Want to jump straight to the answer? The best direct mail services are Gunderson Direct and PostcardMania.
Direct mail is still a viable marketing strategy. It’s easy to lose sight of this when you’re putting more emphasis on online advertisements, email, and other digital marketing tactics.
But direct mail is an effective and affordable way to drive brand awareness, generate leads, and engage with new customers. It’s an excellent opportunity for both new and established businesses to reach consumers who may not see their digital presence.
In order to have success in this space, you need to find a reliable direct mail service. Direct mail services help you deliver promotional content to consumer and business mailboxes.
A basic direct mail company will print, stamp, and deliver your flyers, postcards, or brochures. Some services take that one step further by providing you with design templates and helping you create a list of viable addresses.
Use this guide to find the best direct mailing company for your business.
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The 8 Best Direct Mail Services of 2021
Direct mail is far from dead, and there are still hundreds of services on the market today.
After extensive research, I’ve narrowed down the best direct mail companies to eight options:
- Gunderson Direct — The best for hands-off marketing campaigns
- PostcardMania — The best for multi-channel marketing campaigns
- PsPrint — The most mailer type variety
- Vistaprint — The most postcard designs
- PrintingForLess — The best for targeting specific neighborhoods
- NextDayFlyers — The best for next-day printing
- Cactus Mailing — The best for coordinated Google Ads campaigns
- SaaSMQL — The best for SaaS lead generation
Below, you’ll find in-depth reviews of the benefits, drawbacks, and use cases for each option. Small businesses and nationwide organizations will both be able to find a solution that fits their needs.
After the reviews, I’ll break down the major factors you need to consider when choosing a direct mail service.
Best Direct Mail Services Reviews
#1 – Gunderson Direct — Best for Hands-Off Marketing Campaigns
- Full-service marketing agency
- Free consultations
- Fully managed campaigns
- Customized services
Gunderson Direct is a full-service direct marketing agency. That means their representatives will work with you to create a fully customized direct mail campaign that’s perfect for your brand.
They give you everything you need to get the most out of your direct mail campaigns. Tap into their expertise to create mail campaigns that compliment and work in conjunction with your marketing strategy.
You’ll start with a consultation with the Gunderson Direct team. As a full service agency, they’ll make sure every aspect of your program is optimized for success—from testing, to data, messaging and offers.
From that consultation, you’ll get all the insights you need to build a successful program.
Gunderson Direct can help you create direct mail collateral from your in-house database as well as external sources. Their award-winning design team will provide you with targeted, print-ready creative and their production expertise ensures you’re mailing out high-quality material.
From start to finish, they’ll take care of most every aspect of your marketing campaign for you, making sure to consult with you as needed to make sure it gets the results you’re looking for.
They’ll even give you in-depth reporting and analytics so you can measure your success. That’s a rare offering when it comes to direct mail services.
Get in touch with their team to get a custom quote for your company’s direct mail needs.
#2 – PostcardMania — Best for Multi-Channel Marketing Campaigns
- Postcard & brochure mailers
- Omnichannel marketing solutions
- 80+ industries served
- Direct, EDDM, and Bulk Mailing
PostcardMania is great for high-volume postcard direct mail due to their excellent bulk discounting.
PostcardMania offers the following services:
- Postcard printing
- Postcard design
- Direct mailing
- Bulk mailing
- Mailing lists
- Every door direct mail (EDDM)
While they offer a stellar postcard and brochure mailing campaign offerings, where they really stand out is their Everywhere Small Business product.
This is a multi-channel marketing effort that includes direct mail. In addition to mail, you’ll also benefit from mail tracking, targeted Facebook follow-up advertisements, Instagram ads, Google follow-ups, and call tracking.
PostcardMania targets the same people who are receiving your promotions in the mail across digital advertising channels. It brings multiple campaigns together for lead generation and brand awareness.
Pricing for high-volume standard-sized postcards starts at just $0.05 per piece. You likely won’t find a better bulk rate in the industry.
#3 – PsPrint — Most Mailer Type Variety
- Wide range of products
- Quick turnaround
- Create a mailing list
- Manage everything online
PsPrint offers a wide range of products available for direct mail.
