How to Dominate BFCM (with Direct Mail)

At PostPilot, we have a lot of sayings about Black Friday.

One of them is "Using direct mail over Black Friday will make your margin say 'yay.'"

Admittedly, not one of our better ones, but the meaning is what matters: direct mail shines over BFCM.

When your customers (or potential customers) are getting frillions of emails, texts, and Meta ads over the run-up to BFCM, you need something that separates you from the pack. And the greatest separator? Direct mail.

Physical mail that you can hold, carry around, and read at your leisure is cutting through inbox crowding like nothing else.

Let’s talk about how to make it happen.

How to build your holiday marketing strategy with direct mail

Imagine your customers bombarded by digital ads and endless promotional emails. 

Now, picture that same customer opening their mailbox to a beautiful postcard. No clutter. No distractions. Just your message front and center. That’s the power of direct mail.

Here’s exactly how to build your holiday marketing strategy.

1. Choose your mailer

There’s a mailer for every reason and every season. 

Postcards 

Postcards are quick-hitting, easy-to-digest direct mail pieces—perfect for promoting flash sales, limited-time offers, and retention campaigns. They’re also incredibly cost-effective (as low as $0.50) and take less than 1 week to launch.

Although 4’’ x 6’’ postcards are most common, we also offer 6’’ x 9’’ postcards for extra flex.

Catalogs

Holiday catalogs used to be a staple of every successful brand because, well, they were extremely effective. Part of the reason they were discontinued in the first place was everything seeming to go digital (why go through the monthslong, clunky catalog-producing process when you can bang out 20 ads in an hour?).

But they’re coming back, fast.

Even orgs that discontinued catalogs like Nike and J. Crew have begun to bring them back in the last couple years Because, again, they work.

And now, they’re much faster to launch. Our Modern Catalogs have a fraction of the lead time and minimum order quantities of traditional catalogs—and data comes in in real time. 

Cardalogs^TM

‍

Cardalogs^TM are the best of both worlds—part postcard, part catalog. These trifolds are sleek and story-driven, and they showcase a curated selection of products. They’re the perfect way to display gift ideas, holiday collections, or bundled offers, and they’re launched just as fast as postcards: a week or less.

Shared Mail 

Shared mail? Wait, wait… Hear us out. 

Long story short, we hired some folks from design magazines like Domino and Dwell, and they create beautiful curated mailers that match your brand with complementary ones to ensure everyone enjoys strong ROIs. Based on what we see in the data, customers tend to buy more than one brand in a single purchase.

On average, these drive a 3x ROAS.

And in addition to regular themed mailers (such as for New Moms and recently moved families), we have holiday gift guides that will spotlight your products.

2. Build your audience 

Direct mail is no longer about buying lists and hoping for the best. 

Today, it’s about using data-driven strategies to put your message directly into the hands of the right people—whether you’re cold prospecting to find new customers or retargeting warm leads. 

Here's how to leverage modern tools to build highly targeted direct mail campaigns that drive results:

1. Cold Prospecting with AcquisitionAI

Finding new customers can be expensive, and you may be wholly reliant on Meta and Google (but mostly Meta) for your prospecting. That’s why we launched AcquisitionAI: to revolutionize prospecting using direct mail.

Think of lookalike audiences—borrowed from digital marketing but now tailored for direct mail. By targeting people who share similar traits with your best customers, you increase the likelihood of resonating with new prospects who are more likely to convert.

AcquisitionAI is unique to PostPilot and uses a uniquely powerful dataset built specifically for direct mail. This allows you to create high-propensity lookalike audiences based on rich customer insights. 

Whether you’re looking to target new moms on the West Coast who shop at Target or CrossFit enthusiasts with plant-based diets, AcquisitionAI can build those audiences in minutes. 

And the best of all? It filters out your existing customers, ensuring you’re reaching new prospects.

2. Retargeting with SiteMatch^TM and MailMatch^TM

Retargeting through direct mail is a highly effective way to re-engage site visitors and cart abandoners already familiar with your brand. 

With tools like SiteMatch^TM and MailMatch^TM, you can use two powerful ways to connect with warm leads and anonymous visitors.

