With the advent and rapid growth of email, some may think that direct mail is a thing of the past. But make no mistake: direct mail is here to stay. Certainly, if not executed well, direct mail can appear impersonal to consumers. However, with a clear strategy, goals and the customer/recipient in mind, direct mail can be a significant marketing asset for your business.

To ensure an effective direct mail campaign, it’s important to be clear about its strengths. Direct mail is a valuable, cost-effective way to tell your customers who you are and what your business offers. Specifically, direct mail campaigns offer customers a chance to learn about your business while helping you to: • Generate sales and orders • Promote a new product or service • Build brand recognition • Drive traffic to your store, site, etc. • Cultivate long-term customer relationships

In fact, many marketers consider direct mail to have advantages over other forms of advertising and marketing. Since it is targeted, it allows you to focus on a specific market audience. These resulting efficiencies make direct mail highly cost effective. And, unlike some forms of marketing, direct mail is measurable and able to be tracked.

Keeping these attributes in mind, it’s important to determine how direct mail’s advantages align with your product or service. Start by asking a couple of questions: Can you product or service take advantage of the targeting direct mail offers? And, are you selling a product that you could reasonably expect people to order or request more information on through a mailer?

If your answer to these questions is "yes," here are some important tactics necessary for the success of any direct mail initiative:

List, offer, creative This is the order in which you should focus the elements of your direct mail strategy. First, without a list that’s reaching your desired target audience, no offer or creative will matter. Second, your offer is the promotion you are highlighting in this particular campaign – it should be tailored to what you know to be your customers’ unique needs. Finally, the creative is the copy, text and/or package that presents the offer. Most people spend too much time on the creative when in reality, an unattractive package to a targeted list always will outperform a pretty package to an average, generic list.

Start a "swipe" file Keep a file of the recent promotions you’ve received that have caught your attention or motivated you to buy. Think about the various elements discussed above: what are the creative elements that stand out? What is it about the offer that attracts you or encouraged you to purchase? Make a list of these characteristics and continue to update it – it will serve as critical input for creating your own direct mail campaigns.

Test, test, test! Testing is critical when it comes to direct mail. In fact, a major benefit of direct mail is its ability to use test results to improve the results of a mailing.

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next