Direct Mail Beginning to End – Mailing

With a little bit of help from Direct Mail Beginning to End –Production and a lot of coordination you, your printer, and your designer have created a direct mail piece that is creative direct and won’t make you choose between printing it or making your car payment. Now it’s time to tackle the other major cost of creating your direct mail campaign, postage. Depending on the mailer either your printing or your postage could be your primary cost, and every creative decision you made will affect your postage now.

The size of the piece, the weight, if it folds, how many tabs need to hold the folds in place, if there is an envelope, and how the address is oriented relating to the shape of the mailer are all factors that will affect how much it costs to mail your campaign.  There is no way to begin to scratch the surface of everything you need to know about navigating postal regulations in a blog post, and I am not going to try. The Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) published by the post office is over 1,000 pages. It covers everything you need to know from how the size of your mailer dictates the postal class it will mail in, to the permitted saturation of colors used for printing the background of your address block. While the post office has been kind enough to post it online (note the shiny blue link text) there are so many rules with the mail the only way to be sure you are getting the best rate, short of reading it from cover to cover three times, is to work with a direct mail house. Get an expert (Remember last week I told you I would use that phrase again!)

Lots of printers these days are doubling as mail houses trying to offer a convenient one stop location for direct mail needs. There is nothing wrong with an all in one print house and mail house. It’s convenient, and can save time and money by eliminating the need to ship your printed stock to another location, but be sure they truly understand the mail regulations. I know of one case where a restaurant chain was mailing 2,500 5 3/4” x 11 5/8 mailers a week through a printer who was moonlighting as a mail house. The printer was simply trying to offer a convenience to the restaurant and make a little extra money on the side so it sounds like a good deal, but all postage is NOT the same. After about six months the restaurant chain was approached by sales rep for a mail house who told them that if they changed the size of the mailer to 5 3/4 “ x 11 ½” they would save 0.13 per mailer. Making that change took less than 5 minutes to implement, had no effect on the cost of printing, and no customer noticed the difference saving the restaurant $325.00 a week. The restaurant switched mail houses, and started looking for a new printer.  I don’t know if the designer picked the size of the mailer, or if the printer suggested the size. I do know that no one looked at the specifics of presorted first class letters and presorted first class flats until the direct mail expert talked to the restaurant.

The best intentions can backfire when someone gets involved who doesn’t know what they are doing.  A mail house should know direct mail, and a print shop should know printing. Places that do both printing and mailing should know both printing and mailing.  The designer, the printer, and the mail house should be able to communicate with each to solve problems in the creation process and reduce cost. As the business you might need to be the intermediary unless you find a direct mail company that offers design, print, and mailing as a package, and (I’m going to say it again…) has an expert in each field.

This is the last post in the Direct Mail Beginning to End Series, but it is far from my last post. If you have questions, and you probably do since this series was designed to be an overview of the direct mail process, post them in the comments and I will answer them or I might just write a whole new post based on your questions!

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Direct Mail Beginning to End – Production

So now you have a great list of prospects and with a little help from last week’s post, Direct Mail Beginning to End – Design, a clever professional looking design that people will want to read your direct mail campaign. This week it’s time to take your creative to a practical place and, sadly, allow real world considerations to start affecting our final outcome. Things like size, shape, paper quality, color, weight all affect what your final costs will be. I know is sounds complicated but if it was all intuitive I wouldn’t need to write this blog would I?

Let’s start with paper quality and finishes. This decision should focus on your aesthetic preference and what impression you want to give to your customers. Do you want to have nice textured 130 pound paper or would 60 pound text paper work for your mailer.  The quality of your paper speaks to the nature of your company.  If you go with the cheapest option your decision to use low quality materials will be obvious to you prospects. Selling a luxury car with uncoated paper that tears as you turn the page will not send the message of quality and status that ultimately sells a $50,000 car. The better quality paper you use the better your mailer looks, but even if you can stand in front of the owner of your business and justify why you spent three dollars for each postcard you mailed you may want to reallocate that funding somewhere else. High quality paper sends a message of quality but too much quality can send the wrong impression. For example, if you use a very expensive stock in a donation direct mail campaign for a local charity you may find that you have sent the impression that the charity has extra income so donations may not be needed after all. Your paper choice should be affected by the message you are trying to send. If this doesn’t make much sense to you talk to your designer. If you have a good artist working for you they will understand what I mean and offer a suggestion or two regarding paper and finishing.

