Promotional products - when used in conjunction with a sales letter or as an incentive to respond - can make a significant difference in direct mail response rates. In a study, nearly 1,500 businesses each received either a personalized sales letter only, a sales letter plus a promotional product, or a sales letter with the offer of a promotional product incentive.

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• Adding a promotional product to a mail promotion increased the response rate by 50%.
• The use of a promotional product as an incentive to respond generated four times as many responses as a sales letter alone.
• The use of a promotional product as an incentive to respond reduced the cost per response by two-thirds.

Dimensional Mailings

The packaging of promotional products is important, too, as it can evoke curiosity and increase direct mail response rates. A study found that the use of dimensional mailers, such as a box or tube, can significantly improve response rates over direct mail alone.

For this study, 3,000 school administrators were divided into three groups and received either 1) an envelope with a sales letter, sales collateral and postage-paid business reply card, 2) an envelope with similar contents plus a promotional product, or 3) the same contents listed above, delivered in a box, instead of an envelope.

F I N D I N G S