The Power of Handwritten Direct Mail (At Scale)

Handwritten direct mail? In 2025? 

It might sound old-school at first (cue visions of Grandma’s cursive letters), but ecomm marketers are rediscovering this classic approach (with a high-tech twist). 

Direct mail already cuts through digital noise like a machete... but a HANDWRITTEN card?

More like a lightsaber.

For a customer, it can feel like a breath of fresh air. 

And not just feel-good fresh: it drives results. 

Handwritten direct mail combines the personal touch of a note from a friend with the scale and automation of modern marketing. 

The best part?

You can do it at scale without your team’s hands cramping up.

Let’s break down why handwritten direct mail resonates and give some IRL success stories about driving ROI.

Why Handwritten Mail Slashes Through the Digital Noise

Digital marketing is noisy, and inboxes are freakin’ packed. 

Consumers are bombarded with hundreds of emails, push notifications, and ads daily. It’s a blur that’s easy for customers to ignore (and easy for your messaging to get lost in).

Handwritten mail, on the other hand, all but demands attention. 

When was the last time you didn’t open a personally addressed letter that looked handwritten? 

(Exactly.)

We’re talking nearly 100% open rates. Try getting that with your email newsletter.

And it helps you connect with customers.

A physical letter triggers an emotional response that digital messages often can’t. In one survey, 74% of people said they feel more valued receiving a handwritten note versus a generic email or text.

There’s a sense of authenticity and care when you find a real card in your mailbox. It’s like the brand took the time to reach out personally. No wonder direct mail is remembered longer and even kept as mementos. 

(Ever deleted a thank-you card?) 

Plus, the average direct mail campaign outperforms email by a long shot. We’re talking a 4.9% response rate for mail vs. 1% for email​. And when you add a handwritten touch, campaigns have seen 25% higher conversion rates.

The takeaway? 

Handwritten mail is a marketing superpower.

But here’s the catch: doing it one note at a time by hand isn’t actually possible.

Unless you can call in a favor from The Flash.

To really harness this power, you’ve got to do it at scale.

The Real Unlock: Handwritten Direct Mail at Scale

Advances in technology (robots to the rescue!) mean you can have real pens writing notes automatically, powered by data and triggers just like an email campaign. 

The result is a genuine-looking, heartfelt message, but done in a way that’s efficient and repeatable.

We have to be honest here...

These are our robots.

We’re PostPilot, an AI-powered programmatic direct mail platform, and in our facilities, we have these fancy (and tireless) handwriting robots friends going at all hours to send handwritten mail that looks exactly like something someone on your team would write.

Translation: no more hand cramps!

Check out five of our customers’ experiences when they embraced handwritten mail at scale.

&Collar’s 6-figure Handwritten Card Success

Ben Perkins, CEO and co-founder of &Collar, a super popular menswear brand, told us: 

‍“I get ‘handwritten’ cards from State Farm that are clearly not handwritten, so I was a bit skeptical—I asked [Mikaela, our Account Manager] to send a sample, and I immediately saw these are the real deal. All the handwriting options look very real, and I said, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’”

So, when Ben wanted to send thousands of VIP customers personalized handwritten direct mail from &Collar and its subsidiary, Flight, the PostPilot robots were up to the task. 

For &Collar’s card, you couldn’t find a guy happier to be dumping a drink on himself:

The beauty of this card isn’t simply in the ultimate act of anti-stain rebellion (i.e., a dark beverage + white shirt) but in the messaging. It’s a heartfelt thank you from Ben, and there’s no sales pitch. There’s no discount code.

Repeat: no discount code.

And it drove hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, at a 15x+ ROAS. 

Country Life Natural Foods' Post-Purchase Thank-You Notes

Country Life Natural Foods is a brand known for truly going the extra mile for its customers, and they've automated handwritten direct mail.

Here's the move: 

Any customer who orders over $100 on their first purchase will be automatically sent a postcard thanking them for their purchase. And like Ben Perkins did for &Collar (above), Country Life CEO Mitchell Hagan adds an actual way to contact the team.

We particularly love the copy in this card because there's no discount code/specific drive to buy. Instead, it encourages the customer to “keep this card near your fridge." 

This is a surprisingly (actually, not that surprisingly) common thing that people do with postcards or other mailers—they leave them around the house. Some pieces, such as postcards or trifold mailers, get stuck to fridges or left on desks, while others (like catalogs) will get left anywhere from bedside tables to bathrooms.

Bottom line, it means that with direct mail, customers are seeing something about your brand (likely) every day. So, Mitchell's doubly instilling that behavior in this card.

Plus, an actual phone number? 

In 2025? 

What is this madness?

(It's great brand building.)

And these cards drove over a 13x ROAS, so you know they WORK.

Petite Keep's Drive-to-Social Thank You Notes

Petite keep took a slightly different angle with their thank-you notes. Besides thanking the customer for their purchase and giving a bit of context about her brand, founder Lindsay Mullenger added a line to drive the recipient to post about Petite Keep on socials.

We love this tactic because it's an ultra-personal format with a CTA that drives social proof and brand/community building. Petite Keep has built a ton of brand awareness over time through imagery and their appearance on Shark Tank, but there's nothing that drives brand and community like word-of-mouth.

Even if that word-of-mouth is on Instagram.

By the way, ecommerce thank you notes require a whole separate article.

Red Land Cotton’s Handwritten Success

In early 2024, Red Land Cotton found themselves in a situation many marketers will recognize: email open rates were dropping, and SMS was getting more expensive, making it harder to reach customers effectively. 

Although the team has since leveraged a number of direct mail tactics, we’re here to talk about handwritten cards.

And specifically, handwritten birthday cards.

Rather than a generic “happy birthday” email discount, Red Land Cotton used PostPilot to send an actual birthday postcard with a personal note and a gift code. 

The result? 

A 9x ROAS on those cards. Talk about making customers feel special on their big day and driving sales at the same time.

Red Land Cotton didn’t have to hand-write a single one of those cards themselves. 

The entire process was direct mail automation at its finest: hands-off. Yet to the customer, it felt 100% personal. 

And the results show that.

Handwritten direct mail at scale became a revenue-generating machine for them.

Another Birthday Cards Success Story (Feat. Promix Nutrition®)

Promix has automated birthday cards to customers, too. They send a handwritten card signed by their three co-founders and a code for a 15% offer.

One interesting point here: Promix as a brand rarely discounts (generally, they only run a couple promotions per year), so by using a tactical discount in a situation like a birthday, it's going to increase the likelihood that someone will take advantage of the deal.

Let us put pen to postcard FOR you.

If you’re looking for that next unlock in your marketing mix—something unique, memorable, and insanely effective—handwritten direct mail might just be it. 

Amplify your outreach with a channel that customers love.

Head over to our handwritten cards page to see a few more examples of our robots’ finest work.