3 Budget-Friendly Alternatives to Direct Mail For Down-Ballot Campaigns
Two things can be true simultaneously: every race is unique and every race that has enough of a budget will see direct mail sent to voters.
Cycle after cycle, campaigns have relied on mail programs. It’s tangible, memorable and has a proven track record of reaching voters. Even if someone tosses a mailer in the trash, they’ve seen the design, registered the candidate’s name, and assuming the piece is done right, absorbed the main message in a glance.
And just as you’d imagine, the data continues to back this up. Studies consistently show that direct mail still engages voters, even among the younger demographics who are often assumed to be digital-first. It’s a medium that hasn’t lost its power or influence over our campaigns.
So while we keep hearing that direct mail is “dying,” the reality is a lot more nuanced. Direct mail isn’t dead, but is facing tougher competition from the different types of new media available to us nowadays.
But the real question you need to be able to answer for your campaigns isn’t whether mail works, but rather whether it works better than the alternatives?
For many campaigns, especially those at the local and state legislative levels, direct mail is often the single most expensive line item in the budget. When your mail program costs more than the rest of your campaign’s budget combined, it might force you to have a tough conversation with yourself about priorities. Namely, is this actually the best use of your limited resources?
A well-executed mail program for a State House or Senate race might cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and for that same amount of money a campaign could fund: 10x that number of digital ads, a paid door program, a substantial paid texting and phone banking program, or even hire a few extra staffers to expand in-house campaign efforts.
With more options available than ever, campaigns need to evaluate the return on investment. Mail is a one-and-done expense. Once it’s printed and sent, that’s it. When mail is competing against these high-impact alternatives, it becomes a tougher sell to invest in something that is hard to follow up on.
What works better? If mail’s effectiveness is a given, the real question is what can deliver more impact for the same investment. The answer varies by race, but here’s where campaigns are increasingly shifting their resources:
1. Digital Advertising: Targeted online ads offer precision that mail simply can’t match. Digital campaigns allow you to retarget voters, optimize in real time, and deliver messages that adapt to audience behavior.
2. Text and Relational Outreach: Peer-to-peer texting and relational organizing tools can be some of the most cost-effective ways to reach voters. Unlike mail, which is static, these methods allow for real-time conversations; elevating supporters to volunteers and donors, or driving voters further through your engagement funnel.
3. Field Programs: I’ve always believed that a strong ground game is irreplaceable with anything else. While mail can reinforce a message, personal contact has consistently held a higher conversion rate. For the cost of a mail program, a campaign could fund additional field staff, launch a volunteer-driven canvassing effort, and ensure voter outreach is happening in a sustained, scalable way for the long term.
This isn’t to say that direct mail is obsolete. It still has a place in modern campaigns. Particularly because it can scale so quickly and easily. If you unexpectedly raise an additional $20,000 a month before the election, if you wanted to invest that into a stronger field team, you needed to have planted that seed months ago.
Mail is also one of the few ways to guarantee that every voter in your target universe receives direct communication. While they might not admit it, everyone reads their mail. Additionally, in rural areas or districts with an older demographic, mail can be a great way to reach voters who may not be as accessible through doors or online.
Ultimately, for lower-budget races, an all-in mail program isn’t going to be sustainable, and a smarter approach would be integrating mail with other voter contact methods, such as following up a door-knock into a precinct with a targeted mail piece such as “it was good to meet you” and “sorry we missed you,” or a reminder to those who responded positively to a text message inviting them to attend an event. Given an hour of brainstorming, I’m sure you can come up with some creative ways to use mail to back up your existing strategy in an efficient way.
The bottom line is this: Mail works, it has always worked, and it’s going to continue to work for a long time. It isn’t dead, but it should be the default — especially in competitive races.
For many campaigns, digital, field, and text outreach are delivering higher returns at lower costs, and backing them up with a light mail program can stretch your budget a little further.
Caitlin Huxley bridges data and strategy to help moderates win close races, leveraging 15 years of experience. She’s the author of Ancient Wisdom for Modern Campaigns: Lessons from Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
