaigns for small businesses and 501(c) organizations, our primary focus remains on direct mail marketing. We can make a case for either approach.

On one side: Americans receive more emails per capita than any other country in the world and check inboxes multiple times a day — but then only look at each email for no more than a few seconds. Not encouraging when you're trying to build brand awareness.

That said, email marketing — once set up, done correctly and lawfully, and given time — can have a strong ROI advantage over direct mail. But "God is in the details," and like anything worthwhile, it takes time to set things up properly. Email marketing effectiveness rates have steadily declined since 2004. Although the average click-through rate is only around 1.4%, having a known and friendly audience can push email response rates higher, especially if you have a compelling opportunity (commercial or nonprofit).

An important note: many U.S. businesses send unsolicited email not technically in line with the FTC's 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, and this uneven foundation doesn't equate to legitimate ROI parity.

In a 2022 ANA "Response Rate Report" study, findings concluded that direct mail letters had an 85% to 112% ROI performance compared to email marketing's 93% ROI. The ranges overlap — which is exactly the point. Neither channel dominates universally. As a final note: as with crafting a direct mail piece, there is an art to crafting an email campaign. Done poorly, ill-will from sloppily created email campaigns can have a lasting negative impact on recipients — it's easier to alienate people with bad emails than with bad mailers.

Our Recommendation After 30 Years

Do both, but be sure to use both direct mail and email to drive website traffic. If you use direct mail correctly and email properly, any business should be fine.

The only way to determine what works better for your specific situation is to incorporate measurement tools: dedicated landing pages with Google Analytics tracking, coupons with unique codes, custom QR codes that send customers to personalized pages, required responses such as RSVPs through online signup, or use of CRE (Courtesy Reply Envelopes). Start with EDDM postcards to your target carrier routes, coordinate with email follow-ups, and measure results over 90 days. That's enough time to see the pattern clearly.

If you need help setting up a campaign that uses both channels, we also build landing pages and tracking to tie your direct mail and email efforts together. Contact us at info@crst.net or call (845) 255-5722 if you need help with your marketing communications.

Curious about what else you can do with USPS? Read about mailing a potato through the postal service — it's more legitimate than you'd think.

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