What Works Better – Direct Mail or Digital for Over-60s?

If you’re marketing glasses, hearing tests, or home visits, chances are your audience includes a large segment of over-60s.

So, here’s the big question marketers often ask:

Should we be using direct mail or digital to reach them?

The answer? Both but not for the reasons you might think.

Let’s Start with a Myth: “Over-60s Don’t Do Digital”

This simply isn’t true.

Most people aged 60+:

• Own a smartphone
• Use email and WhatsApp daily
• Search on Google for health-related topics
• Are active on Facebook (often more than younger audiences)

So, yes – they do do digital. But they also trust physical mail more than any other channel when it comes to health-related services.

Why Direct Mail Still Works (Extremely Well)

For older audiences, direct mail:

• Feels personal and trusted
• Isn’t buried in an inbox or missed in a social feed
• Can be shared with family or left out for discussion
• Creates a sense of legitimacy (especially for health-related services like home hearing tests)

We’ve seen campaigns where direct mail alone generated appointment spikes on drop dates, especially when combined with other channels.

Why Digital Also Works (When Done Right)

Digital is great for:

• Retargeting interested users
• Capturing the attention of family influencers
• Sending reminders (via SMS or email)
• Speed and cost efficiency

For instance, a Facebook ad might not lead to a direct sale, but it warms up the household for the direct mail piece that follows.

Best Results? Use Both, In Sync

In campaigns we’ve run in this space:

• Direct Mail and Email consistently deliver the best ROI
• Direct Mail followed by SMS helps capture hesitant responders
• Digital ads prime the audience, especially family members booking on someone else’s behalf

One example: A campaign that combined fresh email with direct mail outperformed legacy email alone by more than double.