How Much Does Direct Mail Cost?
Direct mail is a great way to advertise your business. Though it often has higher costs associated with it than email marketing or social media, direct mail maintains a great return on investment.
This is especially true when it’s combined with online marketing campaigns. With the recent changes in Facebook and Instagram ads’ effectiveness, there’s never been a better time to dip your toe into print marketing.
Deciding to create and run a direct mail marketing campaign requires time and lots of consideration. When it comes to costs, some are obvious while others aren’t. In this article, we’ll discuss what you can expect – what options you have, what raises and potentially lowers costs, and “forgotten” costs you should keep in mind as you plan your budget.
Table of Contents
How much does direct mail cost?
Type of Mail Piece
Size and Quality of Direct Mail Pieces
Graphics
Reply Devices
What other factors should I consider in estimating my direct mail cost?
Design Complexity
Copywriting Help
Manpower
Direct Mail Logistics
Postage Rates for Direct Mail
How much does direct mail cost?
Outside the cost of postage, your budget allocation for your direct mail campaign will depend on several factors, including:
The type of mail piece you’re sending.
The size and quality of your mailer.
Whether or not you incorporate printed graphics.
Whether or not you add a reply device.
Understanding how each of these factors affect your final campaign cost will help you determine which option is best for you.
Type of Mail Piece
There are 5 main direct mail formats:
Postcards: Printed on heavy card stock, postcards offer a quick-view way to get your message across thanks to their lack of an envelope. Postcards can be printed and mailed in a wide array of sizes and colours.
Letters: Letters give a professional appearance and provide additional space for more detailed messages. Letters also provide the optimal way to send reply devices to recipients. Like postcards, letters and envelopes can be printed in several sizes.
Flyers: Like postcards, flyers offer consumers a quick, bite-sized shot of information. They’re eye-catching thanks to their generally colourful appearance and glossy paper finish.
Magazines and Catalogues: Print magazines and catalogues remain a great way for businesses to connect with their audiences, though in very different ways. Magazines allow brands to share a larger story with their recipients while catalogues give consumers a nostalgia-filled way to shop from home.
Premium Communications: Mailers that break from the traditional “mail mould” and that are more unique are considered “premium communications”. These mail pieces offer limitless options for creativity and have no set “rules” for size or shape.
The type of mail piece you choose is the first factor to affect your final bulk mailing cost.
Postcards are, unsurprisingly, the least expensive option and generally start at $0.23* per traditionally-sized 4.25-inch x 6-inch piece on a 5,000 piece mailing. As quantities increase, the cost per piece can be drastically reduced. Including graphics, intricate designs, and multiple colours or using a larger postcard size will raise the cost per piece.
Letters with a basic design are slightly more expensive than postcards and start at $0.54* per piece on a 5,000 piece mailing (excluding reply devices and personalized envelopes, both of which will increase the cost per piece). As quantities increase, the cost per letter will come down. The size of your letter and envelope (larger envelopes are known to have higher response rates) will also affect the final cost of your mailer.
Flyers are also very affordable and can be printed in various sizes with a wide array of graphics and colours. For basic 6-inch x 12-inch flyers, costs begin at $0.25* per piece based on a 5,000 piece mailing. As with postcards and letters, the larger the mailing, the lower your cost per piece.
Magazines and catalogues are the most expensive choice when it comes to “traditional” direct mail formats. There are several decisions to make regarding the paper type, design, and print colours that will have significant effects on your price per piece. As magazines and catalogues vary drastically depending on the page count, stock used, specialty coatings applied, determining their price per piece requires a case-by-case quote. To determine which option best suits you and your budget, contact a direct marketing specialist.
Premium communications aren’t based on any one specific design and because of that, it’s hard to say what your price per mail piece will be. Share your vision with your print team so they can prepare a mockup. The cost per piece will depend on the design, assembly requirements, colours used, and other factors.
*Prices per piece listed above are based on mailings of 5,000 pieces. As with higher volumes decreasing your cost per piece, lower volumes may result in minimum fees that could increase the final cost.
