Using my mail marketing experience, I’ve evaluated the best direct mail marketing Software to automate and personalize direct mailing, send gifts or send promotional items.

Best Direct Mail Marketing Software Shortlist 

The following are my recommendations for the best Direct Mail Marketing Software solutions:

1. Postal
2. Alyce
3. VerticalResponse 
4. UpSwell
5. PostGrid
6. PebblePost
7. Postie
8. Postalytics
9. Sendoso
10. Stadium
11. Lob
12. ReachDesk

Direct mail marketing is an affordable and effective way to drive brand awareness and generate leads. 

With it, you can directly target the audience, individuals, neighborhoods or streets that matter to your company’s customer generation and sales.

It’s an excellent opportunity to reach new consumers who otherwise may not see your digital presence.

Effective direct mail marketing requires direct mail marketing software, also called direct mail automation software, to automate and optimize sending, tracking and delivering physical mail.

I've written this guide — complete with, why I selected them, how they can help you, your selection criteria, and some answers to frequently asked questions — to help you find the right direct mail marketing software for your business.

What Is Direct Mail Marketing Software

Direct mail marketing software helps marketers automate the process of sending physical mail marketing materials, such as product catalogs, gifts, employee swag, flyers, and postcards.

This can include designing, creating, printing, sending or distributing, and tracking of these personalized direct mail materials. 

Marketers can use direct mail automation software to simplify the tedious traditional direct mail marketing processes while saving on cost and time. 

This list is a broad category with different subtypes of direct mail marketing software you can include in your direct mail marketing strategy. Some software in this list allows users to customize the marketing materials completely, while others connect users with marketplaces (such as Amazon) to help keep costs low. Depending on your use case, one of these direct mail marketing software may be preferable for your business. 

Overviews of the 10 Best Direct Mail Marketing Software

Here are the best direct mail marketing software I selected with overviews of why I picked them, screenshots, pricing information, standout features, pros, and cons for each.

1. Postal - Best for Offline Engagement

Postal is a leading global offline engagement, mail processing and delivery platform for individuals and businesses. The platform enables marketers to create connections with leads, prospects, and partners, to turn them into customers.  

Why I picked Postal: I believe Postal has established itself as the best-in-class global offline engagement platform, offering a significantly more affordable solution than its competitors. As such, they’ve built the best direct mail marketing platform to create meaningful and impactful human connections. 

With the expansive global marketplace occupied by local and international vendors alike, the Postal platform gives you the ability to bring your custom-branded projects to life and make meaningful memories with your clients. 

Postal Standout Features & Integrations:

Features that differentiate Postal from its competitors in the direct mail marketing service industry include campaign management, delivery tracking, and mailer templates. But the main advantage the platform has over others is its focus on offline engagement, which makes offline marketing easy. For example, companies struggling to track various gifting sends can use Postal to solve their offline marketing challenges. 

Integrations are available with your popular marketing software, in sales, marketing, customer success and people ops, including HubSpot, Outreach, Zapier, Salesforce, Calendly, Shopify, Microsoft Dynamics, Chili Piper, and Workday. Postal also works with a Google Chrome Extension, allowing users to send items directly from apps.

Pricing: Three plans available -  Engage, Pro, and Enterprise - with a custom quote. 

Free Trial: Free demo available.

Pros

• Makes it so easy to send gifts to prospects. 
• Allows you to create collections of gifts for people to select.
• Comprehensive set of offline marketing features (design, branding, tracking, etc.)

Cons

• Lack large logistics/warehousing capabilities for bulk orders.
• Pricing is not as clear as that of our competitors. 

Alyce - Best for B2B Gifting Outbound Marketing

Alyce is an AI-enabled corporate gifting platform for B2B gifting and outbound direct mail marketing, account-based marketing, sales accelerant and enablement. The platform redefines direct mail and swag as the AI-enabled, intelligent gifting platform for sales, marketing, and customer ops teams to send personal gifts, spark conversations, and add customer value.

Why I picked Alyce: In addition to being the best corporate outbound gifting platform, I feel that what makes Alyce stand out is its personalized gifting strategy. I like the Personal gifting feature because it is a key strategy to create and drive conversions, enabling marketers to easily build pipelines, accelerate onboarding, optimize the marketing campaign, increase customer loyalty, and easily track every campaign’s impact. 

