Every year the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) releases a Response Rate Report. The results come from their research and polling of various marketers across various industries. The 2010 report doesn’t hold too many surprises, but does confirm that direct mail continues to be the silver bullet for b-to-b marketers.

When you look at Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising in the b-to-b space, the average response rates were 5.27%. However, the average cost per click was $4.59. So while the average response rates for PPC campaigns were not that bad, the cost is pretty high.

Email marketing faired a little better.  The average open rate is a surprising 19.85%. However, those are just people that opened the email. The average click through rate was 7.26%. This percentage isn’t really a measurement of response, however. An email response is actually when someone not only clicks on the link, but also performs some sort of call to action.

The study found that the average response rate for a letter-sized mailer to a house list was 4.28%. For respondents that used dimensional mail, the average response rate shot up to 8.51%.

It seems that each of three most popular direct marketing methods have their strengths and weaknesses. Direct mail continues to provide consistent, reliable results. That being said, I would argue that the most effective method is in combining all three into an integrated campaign. Bridging digital with high-impact dimensional mail has resulted in incredible ROI for our clients, in both the b-to-b and b-to-c space.

To read more about the study click here.