The paper finish: gloss, matt, coated, uncoated, etc. effects the impression your mailer has on a customer, so you need to consider paper finish as part of your impression but the bigger concern is durability. It doesn’t matter what paper you choose if the mailer is destroyed by the time it reaches its destination. Once I made the mistake of printing a direct mail campaign on a gloss finish paper without using a protective coating. By the time it made it thought the mail it looked like someone had used it as sand paper. You can save a little money if you decide not coat the paper with a protective finish but make sure it can survive the post office’s automated processes. You may not need to use coated stock if your mailing goes in an envelope, but any surface of the direct mail piece that is exposed in the mailing process should have a protective coating to avoid damaging the ink.

Now let’s talk about the ink. The more colors that you need to print the more expensive it is to print. Printing one color of ink is going to be your cheapest option. You have options of printing 2, 3 or 4 colors as well. 4 color printing is also called full color since you use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) to reproduce the full spectrum of colors. If you are printing 1, 2, or 3 colors you are probably using a spot color. Spot colors are inks that are mixed before they are put into a printing press to get a certain color and are generally not mixed. That ends today’s remedial ink 101 lesson. With direct mail your printing options are only limited by your budget, but remember the more inks you need the more your cost will be. There are some very creative and eye catching designs made using 1 or 2 color printing so don’t let the concern of ink costs limited the quality of your art. To make sure you are getting the best materials for your money you need to be sure the printer you are working with understands their business and knows when digital printing is better than off-set printing.  Get an expert (pay attention to that expert line I’m going to use it again in next week’s post).

Printing is the first major cost of producing a direct mail campaign. There are decisions that need to be made at this stage of the process that have wrong answers. Very costly wrong answers so get a printer that knows what they are doing! Get an expert ( I guess I used this line sooner than I thought. It must be IMPORTANT!) Make sure your printer is willing to discuss options with you. They should be willing to talk to you about the printing process, and discuss options on what kind of printing would work best for you.  Allow them to make recommendations, but make sure they can tell you why they made those recommendations. Make sure you know how long it will take to get your materials printed. Once you get your mailer printed you will need to deal with the other major cost of a direct mail campaign, postage, and I will deal with that next week in Direct Mail Beginning to End – Postage.

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Direct Mail Beginning to End – Design

People are harsh, at least in regard to direct mail. Even the sweetest little old lady who greets strangers on her morning walk will throw away a direct mail postcard without a second thought. Let’s not think about what that guy you cut you off on the way to work would do. In fact people will only give you about 3 seconds of their time before they decide if they want to read what you sent them, or pile it on top of the credit card bill in the recycling bin. It’s that tiny window of opportunity that makes design so important. Like I said in Direct Mail Beginning to End – Data Lists, your data is the most important part of a direct mail campaign but design comes in a close second.

It’s the design of your direct mail piece that will get you past the 3 second window, and get the recipient to read your message.  While there is no single “best” or “right” way to design a mailer I can give you some fundamentals to think about during the process. First, you need a designer. Your nephew who likes to mess around with Photoshop is NOT a designer. Well, probably not anyway and if you want to create a good mailer you will need to work with someone who not only knows what the terms bleed, cmyk, and ppi mean but can create something that looks professional. Since every direct mail campaign is or SHOULD be unique I can’t help answer questions like what color you should use, or is this font better than that font.  Those are questions that need to be addressed with your designer along with a few other basics.

First things first people need to be informed who you are and what you are offering. If you sending out mailers to clients you have already worked with, or you have a level of brand recognition that Nike would envy than all you need may be a logo.  If you are an unknown then you will need to give the reader a bit more to go off. It may just take a photo, or a slogan but you need something. Remember reading “is no single “best” or “right” way to design a mailer” about 20 seconds ago, there is another approach you might want to take. Give the customer no explanation and see if pure curiosity can drive them to get the information. If I got a postcard in the mail that only had a QR Code I would pull out my phone and find out more.

Next there should be an offer of some kind.  You can offer to give them a discount, you can offer to give them more information, you can offer to give them free kitten with each dog house sold, but you need to offer them something. This is the part of a direct mail piece that appeals to the “what’s in it for me” attitude that permeates American society today so make the offer good. You are not creating a direct mail campaign to use up a budget surplus.

