Art
Siegel

High-Impact Direct Mail Campaigns

Direct mail is one of the most controversial lead-generation media. Some people believe direct mail is worthless; others use it with great success. Decide for yourself whether direct mail is right for your company after reading these ideas for High-Impact Direct Mail Campaigns. 

Direct mail tip 1: Pick A Highly Targeted Audience For Each Mailer

We conducted one direct mail campaign recently that generated a 60% response and a 40% close rate (the typical response to an unsolicited direct mail campaign is about 1/2%). How did we hit this 60%? We started with an extremely narrowly-defined list of prospects whom we knew to have a specific need we could fulfill. And because we had done some research on these people, we tailored each letter to specifically reference something we knew about each of them.

No matter how great your mailer is, the biggest factor in your response rate will usually be your list selection. The more general your list, the more often your message will miss the mark with many of them. The more narrowly-defined your list, the greater your ability to create a mailer that hits them right on the mark.

But you say your product or service has multiple types of prospects, and you need to reach all of them? So you need to create a mailer that addresses all of your benefits? Baloney! The more things you try to say, the less your mailing will appeal to anyone. If you must mail to multiple groups, each of whom has different interests, then you must also create that many different mailers -- each one focusing on the needs of just one part of your market.

Better to send 12 low-tech letters, each with different content, to people in 12 different market segments, than to send everyone the same ultra-sophisticated, full-color brochure.

Direct mail tip 2: Buy Lists By Quality, Not Price

Today in the U.S. it costs 32 cents just for postage to send most pieces by first-class mail, and it costs more just about everywhere else. Yes, you could use bulk rate instead of first class to drop the cost; but for many mailings the disadvantages of bulk mail (no correction of incorrect addresses, slow delivery, extra labor, lower response rate by recipients) outweigh the savings. So, no matter how you slice it, you're going to spend at least 50 cents-per-piece mailed after you factor in all the costs for printing, postage, labor etc.

That's why it makes little sense to shave a few pennies by buying cheap lists. A good list can cost you 10 to 20 cents per name for each use, and some specialized lists can run over $1.00 per name. On the other hand, lists that sell for just a few cents per name, or which allow unlimited use, are generally much poorer in quality. As a rule of thumb, the more narrowly-qualified a list is, the more you will pay for it, because it delivers better results.

From our experience, some of the best mailing lists are subscriber lists rented from magazines and newspapers. These publishers generally allow you to start with as few as 5,000 names and use various selection criteria (geographic area, income level, job title, etc.) to pick the subset of names that best fit your product or service. The better publications do a pretty good job of identifying the demographics and qualifications of each subscriber, and they also keep their mailing lists quite accurate.

For a $100 product, a 60 cent-per-piece mailing (including a 20 cent name) is a better value than a 50 cent-per-piece mailing (including a 10 cent name) if it produces only a 10% better response.

Direct mail tip 3: Make Customers Want To Open The Mailer

Most mailing pieces fall into one of two categories: either a self-mailer brochure or else something stuffed in an envelope. In either case, as the recipient sorts through his or her mail, they will spend about 1 second deciding whether to open it or chuck it in the round file. What will make them want to open it?

It won't be your logo.

It won't be your product name.

It won't be your beautiful graphics.

What will make them open your envelope or mailer is the instant recognition that there is something of value to them inside.

Let's talk about you for a moment. Before reading this article you decided to turn on your Internet browser, read SalesDoctors, click on Finding Patients and click on the link to this article. If you weren't interested in looking at something on the Internet, plus selling, plus lead generation, plus direct mail, you wouldn't be here. Nor would you be here if you didn't think you would find something of value.

It's the same with the outside of your mailing. To make people open it, you have to offer them something inside that they think will be valuable - useful information, the solution to a problem, a way to save a lot of money, something they already want. You do this by using a headline or teaser that clearly communicates the promise:

What if there were a way to grind twice as many parts between wheel changes, without spending a dime more for wheels?

Inside: your free, no-strings ticket to 20 hours of outstanding country music . . . No foolin'

24-hour delivery on every paper order, or the shipping is on us! Guaranteed!

There are more than 16 ways to improve your car's safety. 9 of them are right inside this envelope.

The purpose of the outside of your mailing is not to sell anything. Its sole purpose is to make people in your target market open the mailing and read it.

Direct mail tip 4: Sell The Next Step

Now that you've sent your thousands of pieces to that perfectly-targeted list, and every person who received it was induced by your clever teaser to open the package -- what next? Sure, you're going to tell them in well-crafted words and pictures how your company fulfills the promise you made on the outside. And you'll add some supporting facts, and maybe a customer testimonial or two. But you're still not home.

You'll ultimately measure the success of this mailing campaign by the results it will produce, so your next step is to decide exactly what action(s) you want the recipients of the mailer to take.

Person X spots attractive person Y at the other end of the bar, walks over and says: "Hi. My name is X. Can I buy you a drink?" or perhaps more subtly: "Is this stool taken?" And person Y, if they find X attractive, responds in the affirmative. Now, both persons X and Y know that the end goal here has nothing to do with either drinks or stools, but the protocol is to ask for the little affirmative responses and then work your way up to the larger issues.

The same is true with selling the next step in your mailing campaign. The larger the end point (in dollars, commitment or both) the more gradually you must move up to it. So, if you're selling a book that costs $39.95, and you can adequately describe it in your mailing, go ahead and ask the customer to fill in their credit card information and mail you the order.

If you're selling a piece of software for $399.95, you'll probably do better asking the recipient to call or fax for more detailed information and a demo disk rather than immediately asking for the order.

And if you're selling an investment with a minimum value of $3999, you should count on one or two follow-up meetings, plus detailed literature before the close.

Tell people who receive your mailings exactly what steps to take next, and make the steps you ask for appropriate for the level of commitment you are seeking.

SeaBird Associates Inc
3011 NE 7th Drive
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Phone: 561-750-9233
E-mail: Art Siegel

About Art Siegel