The Do’s and Don’ts of Using AI in Direct Mail

AI is everywhere – and it’s everywhere faster than just about anyone outside of the AI industry has expected.

You’ve probably experimented with AI. And if you’re like a lot of people, you’ve been vaguely disappointed in the results, or you’re looking to find some other applications for it.

We’ve talked about AI and direct mail before, so you might be thinking of using AI more extensively in your direct-mail program.

That’s great – but before you get too far down that path, here are some do’s and don’ts that from our experience can make or break your AI-powered direct-mail campaign.

Do use AI in some form.

AI tools can do so many things related to a direct-mail campaign that it’s silly not to use it in some fashion.

AI is extremely useful in marketing planning, so you can use it to help fit a direct-mail campaign into an overall marketing scheme.
It’s very good at isolating themes in marketing materials, so if you feed it your marketing emails and collateral material it can identify themes you should be emphasizing in your direct-mail pieces.
AI has also hoovered up all the writing on marketing best practices and the uses of direct mail in marketing, so if knowing what a large chunk of the marketing world does is important to you, AI can provide it without you having to dive into the deep end of the Google pool.
It’s a fair writer and designer – but if everyone in your organization is a less-than-fair writer or designer, that’s a step up! (With some caveats that we’ll get to shortly.)
It can add facts to your writing, and only some of them are made-up. For some direct-mail pieces that’s also an improvement, though we’re on the side of all facts in direct-mail pieces being … you know, factual.

As you can see, there are better and worse applications of AI in direct mail, but even some of the worse applications may be better than where you are now.

So pick and choose, but by all means, use AI.

Don’t just hand it the keys.

We touched on some of the reasons why, but to reiterate:

It tends to give middle-of-the-road outputs.
Its facts aren’t always facts.
It can be wordy.
As more people rely on it for writing, everyone’s stuff will increasingly look the same and standing out with purely AI-generated output will become a challenge.
It can struggle to understand the nuances of your brand and/or business.

There are many reasons why your business or service is unique, and AI doesn’t do unique all that well. If you hand over things entirely to AI and don’t provide adequate oversight, you’ll have given away everything that makes you special.

AI is a great tool, but just like you wouldn’t let a belt sander or a chainsaw run without your hand on it, you need to be in control of it, and not the other way around.

Do try different tools.

For all the same things they do, the main AI tools are very different.

Given the low cost of entry, it behooves you to try different tools and choose favorites.

Give them the same prompt for the same project and see how they perform. You’re going to be amazed at the variance in outputs.

Your mileage may vary, but in general:

Claude is the best writer for most applications.
ChatGPT is the best all-purpose tool, strong in planning, research and content creation.
Gemini is an excellent research tool thanks to its connections to the Googleverse.
Copilot is an easy reach for people working in the Microsoft platform.
MetaAI and Grok are good social-media tools because of their roots, but use with care.

Because these tools are so fast, there’s very little time lost by doing some comparison-shopping. And once you find a tool you like, go back to the others frequently and see if they’ve improved. Things change so quickly in AI that chances are they probably have.

Don’t just cut-and-paste.

Closely related to the point above, you may ask ChatGPT or Gemini to write you a fundraising solicitation, and you may love what it gives you. There are complete sentences! And paragraphs! And room for personalization and a call-to-action at the bottom, and we’ve never had that before!

Hey, great. But you need to understand: What AI gave you is just a start. The real work starts when you really look at that output and start breaking it apart.

Look at the sentence construction. Every general-purpose AI tool loves tripartite construction. What’s that? This: AI loves sentences that mention three things, all separated by commas, and referencing related things. See that structure, with three items separated by commas? That’s tripartite construction. It’s a dead giveaway that something’s AI-generated, and it’s tiring.

Also, look at how long sentences and paragraphs are. Verbosity is the scourge of direct mail. In a good direct-mail piece, every word earns its keep.

You can prompt AI from here to Sunday to cut down the words, and it either fails or gives you bullet points, not that sweet spot in-between. So get in there and start cutting.

Words are at the heart of your direct-mail campaign. You only want the most powerful, compelling words. AI won’t necessarily give you that.

Do use it to check spelling and grammar.

It’s happened to just about everyone who’s ever sent a direct mail piece: the mailing’s out the door, it lands in people’s hands, and then someone points out, “Hey, you know you spelled your business name wrong at the bottom.”

[Sound of hand slapping forehead]

The truth is, even the best proofreaders miss things—especially when you’ve looked at the same copy a hundred times. That’s where AI can save the day.

Instead of relying only on a quick spell-check, run your final draft through an AI tool. It won’t just catch spelling mistakes – it can also flag grammar slips, and even suggest clearer wording. Think of it as a second set of fresh eyes that never gets tired.

Don’t accept facts verbatim.

If you’re using AI to write a direct-mail piece about the benefits of direct mail and you ask it to include facts, beware: Those facts may be totally fictitious.

AI will make up facts. It will make up links or include broken links.

You need to vet every fact AI gives and test every link. If a citation seems a little dodgy, get rid of it.

Your credibility is on the line. Don’t trust that to an AI tool that routinely makes up stuff.

Do ask it about latest trends.

If you feel that the world is changing at an ever-increasing pace, that’s because it is. And marketing is changing faster than anything.

Especially if marketing is not your main job, you may feel like you’ve lost track of what the latest trends are, or what’s best practice.

Ask AI. Yes, it makes up things, and yes, some of the “experts” it cites can be crackpots, but for the 10,000-foot view of what successful marketers are doing it’s pretty good.

And remember: Just because Gemini says this or that is the latest craze doesn’t mean you should do it. You are in control, you know your business, and you need to filter what it says through your lens.

Don’t expect it to know the nuances of your business, organization or brand.

Even with extensive training on proprietary models AI struggles with brand voice and especially brand-voice differentiation.

Your organization may be a garden-variety humane society, but it’s still special. As the caretaker of that brand, you need to overlay your brand knowledge on what AI gives you.

This is especially true in direct mail, where brand differentiation may not be everything but it’s pretty darn close.

Do use it for organization, planning and coordination.

Do you feel your marketing is sort of haphazard? Lots of people do, especially if they wear several hats within an organization.

AI is your friend here. It can:

Coordinate email, direct mail, social media, and events
Suggest things to talk about at different times of the year
Come up with a schedule and a to-do list for marketing in advance of an event
Help you determine ways of measuring the success of your marketing
Decide where to spend money

These are great tasks to sic AI on because you want standardization in these areas. You want to follow the path everyone else follows when it comes to timing mailings and publishing social-media posts, because it’s been proven to work.

AI is best at structure – structuring your marketing, not necessarily doing creative. Structuring a post, not actually writing it. Play to its strengths.

Don’t use it to replace the person in charge of organization, planning and coordination.

What’s been lost in the AI revolution? A whole lot of institutional knowledge.

You might ask why that matters in a world that’s changing at neck-cracking speed. The answer: Institutional knowledge provides insight into why you’re special and unique.

Let the marketing planner keep their job, but give them AI tools to help. Productivity will increase and you’ll still hang on to all that sweet institutional knowledge.

(Also, don’t use AI to replace your direct-mail expert. They have more insight than any AI tool on the planet.)

AI is amazing, but remember this: In an increasingly AI-generated world where everything’s made of ticky-tacky and it all looks just the same, you are the secret sauce. Your unique perspective is what’s going to set you apart from the rest of the world. Without it, your direct mail will likely be bland and mediocre.

Jim Felhofer – 8/21/25