Finally you will want a call to action: come in and get free appetizer, call to hear movie times, register your account and get a free death ray! Tell the person getting the mail how to take advantage of the offer. Directing someone to take action has been proven to work better than simply telling them about the deal. Your call to action can be as direct as “Come buy my Nachos!” or it might be more passive like “When you get a moment, log in and see what we can do for you.” The best call to action is dependent on who are marketing to at the time, and you will probably want to talk to your copy writer about what will work best.

Now here is the tricky part you need to hit all three points in a way that is personal to each person who receives the mailer. Since you have a good data list you know enough about your targets so you can integrate their name into the mailing as a first step. Then you can use a series of images to talk to a potential client on an emotional level. If you know your customer likes to sail thanks to a data list that includes hobbies include some images of people using your product on a boat.  If your client is a college professor include academic related images.  If the prospect is a mechanic a picture of grimy hands is a way to connect. Reach out in an emotional way with imagery, and logical way with facts to get the best chance to connect to a potential new sale. If you are concerned about the complexity of creating a direct mail campaign with this level of detail don’t be. It is much simpler than you may think. Variable data printing allows you to print all the direct mail pieces in one run while changing the images and names on each individual mailer.  Designing a direct mail campaign that truly is customized to each recipient will increase response rate, and get you a better return on your investment.

Your design is what will catch people’s attention, get them to read your message, and get you past the 3 second trashing. Think about how many number 10 envelopes you get in the mail every day, then thing about how many triangle shaped self mailers you get in the mail. Are you going to be more likely to spend more time looking at the standard form letter or a three panel self mailer tied with a bow? The unique piece will always get more attention but creativity costs money. The post office does its job very well, but they do not embrace creativity. This is might be a bit obvious but I’m going to say it anyway; the size and shape of your direct mail piece directly affects how much it costs to produce and mail.  Next week I will start to talk about automation and post office regulations and how to create something that won’t use all or your annual advertising budget.

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Direct Mail Beginning to End – Data Lists.

In last week’s post: “Direct Mail Beginning to End – How to Get Started” I gave you an overview of the benefits of direct mail as a advertising medium. This week it time to talk about the foundation of every good direct mail program.  Let’s talk data. The data list is more than just a list of addresses. It’s the insight into the lives and habits of your potential consumers. It’s the foundation of your direct mail campaign so if it’s a bad list then you have a bad direct mail campaign.

There are three types of data lists. The first type of list is your client list. This data consists of people you already do business with. This list is arguably your most valuable list because you know the people on this have already worked with you and, as long as you did a good job, are likely to work with you again.  If you are marketing a new product or service this data list should be included in the direct mail campaign unless there is a good reason to skip a person on this list. For example I can’t think of a good reason to send a postcard offering free fingernail painting to a man who lives 3 hours away from the manicurist.  A local salon is more likely to get the opportunity to pain that man’s nails a lovely shade of honeysuckle. One note about a client list, DO NOT mail them anything that mentions first time buyers or new clients. People know what businesses they have used before and they want you to know they have purchased from you. Sending a repeat customer an offer to experience your product for the first time makes you look like a fool and makes them feel unimportant. Both of those qualities are bad for business so keep this list up to date and cross check this list with every direct mail campaign that you produce!

The second type of list is a responder list.  This list is generated by people who may not have purchased anything but have given you their contact information directly. Usually this list is generated from web site surveys, and mail responder cards.  With this group you know the contact is interested in something you are already offering and it’s a good idea to include them on mailers offering specials for new customers. They will not get offended if you offer them a first timer’s discount since they probably don’t consider themselves a customer.

The third kind of list is a purchased list.  With this category of list you’ve probably never had any contact with anyone listed here, and you probably won’t unless you turn them into a customer.  Fortunately for the direct mail data list purchaser a.k.a. you, nearly every aspect of who we are has been cataloged, analyzed, listed and put up for sale online. When you are looking to create new leads you can purchase a data list that is specially crafted to fit your needs. If you need to know how many women who live within a radius of a specific address, are between the ages of 25-45, own their own home, have pets, are unmarried and have a bankruptcy on their credit record you can do that. Or, you can get a list of everyone between the ages of 25-40.  When purchasing a data list the more specific you can be without excluding a potentially profitable demographic the better because the more people listed the more expensive the list.  List are usually sold per thousand records but the cost varies depending on what company you are working with and how detailed the information you need is. I have said this before but it bears repeating, direct mail works when you know your market. If you want best return from your direct mail campaign focus your data list to the most likely group to buy your product.  Don’t narrow it so much you lose out on potential clients, but trying to send a mailer to every address in a tri-state area will not get you a good return on your advertising investment. To get an idea of the kinds of data that can be purchased take a look the list below.

