Unlike newspaper, yellow pages, co-op mail, magazine, television or radio, Single Piece Direct Mail lets the advertiser control exactly which households actually see your promotional message. This can be a tremendous competitive advantage, as well as cost savings, if there is an incentive offer attached to the promotional message.
Response rate is controlled by many variables and is never the same from industry to industry.
First and foremost, however, always spend the majority percentage of your promotional dollars when the demand for your product or service is the highest. The greater the performance incentive offer, the higher the performance. Sorry folks, that's just the way it works. And then there's mailing frequency. On your first mailing, you'll probably get a fairly low return.