Alyce Standout Features & Integrations:

Features for Alyce’s outbound marketing strategy are much more impactful because of Experience, AI intelligence, and Execution. But for me, the main differentiation feature is its ability to allow and support personalized corporate gifting by offering marketers a unique Power of Choice model that creates relevant, relational, and personal experiences through AI Intelligence.

Integrations are available with your popular marketing software in intent iata, sales engagement, CRM, marketing automation, and communications. These include platforms such as 6Sense, Demandbase, Salesloft, Outreach, Salesforce, HubSpot, Vidyard, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Marketo, and Eloqua. 

Pricing: Price upon request (Custom Quote). 

Free Trial: Free demo available; No free trial.

Pros

• Intuitive tool with targeted gifting and lots of gift options.
• Multiple delivery methods, including physical and customizable email.
• Easy to use Chrome extension.

Cons

• Much focused on larger corporations than smaller organizations. 
• UI can be improved to be slightly better.

3. VerticalResponse — Best for email campaign management

VerticalResponse is an email marketing platform that helps small businesses and freelancers connect with their customers through direct mail, email, online surveys, and on social media. It helps entrepreneurs to build brand awareness and acquire customers by helping them create, manage and optimize email marketing campaigns.

Why I Picked Vertical Response: In addition to providing direct mail and email marketing campaign management, I found out that VerticalResponse also offers fully managed email marketing services from campaign launch, management, reporting and analysis. For me, this platform stood out because of its efficiency to small businesses and freelancers with no financial resources to manage marketing campaigns.

Vertical Response Standout Features & Integrations:

Features that enable VerticalResponse to run a successful email marketing campaign include attractive and customizable email templates, email scheduling/automation, custom landing pages, and monitoring of your campaign’s performance and analysis. But in my experience, the main differentiation feature is its inclusion of direct mail services, which allows less experienced marketers who don't know much about mail marketing to use it.

Integration is available with popular e-commerce and marketing automation software. These include Magento, Survey Monkey, ZohoCRM, Jotform, BigCommerce, Nimble, Zapier, Kickbox, and LeadSync. It also has an API that allows you to integrate its capabilities into your workflow easily, and the platform accepts requests for new integrations. 

Pricing: Starting at $11 /mo.

Free Trial: Free trial available. 

Pros:

• Simple user interface.
• Self-guided onboarding.
• Email preview options.

Cons: 

• Lacks basic segmentation capabilities.
• Lack of email scheduling options.

4. UpSwell — Best for direct mail and digital marketing

UpSwell Marketing is a direct mail and response marketing platform specializing in fitness, auto repair, dental, home services, and small to medium-sized business marketing. The platform combines targeted digital (search engine and paid social) with direct mail marketing solutions to drive customers to your business.

Why I Picked UpSwell: First, Upswell marketing is a highly targeted platform with its key industries being fitness, auto repair, dental, and home services for small and medium-sized businesses. In addition, Upswell has positioned itself as a platform combining direct mail marketing and digital marketing to attain marketing goals, differentiating itself from other platforms.

UpSwell Standout Features & Integrations:

Features: I found that UpSwell platform provides Direct mail marketing (postcards, 24-hour print to email and newsletters), digital marketing (SEO, PPC, email marketing, display ads, and retargeting), and analytics. I noted that what differentiates this platform from others is the targeted marketing campaign that integrates direct mail, digital, and targeted display advertising, paid social media advertising and analytics, which ensures that customers see consistent brand messages across multiple media.

Integration of the UpSwell platform with other marketing automation software is not listed because it’s more of a marketing agency.

Pricing: Contact support for a custom quote.

Free Trial: No free trial.

Pros

• Integrated and targeted marketing.
• Combines direct mail marketing and digital marketing for maximum customer outreach.
• 24/7 monitoring and analytics.

Cons 

• It’s more of a marketing agency than an automation platform.
• Limited services/features.

5. PostGrid — Best Offline Direct Mail Communication Platform with API 

PostGrid is a platform and API service for automating marketing direct mail, transactional mail, and address verification. I found this platform helps companies automate the entire direct mail process which includes designing, printing, processing, stuffing and mailing postcards, letters, and checks/cheques — making sending physical mail as easy as sending email.

