Articles - Effective Direct Mail
Effective Direct Mail
Direct Mail represents an area of real potential profit for you and your business. (’Direct Mail’ simply refers to anything you send people in the post - letters, brochures etc.)
There is much confusion about Direct Mail. Here is some clarification that may help …
Does Direct Mail work?
A common perception is Direct Mail doesn’t work - this is mainly because we throw most of the mail we receive in the bin! Think of it like this... 90% of people may throw your mailing in the bin, but if 5% glance at it, 5% read it and of these 5 people buy from you - you could have a very profitable mailing. Direct Mail is a numbers game and you have to enter into it in the knowledge that most of your mailings will go in the bin!
What results should I expect?
You should not ’expect’ a certain magical percentage of the people you mail to buy from you.
First of all, the price of what you are offering plays a significant factor. If you’re selling children’s books at £9.95 you’ll probably get a different response rates than if you’re selling high value capital equipment to business. Secondly, it’s not the percentage response that counts - it’s whether the mailing is profitable or not. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, nobody can ever predict the response from a direct mail campaign. This is why testing is important.
Testing…
You should never embark on a Direct Mail campaign without testing it on a small scale first. Why? Because Direct Mail is statistically very predictable.
If you send out 1000 letters and get 10 responses - you can predict with some certainty that if you send out 4000 letters (to the same group) you will get somewhere in the region of 40 responses.
Why is this so important? Because far too many people spend a fortune on a glossy brochure, mail out 10,000 copies to a poor list, get a terrible result and waste thousands of pounds. So always test your mailing on a small scale first. It needs to be small enough to be an amount of money you can afford to lose if it doesn’t work out - but large enough to be able to hopefully generate at least 7 or 8 responses. For a typical business, that’s going to be somewhere between 500 and 2500.
Any mailings you consider will fall into two categories... existing customers and prospective customers.
Mailing past customers…
If you have a list of past customers, you should start by mailing them. They represent a goldmine of untapped profits.
Think of something you can offer them, send them a letter and measure the response. If it works, mail them again next month and measure the results. If it keeps on working, keep on doing it!
Mailing new customers…
Key fundamentals include:
1 Test on a small scale before rolling it out.
2 Consider renting mailing lists for your target market group.
3 Always include a personalised letter - it will increase the response rate.
4 Your message should focus on the benefits of your product or service, i.e. what’s in it for your customers… what can you do for them?
5 Don’t limit Direct Mail to just selling.
6 If you repeat a successful mailing three weeks later you can expect a response rate around 50% of the original
7 Test mailing postcards - they are cheaper than a normal mailing and in some cases will produce a higher response rate
8 If you follow up a mailing with a phone call you can increase the response rate by up to 1000%
For advice and guidance on how maximise the impact of direct mail, call Mark Ace 0117 9563 564 or email mark@mcassociates.info