SiteMatch^TM: By placing a pixel in Google Tag Manager or in your site backend (takes <5mins either way), SiteMatch™ can identify and match 20-40% of this anonymous traffic to physical addresses. You can then send targeted direct mail to those visitors, reminding them of your products in a tangible, memorable way. Remember that Gozney Cardalog from earlier? They used that with SiteMatch and drove a 11x+ ROAS.

MailMatch^TM: For shoppers who have taken the time to engage with your brand—whether they’ve browsed products, signed up for a newsletter, or loaded their cart but didn’t check out—MailMatch offers the perfect solution. By identifying the physical addresses of these high-intent visitors, you can follow up with a personalized postcard, perhaps featuring a holiday discount or a friendly reminder to complete their purchase. It’s a powerful way to plug that leaky funnel and capture sales that might otherwise slip through the cracks.

3. WIn Back Previous Buyers

Is everyone in your ESP who has bought from you actually seeing your messages? (No.) Check out the pie chart below, which is a pretty typical breakdown for brands:

‍

‍

You may have a million customers who’ve bought from me or subscribed to my email/SMS in the past. That’s great, but how many of them are engaged with your messaging? In my experience, between 10–20%.

The rest? Zombies.

Every brand has a “zombie audience.” That is, the ~80%+ of your total customer list who are not seeing your messages. They’re unreachable by email and SMS, but direct mail has the power to communicate with zombies. 

(And there’s no better time to communicate with your zombies than over BFCM.)

3. Pick your holiday deal or incentive

Today, two-thirds of shoppers need a 20-35% discount to make a purchase. But discounts don’t have to be your only play.

Creative offers like BOGO (Buy One, Get One), tiered discounts (“spend more, save more”), or “earn money back” can drive up order value without slashing your margins. For some brands, cashback incentives work wonders—offer customers a percentage of their purchase back in store credit, encouraging them to return post-holidays.

And when you get the right offer to the right segment (with the right discount), you can pretty much guarantee a silly-high conversion rate. Portland Leather Goods sent this whimsical postcard to its ultra-VIPs (they call ‘em “Unicorn Whisperers”) over the holiday season that discounted already-heavily discounted products:

VIP promotions in general are a phenomenal way to make your special-est customers feel special during the holidays. 

4. Blend the digital with the physical

As we ramp up for BFCM, the blend of physical and digital marketing has never been more crucial. While digital ads play a big role, relying solely on them can lead to diminishing returns—we already talked about Nike and J. Crew getting back into the direct mail fold.

Direct mail, on the other hand, offers a guaranteed way to reach your audience, and with rising customer acquisition costs (CACs) during BFCM, it’s a channel you can’t ignore.

Here’s how you can effectively blend physical and digital strategies for BFCM:

• Ramp up early: Start digital prospecting ads early, when customers are in discovery mode, then shift to more cost-effective channels like email, SMS, and programmatic direct mail to hit the entire funnel. Acquiring traffic is cheaper in the weeks leading up to Black Friday.
• Retarget with direct mail: Don’t just rely on digital retargeting. With tools like SiteMatch™, you can retarget anonymous traffic by matching cold visitors to physical addresses and sending them high-converting mail. This tactic can yield higher ROIs than digital ads alone, as seen by brands like Gozney.
• Reactivate those zombies and crush retention: Whether you’re on a zombie hunt or just driving 

By blending direct mail with digital, you can maximize your BFCM strategy, lower CACs, and boost conversions in a way that digital alone can’t achieve.

5. Engineer a post-BFCM sale 

The Q4 holiday season extends beyond just BFCM. The real gold comes from engineering a second sale after the holiday rush. 

By analyzing customer behavior, you can time follow-up direct mail campaigns perfectly. Let’s say you capture a new customer during BFCM. How do you get them to buy again—this time at full margin?

Timing is everything. Brands like oVertone found that 45% of their second-time buyers return within 30 days, and 85% return within 90 days. Knowing this, you can time your mailer to hit when they’re most likely to purchase again, presenting them with complementary products or exclusive offers.

