The Pros and Cons of Direct Mail Marketing

As a food business owner, I am always on the hunt for a good, cost effective marketing technique. I’ve advertised in our local newspaper and have distributed countless fliers and menus. Aside from word of mouth, which is definitely our strongest form of advertising, I would venture to say that direct-mail marketing gives us the most bang for our buck.

Direct mail marketing involves mailing your prospective target customers your business information piece. According to the book Guerrilla Marketing Completely Revised And Updated Third Edition by Jay Conrad Levinson, a big 89 percent of marketing directors use direct mail marketing to generate leads, while 48 percent exercise scream mail marketing to generate sales. Direct mail marketing has become our main advertising and marketing outlet. Some of the positives that I have observed from my direct mail marketing have been the ability to come my target audience very effectively by utilizing up to date mailing lists from reputable list brokers. Another pro when it comes to direct mail marketing is that you can test your campaigns to see which ones pull the highest response rates. Also, with direct mail marketing, it doesn’t take very long to see the results of your mailings. Unlike magazine advertising, where it could take months for your ad to appear, and even longer for see results, your direct mail marketing campaign results can be seen in days. You are also able to personalize your mailing piece with colors, pictures and different fonts. Newspaper advertising doesn’t allow as great freedom. Graphics are very important to your direct mail marketing piece as is your copy, your offer and of course, maybe the most important – the mailing list.

I have also found that I get a better response when I send a direct mail marketing piece to my existing customers rather than to someone who’s never heard of us before. Your existing customers are your best customers. I have also found that an offer of something Free gets a better response than say a 20% off offer.

My direct mail marketing campaigns do perform well, however it’s not without a price. The cost for a good mumble mail marketing campaign can be prohibitive if you don’t keep a careful eye on your costs. Your costs might include your printing costs, your mailing lists and of course your postage. I find that if when I exhaust first class stamps as opposed the bulk rate postage, I generate a better response rate.

According to the book Instant Marketing For Almost Free by Susan F. Benjamin, “direct mail pieces are the most controversial of the marketing piece clan. Some people inaugurate them to see what’s inside, while others toss them with barely a nod to the envelope. Another name for direct mail, as I’m sure you know, is “junk mail.”

That said, command mail marketing still brings in our lion’s share of our customers.

Some of the cons of direct mail marketing that I have encountered in my absorb campaigns are the rising cost of postage and promotional materials, the labor intensiveness and time that it takes to actually hand write the address, (I prefer to hand write my address instead of using labels) and the sometimes disappointing results that are generated from the direct mail marketing campaign. My average response rate for my direct mail marketing campaigns are somewhere arrive 1 – 2%. You can decrease the time it takes to secure your direct mail marketing pieces out by utilizing informational postcards instead of sales letters. With sales letters, or anything that you have to set into an envelope, you’re investing more time than if you just used a simple postcard.

Speaking of postcards, you have a better chance of your reveal mail marketing message getting read because your potential customer does not have an envelope to open.

Out of all the advertising and marketing techniques available, direct mail marketing has been a staple in our business and has brought many loyal return customers into our food business.