The results are based on nearly 4,000 separate business and consumer campaigns and provide a benchmark for typical Direct Mail response rates.

Analysis shows that consumer Direct Mail campaigns continue to achieve higher response rates than business campaigns.  Although consumer mailings are on average four times larger than business to business, this does not necessarily dilute the quality of the targeting or the impact of the creative work. 

The average response rate for a Direct Mail campaign is 6.7%.   The average response for business to business mailings stands at 6.2% while the overall average for consumer campaigns is 7.1%.

For both business and consumer campaigns, in-house customer data, prospects and enquirers are by far the most responsive list sources.

Although advertisers report that awareness building is a key part of DM campaigns, an increase in sales and general enquiries are the main measures of success for both business and consumer campaigns.

Jo Howard-Brown, DMIS Managing Director, says: “The research shows that 74% of business mailers and 80% of consumer mailers are satisfied with the results of their campaigns, underlining just why Direct Mail continues to take a growing share of overall marketing budgets.”