3 direct mail marketing mistakes brands must avoid

It’s official: Tactile marketing is renaissance. Research from The Harris Poll and Quad confirms that consumers are hungry for a true omnichannel experience, with more IRL touchpoints to complement digital channels; especially among Gen Z and Millennials, physical marketing assets such as catalogs, mailers and branded magazines are seen as engaging and memorable.

Clearly, these consumers are looking to their mailboxes to experience this return of touch. Which means savvy marketers are now looking to direct mail campaigns — efficient, effective and scalable — to maximize their return on touch.

Considering a new direct mail strategy to capitalize on the tactile renaissance? You’re right on time. Just make sure to avoid these three common mistakes…

Marketers can fall back on certain direct mail formats — for mailers, flyers, catalogs, postcards and other pieces — because, well, that’s what they’re used to doing. And their internal creative team or external agency may be legitimately great at executing a particular format. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Sometimes, though, subtle production changes related to trim sizes, paper, pagination, ink, binding and other variables can make a big difference — not only in manufacturing costs, but in postage (more on that below) as well as consumer engagement/response. (And sometimes not-so-subtle changes can make an even bigger difference.)

Parsing all the direct mail production possibilities can be incredibly confusing and time-consuming, starting with mastering paper stocks and the supply chains surrounding them. Quad, which prints and mails 2.3 billion pieces of direct mail each year, has more than five decades of experience in uncovering the most cost-effective formats for brands’ direct mail campaigns.

“Quad’s ability to scale and optimize production cost-effectively matters not only when a particular client is doing a huge direct mail campaign, but for clients and campaigns of all sizes,” says Raquel Hudson, Director of Product Marketing at Quad. “For instance, we can leverage our direct relationships with paper suppliers and mills to help economically secure the right stock needed for a brand’s bespoke campaign.”

Optimizing print production is, of course, only part of the equation. As many marketers have learned, postage is typically the highest cost when it comes to direct mail campaigns.

While selecting a certain format can reduce mailing costs due to the specific size, weight and even paper stock, true postal optimization is a more holistic exercise. This is where Quad’s status as one of the USPS’s highest-volume customers can be a massive value-add — even for non-massive clients and campaigns.

For instance, Quad’s U.S. manufacturing and distribution facilities are strategically clustered to efficiently consolidate mail volume, allowing for better postal rates for clients of all sizes.

“In many cases, when consumers get catalogs or other pieces of direct mail, not only has Quad printed them, but we’ve done sorting for the USPS that collates the mail by ‘walk order’ — the exact order a postal carrier will deliver those pieces in a specific neighborhood,” says Dave Honan, Quad’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President. “That allows us to pass along major postal discounts to our clients, directly as a result of Quad’s mastery of postal logistics and optimization.”

Quad also works closely with clients to ensure compliance with discount pricing programs, such as the USPS Catalog Insights promotion, which offers a 10% postage discount for certain types of catalogs through June 30, 2026.

Direct mail marketers have long relied on demographic data points such as age and gender to segment and target customers. But people in similar cohorts can behave (and spend) in very different ways. That’s why the most effective direct mail campaigns focus on how various attributes relate to consumer actions, gain an understanding of the motivations behind those actions, then segment and personalize their messaging accordingly.

Sound complex? Yes and no. Today, direct mail marketers can effectively reach (and speak to) any consumer at any scale — provided they’ve got the right data.

“This is where household data is a huge unlock,” says Lily Wen, Director of Product Marketing, Data and Media at Quad. “For example, our proprietary data stack reaches 92% of all U.S. households — more than 250 million consumers. It’s really an ideal foundation for building out direct mail campaigns. Once we start layering in behavioral, transactional and attitudinal data, we can get incredibly granular.”

From there, Wen explains, marketers can fine-tune the execution using Quad’s larger suite of direct mail solutions. These include Accelerated Marketing Insights (AMI), which enables rapid pre-market and virtual testing, meaning brands can test direct mail pieces, pinpoint what resonates most with consumers and maximize ROI. Factor in a range of integrated technologies — such as At-Home Connect by Quad, an automated direct mail platform that delivers targeted, personalized messaging to consumers based real-time data — and there’s simply no reason for marketers to settle for old-school “spray and pray” tactics.