Why I Picked PostGrid: In addition to direct mail services and address verification the platform standsout in my list because it provides API solutions for integration and automation. You can integrate the platform’s documented REST API into your software to send personalized postcards, letters, cheques, and improve address accuracy.

PostGrid Standout Features & Integrations:

Features of PostGrid include personalized direct mail, automated transactional mail, print and mail cheques, and API that can help streamline your offline communication processes. But its key distinguishing feature is the ability to integrate the REST API into your system to allow you to send cheques, postcards, personalized letters, and improve address accuracy.

Integration with popular marketing automation software is available. The platform integrates with various marketing software such as HubSpot, Zapier, Salesforce, Twilio, Marketo, Zoho, NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Eloqua, and Pipedrive.

Pricing: Based on services - Print & Mail or Address verification - custom quote for Enterprise.

Free Trial: Free trial available. Free starter for up to 500 Mailings/month.

Pros

• Send personalized Postcards, Letters, and Cheques.
• Unified API and detailed API Docs.
• Native integration with other marketing solutions.
• Reporting, tracking, & analytics dashboard.

Cons 

• Should reduce the learning curve.
• Can use more ready-made templates.

6. PebblePost — Best Programmatic Direct Mail Solution 

PebblePost is a marketing automation platform that helps brands send relevant direct mail to consumers. PebblePost uses online browsing intent data to send direct mail that's timely and relevant. The platform enables marketers to leverage recent customer online data to create intelligent, direct mail programs that generate leads.

Why I Picked PebblePost: As a digital-to-direct mail marketing platform, PebblePost gives markets a medium to reach shoppers at home with highly targeted mail. I also liked the platform because it utilizes clickstream data (programmatic data) from a company’s website visitors to help the company identify customers most likely to be interested in a product and then send them branded mail within 12–24 hours. Programmatic mail is touted as “next generation direct mail” marketing, positioning PebblePost as the leading platform in that channel.

PebblePost Standout Features & Integrations:

Features that make PebblePost stand out are the ability to leverage scaled proprietary data, algorithmic optimization, advanced measurement, and analytics. I like this feature because it enables the platform and marketers to engage high-intent consumers with the greatest likelihood of conversation,  enabling marketers to continue the conversation through media impressions delivered in-home.  

Integrations of PebblePost with popular marketing solutions is not mentioned.

Pricing: Contact support for a custom quote.

Free Trial: No free trial.

Pros 

• Transform customer online data into intelligent direct mail that generates leads.
• Highly targeted direct mail marketing delivered in-home.
• Send the entire product through the mail.

Cons 

• Slow startup issues.
• Still learning.

7. Postie — Best direct mail platform for digital marketers

Postie is a direct mail marketing platform that automates prospecting, retargeting, and CRM in one centralized platform, allowing direct mail campaigns to be quickly deployed, managed, and measured in real-time. With Postie, digital marketers and advertisers can apply AI machine learning to traditional offline direct mail marketing, making direct mail controllable from inception to attribution.

Why I Picked Postie: Postie offers direct mail marketing solutions for digital marketers, allowing them to engage customers throughout their life cycle through prospecting, retargeting, retention, and re-engagement. However, in my experience, the platform’s unique ability to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning for marketing campaign management and direct mail marketing tools sets it apart and differentiates it from other solutions. 

Postie Standout Features & Integrations:

Features and capabilities that make Posite stand out are its high ROAS targeting, prospecting campaigns and real-time data of Lookalike Audiences for conversion. I found that with this platform, you can locate new customers with high ROAS Prospecting campaigns and use real-time conversion data to build look-a-like audiences that self-optimize into response models. Other than helping marketers run Direct Mail campaigns with ease, Postie makes it easy to track ROAS in real-time.

Integrations with key marketing stack tools allow Postie to support a wide range of businesses in various industries. The platform Integrates with various e-commerce, CRM, Email Marketing and marketing automation solutions such as Shopify, Iterable, and MailChimp.

Pricing: Contact support for demo and custom quote.

Free Trial: Free Demo available; No Free Trial.

Pros:

• Real-time data and analytics.
• Automated direct mail marketing.
• An easy-to-manage platform for acquisition teams.

Cons:

• Clients have less control over data generated.
• Is a bit expensive and can price out some new startups.

