Ten Tips for Effective Direct Mail

Time for a marketing campaign checkup? For businesspeople experiencing direct mail blues, here are ten proven remedies…

Forgetting the offer? No matter how enticing a product sounds, businesspeople won’t generate leads unless prospects want what is being offered. Don’t rattle on about how wonderful this and that technology is and follow it with, “For more information, call us at….” What is the offer? Be specific. Then sell the benefits of the product or service in the context of the offer: “In this free white paper, you’ll learn how to….”

Offer is too weak? Offering to send the reader a product brochure – in other words, information telling them how great your product is – will only attract that small subset of prospects who have already identified their problem and already are shopping for a solution. Instead, offer information of value – a white paper, technology guide, CD-Rom – that simply shows prospects how to solve that dilemma. Offering something of value will generate a much larger response.

Not showing the offer? Cliche, yes…but, a picture is worth a thousand words. Spending $500 to photograph the white paper, brochure and CD-ROM makes the offer more tangible and more “real.” If a prospect can see the “free stuff” at a glance, he or she is more likely to respond.

Using the list because it was free? If the first criterion for choosing a list is “How much does it cost? ” Reset priorities. Though the cost probably is only 10 percent of the total program budget, the true list is the number one ingredient in a successful campaign. Just because a sales group already has the database in-house or the advertising representative is providing 5,000 names for free, doesn’t automatically make it a good choice. Free or not, choose the list that allows proper targeting of a key audience most effectively.

Aiming too high? The president or chief information officer may be the person who signs the check that buys software, but that doesn’t make him or her the ideal target for a software company’s direct mail. Target the highest level at which the problem is understood. Mail to the person “feeling the pain” on a day-to-day basis. Besides being easier to near, that person is much more likely to want the information.

Wanting your mail to be noticed? It was noticed all right. Except the person who noticed it was the mail clerk. Or, the vice president’s executive secretary. The first challenge isn’t getting noticed, it’s getting the mail delivered to the person’s desk. Specifically, when targeting management-level prospects at large companies, the less a package looks like junk mail, the better.

Highlighting features, not benefits? When talking about a particular product all day, every day, it’s easy for a businessperson to over-indulge their direct mail with features without even thinking about it. Unfortunately, the rest of the population doesn’t immediately recognize the encourage of say, OPEC compliance. What does this mean to the average user? Will it save him or her time or money?

Using too many buzzwords? Each industry has specific jargon. Remember the other 99.9% population when creating direct mail copy. Don’t discard any jargon if it is important to positioning your product – just explain how they translate in terms of basic benefits.

Burying the call to action? A exclaim mail campaign has one goal: getting someone to respond. Don’t add the call to action as an afterthought (“For more information, call…”). Make “action-oriented” the theme – make copy revolve around asking the reader to do something. Mention the call to action early – and often.

Relying too much on the Web? We all use the Web every day. Yes, it’s fun, interactive and all the information is right there at your fingertips. As a call to action, simply sending people to your Web site misses the point. First, chances are they’ll wander around, download a brochure, and you’ll never hear from them again. Second, it is important to effect it as easy as possible for them to respond.

Dialing up the Internet, typing in a URL and filling out an online form take far more time than checking a box on a pre-personalized business reply card (BRC). Play it safe. Give the recipient every option possible – telephone, mail, Fax (important for international customers), Web and e-mail.

…Waiting for the prospects now to become customers…