What’s the measure of success for direct mail? Many marketers look at the number of effective realized sales made compared to the number of items mailed. Many direct mail experts tell clients to expect between .05 percent and one percent response or sales rate. So, a one percent sales rate on 1,000 direct mail pieces equals 10 responses or sales. If your cost to prepare and mail 1,000 pieces exceeds the profits you’d realize from 10 sales, go to another plan. If not, here’s some more information.
Focus on your customers’ benefits and do it right away in the lead. The first sentence (the lead) in a direct mail letter should be about the benefits. So, if your prospect only reads enough of the ‘offer’ to determine whether to keep reading or to delete it, he or she should already be offered the benefits of your product or service.
Keep the offer simple, easy to understand and persuasive. You need to formulate an attractive message that totally targets your average consumer. You have 1.4 seconds to convince your readers, because that is about the time they spend on an advertisment averagely.
Include a clear ‘call to action’ and invite people to respond ‘today’. If you’re using postal services, it is strongly suggested to include a postage-paid reply card to motivate consumers to react to your offer.
Create different direct mail pieces to address different audiences even when you’re offering the same product. Your product or service may have a different benefit for the 35-year-old mother of two small children than it does to a single man of 25. So, create multiple forms of the same offer for those different audiences.
Make the offer for a limited time only to encourage prospects to act ‘now’. Make it easy to respond or place an order. Include order forms if appropriate for your product. When possible, try to include a toll-free phone number (24-hour ordering if possible), accessibility is a very important value to your target prospects. You don’t know when they’re reading the message, so it’s hard to predict when they will reply to it. You must try to be available for sales applies at any time.
Also include a fax number, an email contact address and the payment options you provide. Try to arrange a deal with the major credit card companies such as VISA, MasterCard, AmEx and others. Consider the cost you have for set-up fees and compare them to your revenue. No need to offer three credit cards if it doesn’t pay off. (Symbolic, isn’t it?)
There are many advantages for Direct Marketing.
Listed below are Seven Advantages written for the Automotive Advertising Directory by Scott Joseph (April 2001).
1. MEASURABLE – Direct Mail is measurable. Compared with TV , Newspaper, Radio, and Billboard, only Direct Mail is truly measurable.
2. INEXPENSIVE - Direct Mail is inexpensive. Running a Direct Mail campaign is perhaps the most cost-effective use of your advertising dollar, for two reasons:
a. You are paying only to get your message to those who are genuinely interested, not just to anyone who will listen. It simply costs less to do a laser-precise targeting than a scattershot campaign.
b. Every Direct Mail Campaign should be more successful than your last. Using your responsive analysis data, you should be able to analyze each promotion and make your next campaign even more effective.
3. TARGETABLE – Direct Mail is targetable. Rather than sending a generic message out to the general population, direct mail allows you to specifically target an audience who is interested in exactly what you have to offer.
4. PLANNED – Direct Mail is planned. Think of direct mail as a surgical strike – with every detail of the promotion mapped out ahead of time. The audience is carefully chosen, the message crafted exclusively for that specific audience, and the details are thought through, down to the day of the week that the piece arrives in their home.
5. SECRET – Direct Mail is secret. Your competitor down the road keeps and eye on what you offer, just like you keep an eye on their business. With direct mail, it is a private communication between you and your prospect.
6. CREATIVE – Direct Mail is creative. If you try something creative in most advertising, and it doesn’t work – it can be a really expensive error. With direct mail, the simple fact that is is an inexpensive way to advertise allows for more creative freedom.
7. PARTICIPATORY – Direct Mail is participatory. With the exception of the Internet, every other advertising is passive. The audience can listen to radio or TV ads, or glance over your newspaper ad or billboard, but direct mail is the only truly interactive advertising medium available that you can control. That captive audience will read your mailer/offer when they are actively ready to hear what you have to say.
Read more about this at : OnlineWBC.gov
Read more about DM Advantages on the OCT Group website