Direct Mail Advice Guide - An introduction
to the basics Direct mail is a form of advertising which,
when done correctly, is a highly cost effective way of gaining new
business or servicing the customers that you already have. This
direct mail advice guide explains the basics of direct mail.
Direct mail has many applications. Use it
as a selling tool, to find and convert sales prospects, to distribute
price lists, samples or newsletters and to encourage repeat business
from existing customers.
It is easy to measure the effectiveness of direct
mail and many very highly successful businesses have been built
upon it.
At its best, direct mail is a highly targeted
mailing piece, posted only to the correct address of people who
are receptive to buying your product or service. If however, your
offer is sent to the wrong group of people, or to an incomplete
or incorrect address, it is then just junk mail. A waste of your
time and advertising budget. The best direct mail should be welcomed
by the recipient.
What is junk mail?
An example of junk mail would be if a company sent a nicely produced,
glossy leaflet on their range of UPVC conservatories - to someone
who lives in a multi-story flat! Your mailing is only as good as
the address that it is sent to, so make sure that you use a good
mailing list. If you send a fishing tackle brochure to a keen fisherman,
he will be delighted to receive it. If you send the same brochure
to a fishing enthusiast, it will go straight in the bin. Identify
your prospects before sending a mailing.
Mailing to people who have recently moved house,
who hate receiving direct mail, whose address is incomplete or incorrect
or to those who have no interest in your product or service is also
a waste of your marketing budget.
Accuracy
Your existing database will quickly go out of date. People move
house, Royal Mail changes post codes, original keying errors may
be present and some people will have registered with the Mailing
Preference Service. It is essential that your existing database
is professionally cleaned before you undertake any mailing. There
is a large fine for mailing to people who have registered with the
Mailing Preference Service and the extra costs of sending mailings
to undeliverable or unwanted addresses far outweighs the cost of
cleaning your data. Also, take care when you take down details.
If your prospect's name is mis-spelt, they are unlikely to order
from you.
Buying a mailing list
More accurately, renting a mailing list. You buy permission to mail
to an existing list, that someone else has compiled and cleaned,
one or more times. These names can be highly targeted, so that you
are not wasting money by mailing to people who will not be interested
in your product or service. Once the prospect replies to you directly,
you can legitimately add their name and address to your own mailing
list and contact them again in the future. In this way, you will
build up your own database of customers and prospects, which will
build the core of your business. Always ask for advice before hiring
a mailing list.
What to include in your
mailing
At its simplest, a mailshot can be just a printed post card, with
your prospect's name and address on the back. More often, it comprises
of an envelope containing one or more of the following:
A covering letter, which may be personally addressed
to the recipient.
A leaflet, catalogue, price list or brochure.
A newsletter.
A money off voucher.
An order form.
A reply-paid envelope.
Most successful mailings incorporate some kind
of time sensitive offer, which encourages a rapid response. Without
this, most people will put off replying to your offer - sometimes
for ever!
Your letter
Writing letters for direct mail is an art and many books have been
published upon the subject. The following guidelines may help.
1. Write a short and to the point letter. You
have to gain your prospect's attention immediately. Don't waffle.
Use a headline stating the facts.
2. Put your best offer first - in the headline.
3. Use the word "You". Try not to use
"we", "our" or "us".
4. Sell the benefits of buying your product or
service, not its features.
5. Use bullet points to make the benefits stand
out.
6. End your letter with a "call to action".
"Return the order form today", "ring me now",
"Fax your order today". Tell your prospect what they should
do now.
7. Use a P.S. People often read just the headline
and the P.S.
8. Read the letter aloud. If it sounds pompous
or stilted, write it again.
9. Do not be afraid to use incorrect grammer.
You can start sentences with"And" if you wish. Use words
like "Let's", "Don't" "Can't" "Shouldn't".
They make your letter seem friendly. Aim to be a pal, who is doing
them a favour.
10. Use an established mailing house to handle
your mailings. The savings that they can offer on postal discounts,
data cleaning and efficient timing will far outweigh what you pay
them. Devote your time to your business, not to licking envelopes.
See our advice
page on writing a direct mail letter.
Can I afford it?
If you want to expand your business, or even just stay afloat in
todays increasingly competitive world, can you afford not to use
direct mail? The standard method of measuring the cost of a direct
mail campaign is to work out the actual (or estimated) cost per
response. To do this, you add up all the costs of your mailing campaign,
the printing, the mailing list, the enclosing and the postage. You
then divide this figure by the number of replies. This gives you
the cost of each response.
What will each sale cost
me?
This may be the cost per response, as above or it may include other
factors, such as further mailings, sending samples, telephone follow
up etc. This figure tells you how much it cost to get each sale.
Only you can decide how much is acceptable. If your new customer
goes on to spend £10,000 per year, then a cost per conversion
of £100 is very good value. If they only spend £100,
then it would be much too high.
Points to remember about
direct mail.
1. Direct mail is especially effective for targeting specific types
of customer. Newspaper and magazine advertising is very expensive,
because you are paying per reader, not per prospect. The vast majority
of the readership has no interest on your product or service. Direct
mail is cost effective and the effectiveness is easy to measure.
2. Some people loath direct mail and would never
respond to your offer - however good. It is essential that you remove
these people from your database. See Data Cleaning
3. Your name and address data must be cleaned
to a high standard before mailing, to avoid expensive undeliverable
mail.
4. Your mailing must look professional. Don't
send grubby photocopies in brown envelopes, with a crude label stuck
on. These mailing go straight in the bin. Plan your mailing to fit
your budget before you start.
5. You can use mailshots to sell directly. This
is difficult to do from a newspaper or magazine as you have to be
registered with "MOPS". Two stage advertising can also
be very expensive.
6. Keep in touch with your customers on a regular
basis. Dont just sell and forget. Customers are three times more
likely to buy from you than cold prospects are.
7. Use "cross selling" and "up
selling". Think what else an existing customer may wish to
buy from you and tell them about it!
8. Reward loyalty. Keep in touch with your customers.
Send seasonal offers, a Christmas card, a birthday card or a free
gift on a regular basis.
Direct mail can be a wonderful way of building
your business - if it is done properly. Data Consultants can guide
you every step of the way.
Direct Mail Guide - Case
history
A small publishing company in the south of England came to us in
1999. They were sending out around 5000 black and white price lists
from the kitchen table. By careful promotional and by sending regular
mailings to their customer base, they are now the largest company
in their field, send out over three million mailing pieces per annum.
The company is worth millions of pounds, yet was built up by the
careful use of direct mail. They have plowed back their profits
into expanding the company, using mailings as the primary source
of sales, rather than flashy premises or high street locations.
This is the power of direct mail.
Thank you for reading
this article, which, hopefully has proved useful to you. If you
would like further advice on any specific aspect of leaflet production
or direct mail, please feel free to contact
us .
Please feel free to
reproduce this article elsewhere if you wish, as long as all links
remain intact.
