It’s possible that your company has grown, and thrived for years without using printed business letterhead. With the marketing shift to digital complete for most businesses, letterhead printing has become a thing of the past. In many cases, we find that our clients even have old dusty boxes of printed letterhead laying around that they’re no longer using because they’re old, outdated, and the company no longer sends physical mail like they used to. Understandable, but there are many reasons that businesses should still use printed letterhead on a regular basis.

Don’t get us wrong. Email is great, efficient & cost effective for much of the promotion that used to be done via direct mail – we use it to promote sales and new products too. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve stopped using letterhead as well. Sure, we’ll talk about the downside of business mailings too, but first let’s touch on the benefit of marketing with email and direct mail on letterhead combined.

The cost to send emails may be less than direct mail, but the response rate is lower too. This Harvard Business Study shows that when businesses combine emails with direct mail, response rates raise to 25%. In business, every percentage point counts, and by strategically using “old school” direct mail printed on company letterhead to compliment your email campaigns you can see more benefit than using just one of the two.

Consumers Consume Like Me and You

In this digital marketing age, where less businesses are reaching out to Letterhead printing in the digital agecustomers via mail there is an opportunity to stand out above the competition. A custom printed letterhead, delivered to someone’s mailbox is far more likely to get acknowledged, opened and responded to than it’s email counterpart. But let’s look past the immediate benefits and look at the long term effects too.

Mail is likely to end up on the kitchen table or hung on a fridge, whereas that never happens with email. At best a message will get forwarded, but when is the last time you sent along a promotional email to friends and family? Not only does direct mail last longer, but it also builds authority and trust since not every business does it anymore. We’re not saying you should send thousands of direct mail pieces as often as you send emails, but highlighting key annual sales and promotions will help your business drive higher revenue spikes when consumers are ready to consume.

The “Bad” Thing About Custom Business Letterhead

Printing custom business letterhead can have downsides for some businesses too. If you don’t use the letterhead, so it’s important to have a plan of how to use it in advance. That said, this is also the GOOD thing about letterhead – it doesn’t go bad. As long as you have a great design and use high quality full color letterhead printing, you can use these for years to come. Don’t forget to get some custom envelopes printed to send complete your marketing package as well!

Published by Nick Artounian

I am the CEO of a successful online printing company in the Greater Los Angeles area. I enjoy professional networking with clients and members of the design community.