8. Postalytics — Best direct mail software for advanced marketers and agencies

Postalytics is a direct mail automation platform designed to streamline and enhance marketing for businesses of all types, agencies, and marketing professionals. I found that Postalytics offers tools and features to create, send, and track direct mail campaigns for marketers across various industries, including finance, insurance, healthcare, education, retail & e-commerce, non-profit, and real estate.

Why I Picked Postalytics: Postalytics' direct mail marketing platform empowers advanced/experienced marketers to optimize their direct mail strategies and boost customer acquisition and engagement. Typically, these are advanced marketers and agencies that have invested in CRM or Marketing Automation and want to leverage the platform to send direct mail postcards, letters, and increase their engagement and conversion rates.

Postalytics Standout Features & Integrations:

Features that make Postalytics a tool for advanced marketers in direct mail marketing are direct mail API, editor, letters, integrations, analytics, triggered campaigns, and automation. In my experience with marketing automation tools, the key differentiating feature is that Postalytics is an all-in-one direct mail automation tool that allows marketers to integrate direct mail with their marketing tech stack to generate personalized, multi-channel campaigns. It also provides visibility into what happens after you send direct mail campaigns.

Integrations are available with your existing marketing, CRM, CDP and e-commerce tools such as Hubspot, Salesforce, Active Campaign, Zoho, Zapier, Marketo, HighLevel, Klavyo, and Nimble. You get API integrations, point-and-click integrations with over 3000 applications with Zapier, webhook URL-based campaigns or custom integrations with the most direct mail API.

Pricing: Starts from $199.99/mo for marketers. Pro and agency plans are available.

Free Trial: Free plan available.

Pros:

• Speed – direct mail marketing that took weeks can now be done in minutes.
• Tracking – track each mailer’s delivery and response.
• Integrate direct mail with your CRM, email, and digital campaigns.

Cons: 

• Lack of customization and types of mailing prevent use in promotions.
• Requires advanced marketing knowledge to use.

9. Sendoso — Best sending platform for all businesses

Sendoso is a direct mail marketing software that helps businesses send direct mail, personalized gifts (electronic or physical), branded swag, and handwritten notes to customers. The platform combines tools for marketing automation, direct mail marketing, and email marketing to improve prospecting, drive revenue and build stronger, deeper relationships with the customer. With Sendeso, organizations streamline account-based marketing (ABM), demand generation, customer experience, and sales development.

Why I Picked Sendeso: Sendoso is a popular gifting platform because it combines a lot of marketing automation, direct mail marketing and sales improvement features into one product. The platform allows you to build highly differentiated and tailor-made direct mail marketing campaigns to connect deeply with your customers throughout the buyer’s lifecycle journey and drive more ROI of your sales and marketing investments. I found that the platform allows marketers to automate sourcing, storing, and sending (shipping) processes for various product varieties such as company swag, gift cards, plants, and perishable items. Overall, Sendeso provides an efficient and user-friendly solution for businesses looking to simplify their sending and gifting processes.

Sendoso Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include activity tracking, single sign-on (SSO), sourcing, physical storage, analytics, engagement tracking, address confirmation, virtual experiences, eGifts, and international sending. I liked these features because they're accessible to anyone. Sendeso also provides various customizable benefits, enabling marketers and account managers to build customer loyalty, manage leads, generate custom reports, and gain insights into customers’ behavior.  

Integrations of Sendoso include an API, which facilitates integration with numerous third-party platforms such as Marketo, Salesforce, HubSpot, Calendly, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Groove, Outreach, SalesLoft, SurveyMonkey, Chili Piper, Zapier, and 6sense.

Pricing: Request demo for custom pricing.

Free Trial: No free trial.

Pros:

• Easy interface to use.
• Great customer service.
• Integrates well with a wide variety of tools marketers already use.

Cons:

• Pricing is highly competitive.
• Limited seats for users.

10. Stadium — Best Direct Mail Marketing Custom Gift Shop 

Stadium is a global direct mail marketing and gifting platform that includes Stadium Shops, SwagMagic, SnackMagic, TeamBuilds, and the Department of Superior Dishes. Stadium made it to my most rated list because it allows businesses to create and automate custom and personalized direct mail campaigns for work-from-home employees, global teams, client gifts, hybrid events, and event attendees. The software provides a variety of templates to choose from, making it easy to create eye-catching mailers.