• Geography
• Age
• Income
• Gender
• Marital Status
• Interests/Hobbies
• Purchasing Behavior
• Home Value
• Length of Residence
• Homeowners
• New Homeowners
• New Movers
• Occupations
• Ailments
• Pilots
• Boat Owners
• Dwelling Unit Size
• Donors
• Potential Investors
• Stocks and Bonds Owner
• Real Estate Agents & Brokers
• Nurses
• Auto Owner
• Bankruptcies
• Students
• Veterans
• Presence of Children
• Entrepreneurs
• Ethnic
• Neighborhood Consumers
• Newborns and Prenatal
• Lifestyle
• Mail Order Responder
• Home-based Business
• Motorcycle Owner
• Education Level
• Pet Owner
• Net Worth Model
• Purchase Amount Ranges
• Telephone Area Code
• Insurance Agents
• And there are more…

So at this point you have a product to sell, you know who you want to sell it to, you have the list of names that you want to mail to, but now you need a mailer. People are harsh when looking at mail.  Your direct mail piece will get about 3 seconds of their time before they decide if they want read it or throw it away.  How do you get people to read your mailer instead of piling it on top of yesterday’s newspaper? It’s all in the design. Next week I will talk about how to design mailer that will get your audience to pay attention to what you have to say.

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Direct Mail Beginning to End – How to Get Started.

Direct mail advertising gets a bad rap.  It doesn’t get the kind of exposure that TV commercials get, or the kind of captive audience that radio commercials get during the drive home, but it is one of the best advertising mediums available. Direct Mail is all about efficiency, and it’s important that people understand how effective efficiency is in advertising. TV and radio alike focus on creating a commercial that broadcasts to everyone tuning in. Think of it like giving the first 3,000 people who look at you the same message. It doesn’t matter who they are, what they do, or what motivates them. If they see you, then you give them the message. Not only is this a very impersonal approach to advertising but if the TV ad is offering a lunch discount on sushi to a person with a fatal fish allergy then the ad is not going to work. Not to say the shotgun approach doesn’t work, it does, but its lack of efficiently is expensive.  The expense of producing a quality TV ad is still out of reach for many small and medium sized businesses that’s why most TV commercials are produced by the Wal-Mart’s and Best  Buy’s of the world. Fortunately there is another way.

Direct mail removes the shotgun from advertising and focuses on creating a personal targeted campaign. When executed well it really is one of the most efficient forms of advertising. Wal-Mart and Best Buy, with their huge advertising budget and multiple TV commercials, still use direct mail because it can be customized for each and every individual targeted in an advertising campaign. With a well developed direct mail campaign the customer who carries around an EpiPen to protect himself from an accidental taste of sashimi would never see the “all you can eat” sea food advertisement. The discount shrimp ad would have skipped his mail box, and perhaps found a local foodie with tight budget. Direct mail is all about getting the right message into the right hands. Unlike TV or Radio that speaks to everyone whether they are listening or not, good direct mail only targets people who might want what you have to offer. Then it packages the offer in a way that appeals the potential customer as an individual.  By limiting the audience to interested parties, and approaching that audience in a personal way, a direct mail campaign can get better results at a noticeably smaller cost than any TV Commercial.

If a targeted personalized ad campaign that can be produced for as low as a $0.25 per lead sounds like it might be a something worth looking into then you are in luck. Over the next few weeks I am going to explain how to create a direct mail campaign from beginning to end in a step by step process, buying the data list, designing your direct mail campaign, producing the mailers, and mailing the campaign.  I’ll even throw in some information about getting a good postage rate, measuring response rates, integrating a direct mail campaign with new technology and how it can be done in an environmentally friendly way. It can sound like a lot but if you take it one step at a time, and you have the right direct mail experts backing you it is a very manageable process.  Take some time decide who are the most likely people to buy what you’re selling.  Does this target group, own a home, do they make over 6 figures, are they in school, do they have a birthday in January, do they own pets? Think about it and figure it out because next week , in Direct Mail Beginning to End – Data Lists, I’m going to talk about the most important part of any direct mail campaign, the data list.

