Even in today’s digital age, there still is a significant role for direct marketing. Despite the advent of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, more than a third of people under age 30 say they still look forward to receiving actual mail each day. Direct mail methods also are more successful than other marketing efforts, with a response rate of nearly 4%, compared to response rates of less than 0.5% for mobile, email, social media and internet display marketing. To make sure your marketing is touching all bases, you should use printing services to produce direct mail pieces.

Even though direct mail marketing costs more than digital marketing methods, there are some distinct advantages. For one thing, direct mail tends to be more memorable to people than other forms of marketing, especially digital. For example, two-thirds of people say they are more likely to remember to use a coupon or voucher if they have a hard copy to carry around. In addition, 92% of people say they prefer direct mail when making shopping purchasing decisions.

Another advantage is the return on investment that direct mail gets. Studies show that direct mail has a 13-to-1 return on investment, which is quite a bit larger than the return that you get on paid digital marketing. Of course, if you are doing free digital marketing on social media, any return you get at all is positive.

So how do you go about doing direct marketing. For one thing, you need to find a wholesale printing business that will give you a bulk rate on your pieces. The more pieces you have, the better the rate will be, as long as you go with a wholesale printing operation that can give you a discount on large print services orders. If you or someone on your staff does not have experience with direct marketing, you should farm out the work to ensure it is done professionally. If you do your marketing badly, your return on investment will be much lower than it should be.

Though it may seem as though doing your marketing as cheaply as possible and sticking to free and low-cost methods like social media is the way to go, investing in direct mail can have a huge payoff. It is definitely something to consider as part of your marketing efforts. Research more here.