Why I Picked Stadium: I like that Stadium offers a free platform, and you'll only pay for the cost of the gift plus a 15% platform fee. For me, the platform also stood out because it has a reputation for delivering high-quality direct mail campaigns and simplifies the process of creating and managing direct mail campaigns: you only pick a template, send points, and the recipient redeems the points. 

Stadium Standout Features & Integrations:

Features include Stadium shops, template library, SnackMagic, SwagMagic, and Superior Dishes, as well as personalization, tracking, automation, analytics, and integrations. I liked the Stadium template library feature because it offers a wide range of professionally designed templates that can be customized to match your branding, which makes it a great customizable gift shop. In addition, the SnackMagic, SwagMagic, and Superior Dishes features are ideal corporate gifting tools for sending and tracking orders for as many customers as you may need.  

Integration is available with popular CRM platforms, marketing automation tools, and customer data platforms (CDPs) to amplify recognition, engagement and motivation. These include Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Segment, Zapier, Zendesk, Monday.com, Workday, Pipedrive, Justworks, ADP, Hithrive, Marketo, Outreach, Groove, Saleeloft, Calendly, and Chilipiper.

Pricing: Contact support for a custom quote and a 15% platform fee.

Free Trial: Free trial available.

Pros:

• Great template library for easy campaign creation.
• Advanced personalization options to enhance recipient engagement.
• Integration with popular CRM and marketing automation tools.

Cons:

• Pricing details are not specified.
• Personalization details are not so obvious.

11. Lob - Best Direct Mail Marketing Software for Intelligent Businesses 

Lob is a direct mail marketing software described as “for the digital age.” Lob's marketing platform automates the manual, direct mail execution process for enterprises at any scale - from creation, printing, postage, delivery, and sustainability. Lob offers direct mail and address verification APIs that businesses integrate into their systems to send personalized mail and communications to customers.

Why I Picked Lob: I picked Lob platform because of its strong focus on APIs allows businesses to integrate direct mail seamlessly into their existing CRM, marketing automation tools, and workflows to automate the direct mail process. I realize that with these features, you can send postcards, checks or letters like you use digital tactics and trigger direct mail engagements based on customer behavior or milestones.

Lob Standout Features & Integrations:

Features outstanding on the Lob platform are the APIs and automation. The robust set of APIs and webhooks allows for seamless integration of direct mail into your existing systems and workflows, enabling automation and personalized campaigns at scale. For me, this platform stood out because it also provides address verification and cleansing features, ensuring accurate and deliverable mailings. Users can also use the print and mail options for postcards, letters, and gifts with tracking and analytics that allow you to monitor the delivery and performance of your direct mail campaigns.

Integration: Lob's integrations include popular platforms and tools such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Customer.io, Jotform, Invoiced, Marketo, DotDigital, Blueshift, and Zapier.  

Pricing: Starts at $260 /per month.

Free Trial: Free plan available.

Pros:

• Clear APIs allow seamless integration with the existing tech stack.
• Address verification helps ensure accurate and deliverable mailings.
• Wide range of print and mail options to choose from.

Cons:

•  The price per mailing is a little high at low volumes.
• Set-up time can be intensive.

12. ReachDesk - Best Direct Mail Marketing Software for B2B Local and Global Gifting 

ReachDesk is a direct mail marketing software that creates personalized and memorable experiences by sending direct mail items like gift cards and letters. With its real-time visibility and ROI analysis of offline campaigns, users can measure how their campaigns perform across different channels.

Why I Picked ReachDesk: In addition to personalizing gifts and memorable experiences, this platform provides a global outreach for direct mail services. It provides a global network of warehouses to store items and deliver to customers worldwide, and gives users the option to send and track gifts through its marketplace of local providers. This platform also stands out for me because of its focus on B2B gifting to deliver moments that matter at scale gives it an edge over its competitors as both a global company and a corporate-focused provider. 

ReachDesk Standout Features & Integrations:

Features: Reachdesk helps B2Bs to deliver personal experiences through data-driven gifting and direct mail. Through the platform, B2B businesses can deliver gifts and direct mail to build deeper connections with customers, prospects and employees using features like address confirmation, gift status tracking, real-time analytics, gift customization, hyper-personalization, CRM & martech integration, and inventory management. What makes ReachDesk truly stand out is its ability to gift globally, unrestricted by geographical boundaries, in your gifting campaigns. With this feature, you can build a global, scalable gifting strategy and reach out to your B2B clients wherever they are.