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Technology has freed the barcode

When I think about bar codes, not that I do very often, the first thing I think about are little vertical bars that remind me of a prison jump suit circa 1935. I’m referring to the UPC codes that have been used commonly since the 70’s, but a new bar code is changing my first impression. An evolution of the bar code had dropped the prohibition era fashion and took the appearance of something appearing similar to Space Invaders.Tri-Win Direct Mail QR Code

With new QR Codes (Quick Reference Codes), aka 2D bar codes, information is now encoded horizontally, and vertically. By creating a specific orientation of squares that can be read by today’s smart phones hundreds of alphanumeric characters can be stored in a QR code versus 20 numeric digits in the classic bar code. It’s the data encoding capacity that has made the new QR Codes such a versatile tool. You can of course store pricing info in the QR code like the old bar codes, but it the ability to encode a web address that is freeing the marketing potential of the 2D Bar code.

With the incredible level of sophistication in our own electronic chains scanning a QR code with an encoded web address opens the phone’s browser, automatically directing your prospect to your website or a personalized landing page. The QR code is the key to unlock a multimedia experience limited only by the capabilities of the smart phone. Videos, survey forms, special offers, are all put in the palm of a customer’s hand, literally. I know my phone is one competent user short of running a small country so a little creativity applied to this new tech is a breeding ground for viral advertising.
Catching their attention and getting a potential customer to take action is the fundamental job of advertising. QR codes create a great opportunity to do both. To get the attention of the cash carrying demographic, especially those under 30 you need to engage them with something new or clever. Print advertising alone is just not enough anymore. Adding QR codes to a print add creates another level of involvement. With a good creative team you get the fun cool factor that unlocks a wallet. Or even if you don’t get the sale, at least you get someone to a landing page giving you data that your print ads are getting read, or not.

When you start gearing up to create another print campaign you might think about adding a QR code. It can help catch the interest of the technologically inclined, add ingenuity to a very traditional marketing medium, provide a way to verify your mailings are getting read, and connect to potential customers. Perhaps most importantly it can let you know how efficiently you’re spending your print money.

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Why use Direct Mail when email is putting the post office out of business?

Email marketing has become the go to media for “print” advertising over the last few years. It is cheaper, faster, and put right into the inboxes of your target. It seems that email has some serious advantages over direct mail, but that list of advantages has made email the favorite media of spammers, and makes it far harder to get a prospect to read your message.
It’s hard to argue against the price point of email versus direct mail. It costs less to develop and deliver email, but marketers are not the only people who know that little bit of information. Your consumer base knows that there is a larger investment of time and money in a direct mail campaign, and no matter how solid your offer is that extra investment can be perceived as a more legitimate offer.
Of course, after the offer has been made and a prospect has decided to get more information they need to be able to tell you. Email does have the one click away advantage, but there are tools that make direct mail nearly as easy to use. First, there is always a good old fashioned phone number. Believe it or not some people still like to talk to others, not me, but I have heard stories. Listing your web address on the mailing is a pretty standard practice, but for the more technically savvy and socially disinclined QR codes can be printed and scanned with any web enabled smart phone with free software making the response to a mail piece one click away. Yes, you do need to check your mail to get the marketing offer in the first place, but email inbox delivery is far from guaranteed.
The offers for discount vet meds, little blue pills, and requests from Nigerian princes to make you a millionaire for doing nothing has led to spam filters being created that leave messages lost in the junk mail folder unread, and wasted. Even if your message manages to get to the intended target you are lucky if the prospect will read your subject line before it gets thrown in the trash. At least with direct mail you’re prospect will have something real to look at. Email messages are intangible and ignoring a bit of data from an unknown source is simply easier than ignoring something you are holding in your hand.
Sometimes cheaper and faster are not the advantages that people think they are. With a well developed mail campaign you can get a better response rate, add legitimacy to your business, and get responses nearly as fast as an email campaign. Plus if your clients are anything like me they will delete the email, but that pile of mail on the kitchen counter will get your mailing a second look as soon as they get around to cleaning up a bit.

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Know Where Your Customers Came In

Even if your Web efforts are booming, don’t give up on good old fashioned direct mail just yet. Catalogs and snail mail could well be generating your most valuable online customers.

