The following 25 surprising statistics will help you improve your real estate direct mail campaign results.
10 Direct Mail Statistics for Different Generations
Someone invented the idea that Gen-Z were born between 1997 and 2012.
This generation perceives direct mail as unique.
Why?
They practically were born while taking selfies (source).
The large majority of the Gen Z generation (72%) would feel disappointed to no longer receive direct mail (source).
And 12.4% is the response rate for people in the age range of 18 to 21 (source).
Millennials (82%) consider direct mail advertising more trustworthy (source).
And it motivates 67% of them to go online (source).
30% of Millennials are influenced toward taking action by direct mail.
60% of Gen-Xers pick up mail six times per week, compared to 44% of Millennials (source).
50% of baby boomers prefer to receive direct mail promotions over the same in digital formats (source).
More than half of baby boomers (66.6%) get a better impression from a brand sending out mailers (source).
The best direct mail formats for baby boomers seem to be the following regarding purchasing decisons (source):
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Catalogs
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Advertising cards
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Flyers
The boomer generation also enjoys checking their mail more than the others. (source).
12 General Direct Mail Statistics Regarding Marketing Performance
Direct mail has a higher response rate/lead conversion rate (9%) than paid search, email, and social media.
This is according to this source.
Some people seem to have messy homes…Why?
According to this source, 31% still have the mailers at home after a month.
Less than half of recipients (42%) read or scan their mail (source).
Most direct mail responders visited a physical store and went online afterward.
Also, a majority (66%) opened and read it for a minute or more (82%) (source).
Across all age groups, direct mail is read more often than emails.
Also, the response rates are 5 to 9 times higher than with other advertising channels (source 1, source 2).
Households with incomes of at least $100k also seem to respond well.
65% of them made a purchase in the past 30 days due to direct mail advertising (source).
Direct mail also seems to be more credible than email. This is the case for 87% of the people, vs. 48% in the case of email (source).
Direct mail advertising seems more suitable for cold offers. 70% prefer physical mail (source).
Direct mail managed to maintain the recipients’ attention for 118% longer.
In addition, it stimulated a 29% higher brand recall than digital advertising (source).
What happens when you combine digital marketing campaigns with direct mail?
It can increase attention by 39%.
This combination performs better than only a digital marketing campaign (source).
A coupon used in direct mail speeds up purchasing decision-making for 64% of affluent customers (source).
You can increase the response rate of direct mail by 135% when you use a personalized approach (source).
3 More Objective Statistics About Direct Mail
You want to take the above statistics a bit with a grain of salt.
Why?
No human is free of bias.
And I am obviously biased toward digital marketing.
So, I can see when someone else may also be biased.
This may be the case for several of the above sources.
The sources for the statistics I found are mainly from direct mail companies. Or they are companies indirectly benefiting from direct mail services.
Yet, many of the statistics are likely true.
I wanted to find more unbiased ones.
So, I did some extra research to see if impartial sources like colleges or universities had studies on the topic.
And I found several.
There is a study from 2021 from the Universities of Groningen and Maastricht. Both are in the Netherlands.
Their study found direct mailing significantly influences consumer activity metrics in online channels.
That’s online search and clicking behavior.
It is also effective throughout the purchase funnel, with a positive net sales effect.
The same study also confirms a positive synergy between direct mailing and display advertising.
The latter is, for instance, Google Display Ads.
They confirm that it is still an effective marketing method. This is no matter if you combine it with digital or use it by itself.
Another study also confirms several of the above statistics.
Recipients perceive unsolicited emails as more intrusive and irritating than direct mail.
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Takeaways to Improve Your Results with Real Estate Direct Mail
Direct mail is still effective across different generations (from Z to boomers).
You should ideally combine it with digital display advertising. Or you use it as a follow-up after an email campaign (e.g., to past sellers or buyers).
Instead of cold-mailing real estate seller prospects, you may want to do a direct mail campaign.
Lead conversion rates are likely higher than with Google Ads and other digital marketing channels.
You can review this in my comparison table here.
The exceptions are text messages, radio ads, push notification ads, and Facebook ads.
They can often get you higher response or lead conversion rates.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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