Direct mail is advertising circulars or other printed matter sent directly through the mail to prospective customers or contributors. With direct mail, you have total control over the presentation of your message at a low cost.
Types of Direct Mail
- Catalogs or other product literature with ordering opportunities.
- Sales letters.
- Sales letters with brochures.
Tips for Making Direct Mail Work
- Make sure you spend money to get the most targeted list possible. The best product, the best offer and the most cleverly-written copy will be wasted if your direct mail is sent to the wrong people.
- Make sure you get a properly timed list. A list of last year’s home buyers will be a waste.
- Include a “call to action” and ask customers for their business. Say something like “Call today and mention this mailer for 10% off.
- Focus on the customer benefits in the first sentence. Something like “Make her beam with happiness that only a fine piece of jewelry can bring.”
- Make it easy for customers to respond by making sure you include your website address, phone number, address, email and payment options.
Direct Mail can be Powerful. Here are the Reasons:
1. You are able to pinpoint your target audience.
You can purchase or acquire lists that fit the demographic of the audience you are trying to target. If you sell scooter for the elderly, you don’t want your mailings to go out to college students.
2. You can personalize your message.
This goes hand-in-hand with being able to pinpoint your audience. You can send out birthday discounts and call people by their name. This makes customers feel special, like you are talking to just them. If they feel that your company is more personal than the next they are more likely to give their business to you instead of someone else.
3. You reach hundreds or thousands of people at one time.
Instead of giving your best sales pitch to one person at a time, essentially wasting your time you can reach many, many people and will most likely get a higher rate of return in sales.
4. When you aren’t working, it is.
You don’t have to be present to sell your product or service. You can be vacationing and still get people coming to your website or calling.
5. The results are immediate.
Within one or two weeks you will have about 80 to 90 percent of the responses that are going to respond. If it works or it doesn’t you will know right away.
6. It’s easy to track your return on your investment.
You can track the mail sent with a code to determine the number of responses that you got from each individual campaign.
7. It’s inexpensive.
For the cost of what the post office charges to send out a business envelope you can send out photos, letters, coupons, promo products and even samples to customers. You can reach around 100 customers for approximately $35.00. That’s not that costly at all.
8. It’s something that the customer can touch and feel and it has the possibility of sticking around for a while.
Since you can hold direct mail in your hands it has the possibility of being put down and possibly picked up at a later date when someone can decide to call for your business. This isn’t true for emails or phone calls.
