Direct Mail Hanging In
July 26, 2012
Admin
The Direct Marketing Association notes in its recently released 2012 Response Rate Report that direct mail response rates have dropped nearly 25% over the past nine years. Even so, direct mail pulls a better overall response than digital channels.
The report also says that:
- Cost per order or lead for acquisition campaigns were roughly equivalent for direct mail ($51.40), post card ($54.10), email ($55.24), and paid search ($52.58).
- Email had the highest ROI (28.5), compared with 7.00 for direct mail.
- The highest response rates—nearly 13 percent to a house list—was produced by telephone marketing. Telephone marketing also had the highest costs: nearly $78 per order or lead for a house list, and $190 for a prospect list.
For the 53% of Agitator readers who have been in the fundraising biz less than ten years, yes, telemarketing lives!
Tom
With mail’s response rate being so high, and email’s ROI winning, it’s interesting that the DMA emailed the survey 🙂
As a fundraiser we’re always very interested in the costs of acquistion. However there does seem to be a big discrepency within these US numbers. The cost of an order (or donation) at $51 through DM is pretty good, closer to £60 in the UK. However the cost of a lead at $51 seems very step indeed. Better analysis needed me thinks.
Just wondering: Did the DMA split out “fundraising” as a category? And, if so, is the cost of a first donation the same as a first order ($51), etc.? The DMA press release talks about retail apparel and publishing/media, but doesn’t mention gifts. I worry about applying commercial (B2B and B2C) data to the weird, wacky world of asking people to give you money is return for a good feeling (or a trinket). And, of course, I’m too cheap to buy the full DMA report, so I’m hoping you did.
I’m thrilled to see this. I find myself defending the value of mail on a regular basis (why do I have to do this? Don’t people see where their revenue is coming from?).
I’m pretty sure I saw some statistics recently, but can’t remember where, that even most online non-profit giving is driven my mail.
Too bad we’re not better at actually tracking that.
Nice report. Interesting that highest response rates is for house list by telephone marketing.
I find ‘last touch point’ analysis (which I assume it is?) is less and less reflective of the real picture. Impact in today’s highly fragmented multiple touch point world needs to be analysed as a media mix not by single channel.
Hopefully this report is read with the understanding that it’s the right mix that’s important and relying on a single channel is risky.