Be Prepared

Any time you embark on change of this sort, you can quickly because overwhelmed with all the collateral information available from one direct marketing firm to another.  The key to simplifying this process is make a check list of what’s important to you, what you expect, how your campaign messaging will position your product, service, and/or brand, as compared to your competitors.

Be prepared to evaluate your outline your objectives, put them aside, and then come back to them.  This is an important step because many times, businesses will may attempt to rush through their marketing strategy and find themselves with more work on their hands if they took their time.

Not All Direct Mail Providers are the Same

While it’s true, many providers of direct mail advertising offer graphic design, printing, and pre-sort services, not all providers are the same.  Some companies will let their presorting license lapse, causing more work and postage to be paid by you, the customer.  Others will focus on quick churn and not take the time to fully understand your business.  And still others may be spread too thin, offering everything from printing, to sign making, to website development and SEO services.   Some also focus on industry specific businesses, like auto, or mortgage, or real estate.   An important part to selecting the right partner is to work with one that’s experience in your line of business.

Generate Results, Not Just Leads

To a large extend, marketing and advertising is all about return on investment.  Whether it be a direct response, or in brand building over the long-term.  The beauty of direct mail is that it’s all very measurable.  Unlike so many other forms of media, direct mail is both predictable and measurable.  However, over time, we hope to learn something from our measurement.  If done with care, we’re able to not only measure how many people took notice and possibly accepted our offer, we’re able to separate those responders who are in the learning phase of their response from those who truly want action.

So responders fall into two categories, those seeking more information (the learning phase), and those wanting product or service (the buyers).  Those in the learning phase are equally as important to distinguish and develop a report with as those that are ready to buy.  By not capturing the identify of those in the learning phase, and not nurturing them along, is one of the biggest mistakes made among direct mailers.

Leverage Your Data

Your own database, those existing prospects and customers, are the best target audience to mail to.  But more so, you can use this database for both modeling, and for suppression.  Your existing database is one of your greatest assets and should be leveraged to maximize its value.  There are three easy ways to use your existing database of prospects and customers.

1. Mail File – For businesses whose products and services are purchased by the same customer over and over, you should be mailing directly to those existing prospects and customers again and again.
2. Suppression List – When mailing to new list of targeted individuals, you’re able to “suppress” your existing database from the new one.  This is especially valuable when you want to make different offers to the different segment of the potential customers.
3. Modeling – With only the name and mailing address of your existing database, a clone of your customers can be created.  This means that other potential customers that look exactly like your existing customers can be created and mailed.  What was expensive in the past and only suitable for large mailers, the modeling process is actually quite affordable now.

Take a Coordinated Cross-Channel Approach

It has been proven again and again, repetition of brand, over time, is proven to increase response.  There’s a synergistic effect to a series mailing, as well as an integrated advertising campaign where one receives a mail piece, as well as receives and email of the same offer, then maybe television, print, radio, internet, etc.  The more channels that carry the message, the more the offer is considered.

To that point, the message should be clear and concise across all mediums.  Be sure your “cross-channel” marketing has been planned out ahead of time and your message is consistent.  Many businesses will attempt to promote their products and services across multiple platforms.  But in doing so, they’ll not craft the same message.  This can sometimes be counterproductive and more costly over time.

Choose the Right Partner

Choose a partner who has experience in all the above points of interest in this article.  Make sure you’re comfortable with the team working for you.  See your investment dollars as not only a cost to do a direct mail campaign, but an opportunity cost should you do it wrong.

Print Mail Direct would like to earn your trust and business.  We’re experienced in all facets of direct mail marketing and would like to discuss your business, what you’ve done in the way of advertising, and would like to quote your next campaign.  Make the most of your time and marketing investment and call Print Mail Direct today at 239-333-1430.

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 Product or Service Price

Would you consider your product or service a “high ticket item”?  If so, chances are, direct mail is a great advertising medium for your business.  Direct mail is a great advertising medium, for several reasons, i.e., it’s very measurable, very predictable, and very easy.  But, there’s a cost associated with using direct mail to promote your products and services.  And the higher the price (and gross profit), the more likely direct mail will prove profitable in bringing on new customers.  Likewise, the lower the cost, the more difficult it is to gain a positive return on investment.

Let’s compare two products: a book, and a new car.  A book is a low cost product, purchased only once by the buy and may cost $30.00 with a gross profit of say, $20.00.  A car may cost $25,000 and provide the dealership a gross profit of $2,500.00.  The cost for a direct mail campaign might run $4,000.00 for either a book or auto campaign.  So, in this example, you’d have to sell quite a few books in order to breakeven on your campaign costs, where as you’d only need to sell two vehicles be return a profit.

 Target-ability

Once you’re satisfied that you have a product or service that meets the ‘ticket-price” test, you’ll also want to be sure you can target an audience that’s responsive to your offer.  One of the best benefits to direct mail marketing is that you’re able to pinpoint exactly who might respond to your offer and become a customer.  Before you consider direct mail marketing as a form of advertising for your business, be sure there’s  a list that targets your best prospects.

If you’d like more information about mailing lists data and would like a count of people that might be great customers for your business, give Print Mail Direct a call at 239-333-1430.

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 Step One:  The Audience

Keep it simple.  Start at the beginning….the list.  Many business executives do this backwards.  Because of their own knowledge and insight their market, they’ll attempt to create a mail piece and an offer prior to looking closely at their potential customers.  It’s far more effective to understand who you’re talking to before you start talking.

So do your homework on your market.  Start by having a profile run on the people within your market territory.  Within any given population or community, there will be a cluster of these folks, and a cluster of those folks.  Segment your market into pieces and get a better understanding of what messaging would better resonate than another.

 Step Two:  The Message

Once you have your segments identified, you can now develop a message that’s consistent with your segment.

For example, let’s say you’ve got a restaurant that caters to a larger variety of people.  One segment of your market may be the younger, hip crowd that would frequent your establishment on ladies night.  Another segment might be young families.  And still another might be an older segment of retired people.  It makes better sense for the message to be different for each of these segments, i.e., invite to ladies night Thursdays, family dining, and early bird specials.

 Step Three:  Printing

Printing your mail pieces is pretty simple.  You start with the messaging from Step Two.  If you’re working with a good print mail provider, like Print Mail Direct, you should have no trouble talking directly to the graphic designer about putting together your mail piece creative.  Remember, the more revisions you have, the more costly the project can become.

Your printer will need a high resolution copy of your printed material and should always include the postal permit within the art.  If not, you’ll have to have it sprayed on later which looks unprofessional.

If it’s a postcard, many printers will gang run your postcard printing along with other postcard mailers.  If this is the case, your piece may not begin until you have enough to fill the gang.  So, check with your printer to see how long before they have enough projects to complete your order.  This could be a day, or 2 weeks.

Step Four:  Mailing

Mailing with a professional mail service provider like Print Mail Direct is also fairly straight forward.  More times than not, wherever you get your printing done, you’ll likely be able to get help from them.   All the mail service provider will need from you is the mail pieces, and the mailing list.  They’ll presort the list to be sure to maximize the postal discount.  After spraying the mail piece, they’ll deliver the bulk-mail directly to the post office on your behalf.

Also, you’ll typically find that you will need to pay the postage portion of the campaign with a check since there’s usually a merchant cost associated with a credit card payment.  Since your print and mail provider doesn’t charge more for postage than the actual cost, they’ll want to be sure they aren’t having to pay extra on your behalf.

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