In fact they offer 10 types of mailers for you to send to prospective customers. That’s much more than other services which often offer just one or two mailer products.
Their products include:
- Brochures
- Door hangers
- Flyers
- Magnets
- Newsletters
- Postcards
- Rack cards
- Sales sheets
- Stickers
- Gift labels
This is a huge variety of direct mailers they’ll send for you. It’s also worth mentioning they offer mailing list processing (CASS certification, inkjet addressing, and postal resorting), foil stamping, die cutting, and even a graphic designer to work with you to give you exactly the look you want.
PsPrint offers a quick turnaround as well. In just two to five days after it’s done printing, your order can be mailed out.
The entire process can be managed online. Just select your product, upload your artwork, and attach your mailing list. PsPrint will even send you extra prints that weren’t mailed. The “overs” are free if they fit into one box.
For those of you who don’t have a mailing list, PsPrint will help you create one in less than 15 minutes. Just answer some questions related to your target market based on age, income, ZIP Code, and other details.
Head over to PsPrint today and browse the many options available to you.
#4 – Vistaprint — Most Postcard Designs
- Postcard mailing service
- Buy targeted mailing lists
- Promotional products
- Wide range of services
Vistaprint is one of the most popular printing solutions out there. While they’re most known for their business card printing service, they also offer a great direct mail postcard service.
They offer more than 1,000 postcard designs too—so they’ll likely have something that’s right for you and your brand.
Simply design your card, send them your list of addresses, and Vistaprint will handle the rest. Vistaprint has both standard and oversized postcards.
One other service I really like is their mailing lists. You can buy a targeted list directly through this platform as well. These lists can be targeted to audiences by demographic data, like income, hobbies, new homeowners, or even B2B-targeted industries.
Vistaprint is great because they have so many other products and services. No matter your marketing needs, Vistaprint has you covered. Some popular categories include:Promotional products
- Labels and stickers
- Bags and Clothing
- Signage
- Trade shows
- Marketing materials
- Business cards
So if you want to get your mailing service from the same provider as your other promotional products and printing needs, you can get it all in one place.
#5 – PrintingForLess — Best for Targeting Specific Neighborhoods
- Excellent EDDM service
- Custom free printing samples
- Free templates
- Great for political campaigns
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PrintingForLess is a well-known and reliable direct mail service. It’s a one-stop shop for both printing and mailing needs for businesses.
They offer a wide range of tools like free templates, direct mail tips, integration with marketing automation platforms, and web-to-print for employees to have easy access to sales and marketing collateral.
Where they really stand out is their Every Door Direct Mailing (EDDM) service. They’ll work with you to determine a specific neighborhood or region that you want to target and make sure you get your mailers to those houses.
This is great for promoting your restaurant or retail business’s opening day, local business promotions, and more.
While a few other services on this list offer EDDM (such as NextDayFlyers), none of them offer it with the amount of variety of mailer types that PrintingForLess will give you.
They also have a lot of experience working with political campaigns to make sure their mailers get out to constituents and potential voters. If you’re holding an elected office (or aspiring to be), I can’t recommend PrintingForLess enough.
What I like about PrintingForLess is that they make a promise that if your mailing and printing aren’t on time, they’ll fully reimburse you for the cost sustained. That gets rid of a lot of the anxiety that can happen around big marketing projects.
Before you start producing and mailing at scale, PFL will give you custom free printing samples. You can choose from different paper types, weights, coatings, binding options, effects, and other products to see which one is the best for your business.
>> Compare Quotes#6 – NextDayFlyers — Best for Next-Day Printing
True to their name, NextDayFlyers will give you an incredibly quick turnaround to make sure you get your mailers out quickly.
In fact, they offer next business day printing turnaround. Although, you will pay a higher price for this premium service. But it’s a great option for time-sensitive offers and campaigns.
With NextDayFlyers, your company can send:
- Postcards
- Brochures
- Mail rack cards
- Custom products
NextDayFlyers will store your inventory, verify addresses, presort your products, and send your mail. You can also rent mailing lists for campaigns as well.
Navigating through this platform is easy. Simply choose the size of your flyer, customize the cardstock, add a gloss or matte coating, and select your quantity. You can create artwork directly on their website or upload your own file.