Size and Quality of Direct Mail Pieces
To make the most of your direct mail local advertising campaign, you want your mail piece to stand out. The best way to do that is to choose premium-quality papers, professional-looking designs, and possibly larger-than-usual sizes.
However, these things can cost you. It’s important to consider how much you’re spending and compare it to how much you stand to gain from your campaign. Know your expected reply rate: According to the Data & Marketing Association, purchased mailing lists have an approximate 4% response rate while house lists – a list of your own current and past customers – have a response rate of approximately 9%.
Also, keep in mind that a high response rate does not necessarily equal conversions. That being said, direct mail has a 29% average return on investment. It’s important to crunch some numbers before deciding how big, how colourful, and how “premium” you want your mail pieces to be.
Graphics
Whether you choose to include stock photos, graphic designs, or images you own, pictures of any kind are a great way to bring extra attention to your mail piece. However, the more complex the image, the more costly it will be to print it.
The size of your mail piece may help offset the costs associated with the graphics you choose to include. Ultimately, you’ll need to have a clear idea of your campaign goal to determine what kind of graphics to include as well as how many.
Reply Devices
Including reply devices can help boost the effectiveness of your direct mail campaign. While they’re not appropriate for every format (think postcards and flyers), they work especially well with others (like direct mail letters).
Reply devices will certainly raise the price of your cost per mail piece, but these generally do not need to be as intricately designed as your main mailer. In that case, the cost to include them is often minimal.
What other factors should I consider in estimating my direct mail cost?
There’s more to sending out a direct mail campaign than the mailers themselves.
Behind the scenes, a few steps take place that you might not have considered. These steps are crucial to the development and completion of a bulk mailing campaign.
Design Complexity
Though there are DIY options available to help lower costs of the design process, cutting corners to cut costs may cause you to also cut your response rate and ultimately your ROI.
Getting help from an experienced direct mail team ensures you get the most bang for your marketing buck. Depending on how intricate you’d like the design to be, your costs could go up or stay closer to the base rate per piece.
Copywriting Help
There’s a lot of truth to the old saying, “You get what you pay for”.
When it comes to copywriting, you may or may not want assistance from a professional writer. Your choice of direct mail type should play a role in your decision – for postcards and flyers, enlisting the services of a professional copywriter may not be so important. However, direct mail letters, magazines, and catalogues are a different story.
Even if you’re writing a simple “letter from the CEO” or other personalized message, if writing isn’t your forte, a professional copywriter can help.
Costs vary from writer to writer, generally based on their level of experience. Look for writers with solid portfolios you can review. Consider niche-specific writers (who are usually more expensive) depending on your campaign goal.
Manpower
Factoring the cost of manpower comes back to the complexity of your design: The more intricate your design, the higher the probability that it will require more manpower to assemble and prepare for sending.
Assembly costs tend to be associated with direct mail letters and premium communications more than other forms of direct mail. There are many cases where your campaign may be assembled by machine, but other cases may require assembly by hand. Requiring additional manpower will drive up your final campaign cost.
Direct Mail Logistics
Once your campaign has been printed and assembled, it has to get from the printer to the post office. Not only that, but the entirety of your campaign needs to be handled with care so no pieces are lost. Working with a printer with extensive direct marketing experience will ensure nothing goes amiss.
This seems straightforward enough, but it’s an often-overlooked cost that should factor into a direct mail budget.
Postage Rates for Direct Mail
Canada Post offers great postage rates for direct mail campaigns and they offer additional discounts for small businesses. Depending on the type of mailer you choose to send, you could pay as little as $0.17 postage per piece.
Mailing costs for heavier items like letters, catalogues and magazines, and premium communications will increase your postage rate. However, you may be eligible for a discount based on the number of units you’re sending at one time or over the course of a year.
So how much does direct mail cost? The short answer is that it varies. With so many factors to consider for each different mail format, it’s impossible to give a hard-and-fast number.
That being said, direct mail is still very affordable and a great national or local advertising option for small and mid-sized businesses. You don’t need to spend a lot to get great results.
Working with a team of direct mail experts will help you ensure you consider every cost and design a mailer that helps you achieve your campaign goal.