5 direct mail holiday cards and why they work

These five direct mail campaigns highlight the power of creativity, timing, and personalization to capture customer attention during the most competitive shopping season of the year.

1. HexClad’s 12x+ ROAS for BFCM

Known for its high-end cookware, Hexclad crafted a sleek and sophisticated postcard campaign to promote their Black Friday sale. Here’s the story: 

HexClad began testing direct mail with PostPilot as a seasonal strategy for BFCM 2022. Instead of a digital reminder that could easily be ignored, HexClad opted for a tangible, beautifully designed postcard that felt more personal and refined—perfectly in line with their brand’s premium positioning. 

After seeing success in 2022, Hexclad decided to ramp up their direct mail campaigns for the following year. 

Using MailMatch™, they targeted email subscribers who hadn’t yet purchased and sent personalized postcards to dormant VIPs. These strategies helped reactivate lapsed customers and increase lifetime value.

In 2023, HexClad’s BFCM direct mail drove $2.9m and a 12x+ ROAS (a 66.3% YoY improvement from their 2022 campaign). Now, their team has turned direct mail into a year-round, high-ROI channel, running automations like abandoned cart and win-back campaigns to consistently drive revenue.

2. Paw.com’s simple and straightforward campaign

At Paw.com, personalization was key to their holiday direct mail success. As a brand that caters to pet owners, they knew the emotional attachment between customers and their pets would be a powerful lever. 

Paw.com sent individualized postcards to shoppers for Black Friday about their exclusive sale, which allowed shoppers to save up to a massive 90% off. Needless to say, they moved serious inventory.

3. Oh!Mino’s limited-time BFCM discount strategy

Known for their premium amino acid supplements, Oh!Mino took a gamified approach to their holiday direct mail campaign. Here's how they did it:

Shoppers who purchased on Thanksgiving Day received an exclusive 5% extra off, while Black Friday to Cyber Monday buyers got the standard 25% discount. This clever strategy tapped into FOMO, motivating early purchases and boosting sales.

Oh!Mino's clear messaging and time-sensitive discounts made this holiday campaign a success, solidifying direct mail as a key part of their marketing mix.

4. Poo-Pourri’s 10% revenue lift with holiday bundles

Known for its quirky odor eliminators like Poo-Pourri and Pet-Pourri, Pourri faced steep competition during the 2022 BFCM season. With rising digital ad costs and challenges in tracking effectiveness, Poo-Pourri decided to test a direct mail campaign with PostPilot. Here’s how it worked:

Poo-Pourri launched a holiday-themed postcard campaign, offering 60% off holiday bundles and 30% off sitewide. The postcards were personalized, included a QR code for easy shopping, and had an expiration date to drive urgency.

The results? A 10% lift in overall DTC revenue and a dazzling 4.5x ROAS during BFCM. Poo-Pourri's postcards proved to be their best-performing channel that week, outperforming even digital ads.

5. Wine by Lamborghini’s 10x ROAS with direct mail acquisition

Luxury wine brand Wine by Lamborghini, known for its decadent packaging and premium products, faced rising digital ad costs and limited email reach in the lead-up to BFCM. To diversify its marketing strategy and boost retention, the brand partnered with Leonardo Plebani, founder of DTC Gang, to test direct mail as a new channel.

With many customers not opening emails or having multiple email addresses, reaching them was becoming a challenge. Leonardo proposed using direct mail to deliver personalized offers directly to customers’ mailboxes. 

Physical mail boasts open rates of up to 90%, making it a perfect fit for a luxury brand. By using MailMatch™, Wine by Lamborghini was able to match email addresses to physical addresses and send postcards with targeted offers.

For Black Friday, the brand launched a postcard campaign offering a 20% discount to two segments: customers who had purchased more than once and those who had spent over $200. 

The results? Wine by Lamborghini’s first direct mail campaign drove a 10x+ ROAS.

Your direct mail partner for Black Friday (and always)

Direct mail delivers. Especially over BFCM.

As the holiday season ramps up, direct mail gives you a way to rise above the noise and connect with customers on a deeper, personal level. 

We'll get your messages and offers right into prospects' and customers' hands.

Learn more here.