Integrations are available with Sales and Marketing Automation software such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, Outreach, SalesLoft, Chili Piper, Zapier, Influitive, Workday, bambooHR, and hipbob.  

Pricing: Request Demo for Custom Pricing.

Free Trial: No Free Trial.

Pros:

• Connectivity with CRM to get prospect's contact information.
• Provides global outreach.
• Many items available for gifting.

Cons:

• Limited offering outside the USA.
• User interface appears cluttered. 

Other Direct Mail Marketing Software

I shortlisted other tools during my research to help you understand and choose direct mail marketing software. They're not in my top 10 for direct mail marketing, but they are still worth checking out:

• Contact Pigeon: Best for multi-channel direct mail marketing campaigns.
• MailChimp: Best web-based email newsletter service for postcards.
• PFL: Best for Targeting Specific Neighborhoods
• Switch: Best for Certified Mail
• Handwrytten: Best for handwritten looking cards and gifts.
• Bluebird.cx: Best direct mail marketing software for beginners and startups.
• RevSend: Best simplified direct mail platform for gifting.

Selection Criteria For The Best Direct Mail Marketing Software

Wondering how I settled on the best direct mail marketing software I've listed here? Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best direct mail marketing software for this article:

Core Functionality

First, I evaluate and compare a wide range of popular marketing software that includes core direct mail marketing functionalities. Here are some of the basic functionalities the software has to provide to make it onto my list:

• Ability to create customized and personalized mailers.
• Allow businesses to manage mailing lists.
• Ability to schedule mailings.
• Ability to track mailers and responses.
• Automating direct mail marketing.
• Integration with other marketing automation platforms.
• Mailer templates.
• Creating, sending, and tracking direct mail campaigns.

Key Features

To deliver the core functionalities of direct mail marketing outlined above, the software must have certain features for implementing direct mail marketing. To make it to my list, a good direct mail marketing software should include the following features that support different marketing campaign types:

• Address verification & confirmation. Messages shouldn’t bounce because you didn’t get the address right. That's a loss of money and time. This feature verifies and confirms customer addresses and ensures that your direct mail is sent to the right contact at the right place. 
• Custom templates: Custom templates can give you an idea of the types of designs you may need to create for your marketing campaign. You can customize them with your brand information and make the mailing process easy.
• Message personalization. Give your direct mail a unique, personal touch. Select a platform that allows you to personalize your Direct Mail using each recipient’s name, company name, and other important personal information fields. It should also allow you to tailor custom content using logic and dynamic sections to create a personal message.
• Detailed Reporting and Tracking: In marketing, you must track and measure your results to calculate your ROI. This feature should help you to connect the dots between your direct mail campaign costs and revenue. Marketing reports can include user-engagement figures, leads, or sales totals.
• Online merchandise store or access to a gift marketplace. These features enable you to access the platform’s store or marketplace, select merchandise to send to your customers, and personalize it. It’s easier if your customers are located in different locations.
• Triggered or automatic direct mail campaigns. Triggered email campaigns can send a sequence of emails after a change in a CRM (filling out a form or changing lead score). The best direct mail in my list should make triggered direct mail easy and direct.
• Flexible API. Many marketers are beginning to search for APIs that help them with easy integration because of their heavy investments in marketing tech stacks. The best direct mail marketing solution offers flexible REST-based APIs to allow the solutions to work together. This will allow you to trigger direct mail, consume deliver and response data, embed pre-built user interfaces, template management, list management, and campaign dashboards.

Usability

I prioritized marketing tools that are easy to implement, use and create a positive user experience. So, the ease of use of the direct mail marketing tool I choose must have a high score. 

Your marketing team shouldn’t waste weeks on the learning curve trying to understand how to use the direct mail marketing software’s features.

I recommend solutions with clean and simple user interfaces that are easy to learn, use and have neat menus. Your staff should be able to find the right functionalities and features with minimal effort.

Software Integrations

Integration with your marketing automation software is a very important factor that I must consider.

Your direct mail marketing tools should provide an API or allow seamless integration with your current marketing stacks, such as CRM tools, customer service or sales. That way, the marketing, customer service, and sales teams will communicate with customers and share data such as addresses.