You’ll see the cost for your direct mail campaign in real-time as you continue to make changes.
>> Compare Quotes#7 – Cactus Mailing — Best for Coordinated Google Ads Campaigns
- Direct mail and call tracking
- Excellent Smart Marketing tool
- Targeted mailing lists
- Trusted by 17,000+ businesses
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Cactus Mailing is a simple and straightforward direct mail service that offers great postcard and brochure mailers—along with a unique offering focused on Google Ads.
Top services include:
- Direct mail postcards
- Direct mail brochures
- Targeted mailing lists
- Mail piece design
- Call tracking
Where they really shine, though, is in their Smart Marketing offering. They will work with you to create a coordinated Google Ads campaign that compliments your direct mail campaign, driving better results. Doing so will increase response rates and, therefore, leads and sales.
This program includes Google display ads along with landing pages to support your direct mail postcards and brochures.
This differs from the multi-channel offering of PostcardMania because it focuses solely on Google Ads, whereas PostcardMania offers Facebook and Instagram ads along with follow-ups.
Some of the top industries using Cactus Mailing include dentists, restaurants, salons, spas, churches, real estate, retail, fitness, and more. They excel in particular at creating beautiful brochures to promote your business and services.
Another reason to consider Cactus Mailing is because they are always running great specials if you combine more than one service.
>> Compare Quotes#8 – SaasMQL — Best for SaaS Lead Generation
- Focused on SaaS businesses
- Send packages to your prospects
- Create leads & opportunities
- Stand out against the competition
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SaaSMQL is extremely unique compared to the other direct mail services on our list. They offer account-based demand generation for SaaS businesses.
If your organization falls into this category, SaaSMQL will be a top choice to consider.
In most cases, direct mail isn’t associated with SaaS. But SaaSMQL has revolutionized the way that you approach your lead generation strategy. They use direct mail to create leads and opportunities with mid-market and enterprise-level prospects.
Using a direct mail campaign, one of their clients generated more than 50 qualified meetings in less than two months. This generated over $2 million.
That’s because of their unique approach. Instead of just sending a flyer or a postcard, SaaSMQL sends packages to businesses.
This stands out compared to the hundreds of emails, calls, and junk mail these people get on a daily basis. Nobody is going to take a package and just throw it in the garbage.
In addition to direct mail, SaaSMQL will help you with other account-based marketing campaigns and analytics. They have everything you need for SaaS demand generation across multiple channels.
>> Compare QuotesHow to Choose the Best Direct Mail Service For Your Business
As you can see from this list, each direct mail service is unique. Finding the best one for your business can be difficult if you don’t know what to look for.
This is our methodology for narrowing your choices down. I’ll explain each factor in greater detail below.
Industry-Tailored Solutions
A local mom-and-pop restaurant isn’t going to need the same thing as a multi-million dollar B2B company. That’s why they shouldn’t go to the same place for direct mail services.
Research what industries each direct mailer focuses on. For example, Gunderson Direct focuses on telemedicine, B2B companies, and financial advisors. SaaSMQL is, of course, a great choice for SaaS companies.
PostcardMania, on the other hand, can help with a variety of businesses that need postcards and brochures including AC and heating, restaurants, roofing, and real estate.
When researching direct mailing services, be sure to see who some of their past clients are, too. Do they have the solutions you need to target your specific customers? Can they effectively promote your offerings?
The variety of mailers they offer should match your campaign’s goals along with the needs of your business—which brings us to…
Mailer Varieties
No matter what your marketing campaign needs, you want to find a direct mailer that gives you options.
Common mailer types include:
- Postcards
- Flyers
- Invitations
- Greeting cards
- Brochures
- Newsletters
- Catalogs
- Booklets
- Custom products
A postcard might be more than enough for your business if you’re just looking to do something simple like promote an upcoming event or sale. But if you’re looking to send more detailed information about your organization, you might want to consider a brochure or catalog.
Although uncommon, companies like SaasMQL even send packages via direct mail for certain business types.
Don’t be fooled if a company only offers one or two types of mailers too. For example, services like PostcardMania are limited in their offerings — but what they do, they do well. If you only need to get postcards or brochures, it’s a good idea to find a direct mail service that focuses on those two.