All buyers are not created equal — even if they reside in the same recency-frequency-monetary value (RFM) cell. The Web has caused us to look at buyers and the way they shop differently. The LTV of a Web buyer is often not as great as that of a catalog buyer. That’s because buyers who came onto the file from organic or paid search are “item” buyers, not necessarily catalog shoppers. They were looking for a specific item and they found it.

Mailing these buyers catalogs because they are in a most recent recency-frequency-monetary value cell will not stimulate them to make a repeat purchase no matter how many catalogs they receive. Analyzing the channel of origin affords the cataloger an opportunity to maximize contribution to profit and overhead by learning to deviate from traditional RFM segmentation.

— STEPHEN LETT, president of catalog consultancy Lett Direct Inc.

For more, visit http://directmag.com/lists/0518-lists-comparing/.

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Channel Surfing for Influencers, Part 1: Direct Mail

Which channel is most effective at finding, reaching, engaging and motivating influencers to spread the word about your product? In the next four posts, I’ll take a look at the pros and cons of the most widespread channels, beginning with direct mail – hope you’ll join me and share your thoughts.

When VCRs achieved mass-market success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many pundits predicted the demise of the movie theatre. Who would want to drive to a cinema and sit with a bunch of strangers to watch a new movie when you could now do it in your own living room or bedroom? A lot of people, it turned out. VCRs, then DVD players and other home movie systems, didn’t kill off old school movie-going. They simply created a new channel for Hollywood to market its product. Both have lived together quite successfully ever since.

The same, it turns out, has happened with direct mail. Pioneered on a mass scale in the 1950s by Lester Wunderman and others, this way of reaching consumers and businesses caught on with marketers because, unlike traditional print, billboard and broadcast advertising, direct mail’s effectiveness could be tested, measured and improved on in subsequent campaigns. Despite the advent of email marketing in the 1990s and social marketing today, marketers still consider direct mail a viable and effective way to engage consumers in general and influencers in particular.

Why? Well, for starters, there continues to be a segment of the population that likes to receive things in the mail. While I’m selective about what I like and don’t like to find in my mailbox – I’m not big on grocery flyers, for instance – I do like when I get useful information about products or services that I can hold right in my hands.

I’m not alone and marketers know it. After all, with 90% of word-of-mouth happening face-to-face (Keller Fay Study, 2010), marketers understand the usefulness of offering influencers something tangible they can carry in their purse or pocket and pass along to the friends and family members they’re influencing – like a brochure, a catalogue, even a business card with a name, email address or url printed on it.

And direct mail is also still the king of easy and accurate personalization, in spite of digital marketing’s advances. Plus it continues to beat traditional media in its ability to target industries, regions, niche markets and other highly specific local audiences.

Finally, as effective as marketing via email, Facebook or mobile may be, none has (yet) managed to beam a sample or gift into consumers’ homes without using direct mail to get it there. The tactile surprise and delight factor that direct mail offers highly engaged consumers cannot be underestimated. You know they’ll open it immediately and pay particular attention to the contents from a brand they know and trust.

In part 2 of this series, I’ll focus on direct mail’s spry marketing cousin: email. It’s fast and inexpensive, but is it influencing influencers? Tune in next time when we discuss…

Gillian MacPhersen

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Six Tips to Keep Your Direct Mail Out of the Trash

When one is in the thick of producing a direct mail campaign, it’s easy to overlook some of the basic elements that are integral to success. So you might want to keep these six quick tips close by as a reminder.

1) Select the right list. A crummy mail campaign sent to a good list can make money, but even brilliant mail sent to a bad list will fail every time.

2) Update your list. According to NCOALink, at least 15% of the average list becomes outdated every year.

3) Go bold. Choose a clear, bold headline and a color that pops for maximum notice.

4) Watch out for muletas. Muletas are the little red cloths that bullfighters use to distract the bull. As a marketer, you need to look for anything in your piece that will distract potential customers from your offer, message, or product.

5) Present a call to action and an offer. One of biggest mistakes is burying (or not including) a call to action. Tell your prospect exactly what you want him to do.

6) Be consistent and commit. Consumers rarely get multiple pieces from a business. Hit your prospects with different communications about the same thing, or with different products with the same look or feel, or both. This sort of persistence reinforces your presence and adds credibility to your brand.

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