I selected direct mail marketing solutions that integrate with tools like time and popular CRM, sales automation, and marketing automation software solutions. I've included key integrations for each software in the list to save time.

Industry-Tailored Solutions

A local restaurant won't need the same direct mail marketing services as a multinational B2B company. That’s why they don’t need the same direct mail marketing provider. Research each direct mailer and target industries to benefit from their industry-tailored solutions. This also includes finding out their past clients and whether they have services targeting specific customers. I chose platforms with industry-tailored solutions for effective experience and targeting in direct mail marketing.

Mailer Varieties

In my experience, direct mail marketing changes over time — just as other marketing channels. You may have specific marketing needs today, but that may change over time.

This is why you want direct mailer marketing software that gives you options such as:

• eGifts
• Catalogs
• Postcards
• Flyers and Brochures
• Invitations
• Greeting cards
• Thank you notes
• Newsletters
• Booklets
• Custom products

For example, you may start your direct mail marketing with a postcard but may need to send out more detailed information about your organization later through a brochure or catalog.

Select a direct mail marketing software that gives you a variety of options for your future marketing needs. See if the options fit your needs and can support your marketing campaign requirements.

Designs

When undertaking any direct mail campaign, you must grab your recipient's attention. Why? First impressions matter all the time. 

Having attention-grabbing helps you stand out in a crowded mailbox. Your direct mail items should:

• Have a pleasing design to enhance the message and not detract the recipient.
• Driver the message straightforward and instantly.

Your direct mail marketing software should provide a balance of design and message to deliver the intended marketing outcome. 

Check if the solutions provide templates and whether they are customizable to your needs and support your brand and industry. Templates provide a great starting point, especially for beginners with less experience in graphic design or direct mail content. 

Any wrong choice of design and your direct mail item will go unnoticed.

Turnaround Time

Finally, I checked the turnaround time. As a business, there are instances you’ll need to send out time-sensitive promotional direct mailers. And it will be a huge waste of money if a customer receives promotional mail with an expired coupon. This can also be a poor reflection of your business in your customers' eyes. 

This means, when evaluating the direct mail marketing software, understand how fast their delivery is. This might not be obvious but you can talk to some of their previous customers or see their online reviews for ideas.

Based on the activities involved in your direct mail, some direct mail marketing software service providers give you the option to pay extra for extra quick delivery. Others are just quick. 

I recommend finding a direct mailer that works quickly without those additional costs. 

FAQ

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions that should help:

What is Direct Mail Marketing?

Direct mail marketing is a type of marketing that involves sending physical correspondence to customers’ mailboxes to encourage them to patronize your business. It involves sending direct mail, physical merchandise that identifies you or your business and a call to action (CTA) so the customer can contact you.

What are Some Examples of Direct Mail Advertising

Direct mail advertising can be done in many forms to increase brand awareness, website traffic and conversions. Direct mail advertising includes flyers, brochures, gifts, postcards, newsletters, custom merchandise, catalogs, dimensional mail, newsletters, and thank you cards.

Is Direct Mail Marketing Still Relevant?

Direct mail marketing remains a relevant and effective advertising strategy for targeting your customer demographic and increasing foot traffic at your small business. Although it can be expensive, direct mail marketing delivers a high response rate, conversion, and ROI compared to other marketing channels. It delivers these results because it is highly memorable, interactive, has a bigger reach, and offers many ways to be creative to specific audiences.

Does Direct Mail Marketing work?

Direct marketing is an effective approach to marketing especially if you consider the tips I’ve listed in this post. When designing your direct mail marketing campaign, you need to choose the right software using the tips listed above, consider your target audience and figure out a physical item on their mail that can make them take action. Ensure all your mailers include a clear CTA that tells customers what to do next.

Takeaway Summary 

Direct mail marketing is making a comeback as an effective way to establish meaningful relationships with your brand’s leads, clients, and customers. Marketers say that direct mail avoids the digital inbox clutter and delivers ROI up to 30x higher than digital mail marketing.

Direct mail marketing software automates the direct mail marketing process, eliminating the need for manual handling. This also enables businesses to integrate direct mail into their other marketing automation tools to support and trigger campaigns.

Using this guide, you can compare the different direct mail marketing software I’ve reviewed and use the selection criteria to decide which one best meets your needs.