On the other hand, a service like Gunderson Direct offers a wider variety of offerings that include letters, brochures, and more. They’ll even work with you to help plan out the most effective direct mail campaign for your brand.
Eye-Catching Designs
First impressions are crucial for direct mail campaigns. You want the final product to:
- Look clean and beautiful when it arrives in prospect mailboxes.
- Instantly draw a potential lead in with eye-catching and informative design.
That can be a very tough balance to manage — but good direct mail services do so while staying true to your brand.
Some services offer industry-specific templates (e.g. PostcardMania has postcard designs for realtors). That provides a good starting point if you’re not very experienced in graphic design.
Other companies let you choose the quality, size, and finish of your products. That helps if you have a very specific vision of what your mailer will look like.
When consulting with or researching a direct mail service, be sure to take a look at any case studies they might have along with samples of their previous work. This should give you a good indication of their design quality and whether or not the service is a good fit for your brand, industry, and target customer.
It is important to note that sometimes, the price for their graphic design services is separate from their direct mail service. For example, PostcardMania offers graphic design as a separate offering. Gunderson Direct however, offers it as part of your whole package.
Supplemental Services
When your marketing efforts are coordinated and work together, they can have an even greater impact on your bottom line. The best direct mail service companies offer additional marketing products to help support your direct mail campaigns.
For example, PostCardMania also gives you an omni-channel marketing plan including Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads, along with call tracking, follow-ups and mail tracking.
An offering like that can be very helpful to keep your marketing efforts centralized and focused, not to mention more cost-effective. With all your marketing handled by one company, you’re not juggling a ton of different companies and services at once, trying to make them all coordinate–and dealing with the headaches that scenario will bring up.
Even if you don’t need every service a company offers today, it’s something to consider for your future plans.
Turnaround Time
This is not the necessarily the most common element businesses look for in a direct mail service.
However, we understand that it can be incredibly important for some businesses and brands to get mailers out to potential customers quickly (e.g. when you have a very time sensitive promotion to get done). Not to mention that if customers and prospects are receiving a mailer after a promotion has expired or come to an end, it’s a huge waste of money.
As such, turnaround time was a consideration that we factored in when researching this list.
Once printing is complete, mailing turnaround time typically ranges anywhere from next business day to ten business days.
You can usually pay extra to get your mailers out faster. But it’s better to find a direct mail service that works quickly at no additional cost.
Luckily, some direct mail campaigns are more time-sensitive than others. NextDayFlyers is a great service if you need a very tight turnaround time.
Conclusion
With so many direct mailing services on the market today, these eight providers rose to the top of the pack:
- Gunderson Direct — The best for hands-off marketing campaigns
- PostcardMania — The best for multi-channel marketing campaigns
- PsPrint — The most mailer type variety
- Vistaprint — The most postcard designs
- PrintingForLess — The best for targeting specific neighborhoods
- NextDayFlyers — The best for next-day printing
- Cactus Mailing — The best for coordinated Google Ads campaigns
- SaaSMQL — The best for SaaS lead generation
Let’s recap what each one is best at.
If you’re looking to completely outsource direct mail campaign creation, start reaping the benefits of Gunderson Direct . They’re the best at making a fully-formed, effective direct mail push while saving you time and headaches.
If you’re into choosing direct mail collateral yourself, look to PsPrint for the widest variety or Vistaprint if you’re looking primarily for postcard designs.
Direct mail works best as part of a larger digital strategy. Many of these options get that concept and excel at leveraging direct mail as part of a wider campaign.
PostcardMania tops that list if you’re mailing material you want to connect to social media pushes. If you’re more focused on Google Ads, go with Cactus Mailing. SaaS companies making a renew push to generate leads will be well-supported by SaaSMQL.
Local businesses and larger ones alike can benefit from thin-sliced segmentation. If you want to get really granular and personalize material for specific neighborhoods, PrintingForLess is a wise choice.
In a rush? No problem. NextDayFlyers can deliver your collateral in just 24 hours.
There’s a service provider on here for every business across all industries. From startups to B2B organizations selling software, direct mail is for everyone.
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