Take crossing the road for instance. Do you remember those green cross code adverts? These adverts told you how to safely cross the road. After people learned how to cross the road safely, accident rates dropped through the floor. This is because education reduces risk. Not completely mind. But then to win without risk is to win without glory. You couldn’t win if you couldn’t lose, could you?

     So a certain amount of risk is healthy and it adds to the fun of things. But stick a blindfold on before you cross the road and then it’s not so funny, right?

     If you’re willing to actually do a tiny bit of work on your direct mail business then you’re well on your way to becoming a master. All that’s needed to succeed are the secrets, a little intestinal fortitude and keeping your finger on the pulse.

     Okay, let’s talk about some facts about direct mail

10 Facts You Should Know About Direct Mail

1. It is possible to start a direct mail business with £20. If you do a small mailing of 40 one week to a good list, you are likely to get at least one order, which will pay for your next slightly larger mailing. And so on until you’ve generated enough to organise bigger and more profitable mailings.

2. It is also possible to start a direct mail business by obtaining email addresses and emailing the copy and order form to them. However, the initial contact must be a warm and friendly letter asking them if they’d like more information.

3. There are three ways to create a product. You can pay someone to write or produce it for you. You can buy the resell rights to a product. Or you can write it yourself. All are just as good as each other.

4. The same applies for sales letters for the product. You can pay people to do it or get a sales letter with the resell rights or you can write your own.

5. People buy what they are buying. So before you choose a product you must get on a mailing list for that particular market and check out what’s on the market, what combinations, what similarities. The more exposure you have to a market the better your choice of product will be.

6. No product is perfect. You can vastly improve on a selling product and/or give it a unique twist and make a fortune.

7. When a market is saturated by a product, the market then wants a product of superior quality. This is true of all markets.

8. The best way to sell a product is to write the sales letter before you create the product. Imagine if you wrote a fifty paged book and then couldn’t find any beneficial properties to the book. The least risky option is to write a sales letter that you would love to receive first and then craft a book around the benefits in the sales letter.

9. When you’re selling lots of product, a rough rule of thumb to work out what you take from the business is to take a third of the product’s sale price multiplied by the number of sales. This leaves enough in (Approximately) for taxes and business growth.

10. A secret of the rich is that they only pay themselves what they need and invest the

rest.

There is of course a lot more to direct mail than the above but those ten facts are universal facts and are used in all successful direct mail businesses.

So you already have the very best flyer design and have chosen the ultimate in distribution methods, direct mailing, but you still find that your flyer advertising campaign is not as effective as it can be. Well this could be for a variety of reasons so before you panic make sure you check out these top 7 essential tips for direct mail flyers to make sure you have complete and effective distribution from start to finish.

Draw up a plan of your local neighborhood ensuring it includes everyone within your delivery area. Make sure you can cover the whole of this neighborhood with your direct mailing distribution. Your flyer advertising strategy will not be as effective as it can be if you miss out houses, streets or whole areas on your distribution list.

Make sure you are aware which houses are family homes and which are flats or student accommodation. This will allow you to leave the correct number of flyers through the door and not miss out on potential customers because there are not enough flyers to share between residents.

Make sure you don’t hold back on flyer printing. Cutting corners with flyer printing will only serve to harm the effectiveness of your advertising design. Creating professional flyer designs and ensuring they are printed to a high standard in full color will make sure you don’t miss out on any of your target audience.

Don’t solely use direct mail for flyer distribution. Using a combination of a variety of different distribution methods will help to make your flyer printing job as effective as possible. Variety is essential to ensuring high success in advertising to gain the maximum possible exposure to your flyers and your business.

Don’t settle for less when it comes to flyer design. Just like you shouldn’t compromise with your flyer printing quality you should also make sure you get the very best out of your flyer design. A poor flyer design can damage your potential business growth and hinder your direct mail distribution. Employing a design company or freelancer to help create your perfect flyer design will ensure you are not missing out or alienating your potential customers. Even though it may cost you a little more up front it will pay you back a thousand times in increased customer sales and customer conversion.

Keep your direct mail distribution regular. People often lose or damage flyers left around for too long. Make sure you keep mailing your flyers on a regular and fairly frequent basis to ensure your potential customers always have your flyer to hand when they need it.

Always remember to order your flyer printing jobs in bulk and well in advance of needing them. This ensures you will always have enough flyers to complete your direct mail distribution and you will never be left hanging or with only half the houses done in your area because of late ordering, delays or simply not having enough flyers. Always make sure you reach 100% of your potential customers.