Besides, research shows that direct mailers, like Baby, never deserved to be put into the corner in the first place. In 2015 and again in 2019, experts from Temple University and the U.S. Postal Service studied the effectiveness of physical mail versus digital marketing. In short, researchers found that participants spend more time with direct mailers and recall them longer and with more confidence. And perhaps more importantly, the findings revealed that subjects have stronger emotional responses and appraise higher value to physical objects.

Direct mail also delivers significantly higher response rates compared to its digital counterpart. A 2018 report by the Data and Marketing Association (DMA) found that the average response rates of direct-mail marketing were 9 percent for house lists and 4.9 percent for prospect lists. By comparison, the response rate for digital channels such as email, social media, and paid search hovers at around 1 percent. Even better, direct mail is steadily becoming more popular among recipients. Response rates rose 4 percent between 2017 and 2018 for house lists and 2 percent for prospect lists, according to the same study. Compare that to 2003 through 2015 where the average rates were 3.6 and 1.6 percent, respectively, and the growing engagement is even more dramatic. So direct mail is not only outperforming digital marketing in terms of response rates, but is also on the rise.

And per another DMA study, dimensional mailers – i.e., anything other than a flat missive – achieve the highest response rates. After all, who can resist cracking open a box to see what goodies lurk within? So here are five inspired examples of mailers that reaped results.