It is not that difficult to have an effective direct mail campaign that draws in customers both new and old. It only takes a little bit of work to create an effective system for your company.

The first and most important concept to make sure to take care of when having a direct mail listing is to have a clear objective of what you want to accomplish with your mailing. Do you want more customers or do you want to offer an incentive to get the customers that you have already to come back to purchase more? Having an idea of what you want to accomplish with your mailings will help conserve money and make your direct mailing campaign effective.

Make your direct mailing campaign personal. People like to receive letters in the mail from friends and relatives and not junk mail. Making your direct mailing campaign more like a letter to a friend than a junk mail add will keep your advertisement from being thrown away.

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Direct mail is starting to go green both by choice and by necessity. It is the industry leaders who are going to come out on top and be victorious in this race.  The ability for a company to convert mail to web will be the clear winner and unfortunatly will result in a marketing environment with very few direct mail marketing industry titans.

How is direct mail going green?

PURL Marketing, This is a new technology that has burst onto the marketing scene in the last few years.  This is transforming a URL into a personal message and converting that prospect to a customer when the message is received.  A PURL looks like: JohnDoe.MyDomain.com.  When the user clicks they will be redirected to their personal website to fill in information.

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Everyday when I come home and open my mailbox, about 15 letters jump out and try to attack me. “Hop on a Cruise Today!” “Apply for Mortgage!” “Retire Peacefully!” “Enlarge Your…” and so on. Of course I don’t even bother looking. I can hardly pay a bus ticket and cruise is completely out of the question. Mortgage!? Ye right, I am a student, I can hardly afford my rent stabilized apartment. How about retiring? Sure thing. I didn’t even start working. 401(k) sounds more like an algebra question to me. Oh, and I really don’t need to enlarge my credit score (what? What did you think that letter was meant for) I have much more important things on my mind. If one of those letters offered me a lower internet bill, maybe I’d give it a look. Or if it was from the local philharmonic, there is a good chance I’d check out student tickets there. Or textbooks – man I need a cheap textbook source. But instead I get all these useless letters that the only thing I can do with them, except maybe giving them to my dad, is to throw them at the recycle bin without even looking at them. Just thinking about the endless amounts of money those companies put in sending me all of this mail. Unfortunately, my recycle bin doesn’t turn the letters into money again.

Direct Marketing is Business 101 – no doubt about it. Especially in an economic climate like ours. It’s important to be out there as a business and to stay in direct touch with your costumers. But if you are running a retirement home, sorry, I am not your customer. Direct Mail is a great tool, but it hardly means anything without an efficient data base. A good database does not include just anybody that happens to live in a 35 mile radius from your business. It should include their birthdates, their age, their family status, purchasing history, and any piece of information that can help you pinpoint your target audience. Not only will you receive higher feedbacks and response rates, but you will also save money on useless mail.

Remember that you not in the name collection business. Every letter you send arrives to an individual customer, who has his own needs and spending behavior. An efficient database implements strategic profiling and response tracking, thereby ensuring that you only mail to the best prospects. Sometimes it will be a smart move to hire a marketing database expert or company that can help you build a responsive client list. A successful database management solution should be able to provide you with verification services and delivery point validation. It should manage and enhance your list on a daily basis and provide you with intelligent and predictive modeling capabilities.

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A Direct Mail Marketing campaign is perfect for attracting new customers, and for keeping existing clients coming back for more. When you address each individual client directly, you will be able to capture their attention, and pitch your ideas and offerings more effectively.

Where To Begin

Direct mail marketing starts with a mailing list. The more information that is availabe, the more personalized you can make your campaign. If you know the last product a specific client purchased, you can offer them a similar item, at a discounted cost, similar to the way Amazon.com recommends purchases. All information from the mailing list is processed and then automatically inputted onto a design template for each and every name and address on the list.

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According to the Direct Marketing Association, on average, direct mail returns ten dollars for every dollar invested. However, as noted earlier, the most pivotal element to direct marketing Success is having the right list. What does it look like? Where does it come from? Where do you start? If you are prospecting for new customers you will probably not have their names. But, names of qualified prospects are available through list compilers and brokers. However, to buy mailing lists it is essential to know what your best prospective customers look like. That’s where your house list comes in handy. Scanning through your house list you can identify the traits that are common among your best customers. For example, you may find that your best customers live within five miles of your business and have incomes of more than $75,000. This demographic information will help you purchase a list of customers that will buy. There are two main types of lists that can be purchased: compiled lists and response lists. Compiled mailing lists are comprised of information from public records and sources such as the phone book, courthouse records, bankruptcy filings, mortgage deed records and more. On the other hand, response mailing lists consist of individuals who have responded to an offer either through the mail, phone, television, or through other means of mass communication (e.g. a magazine subscription list, a catalog mailing list, etc.).

These types of lists must be understood – each has a set of unique characteristics that enables it to achieve specific and distinct objectives. The key to success is to understand when it is most appropriate to use each kind.

Compiled list are ideal for those businesses that need special demographic selectivity to target a well-defined market, for instance targeting auditing companies specializing in bookkeeping, manufacturers with 50 or more employees, or families with household incomes of $50,000 who live within 10 miles of your store. All of these examples are likely to do better with a compiled list than a response list. This is good news if you understand the demographic profile of your customers since compiled lists are generally less expensive than response lists – costing between $40 and $70 per thousand versus $90 to $125 per thousand for response lists. Response lists are the best choice if you need to cover an entire market of prospects with similar characteristics. For example, if you are selling a specialized software engineering tool, or to every Certified Public Accountant in the State, there are lists available from publications that serve these markets. Often information is even available on how frequently these prospects typically respond to offers they receive.

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Today’s businesses are looking for an advantage to help them weather the storm and avoid layoffs or losses in revenue. That’s why companies are focusing on a single task to stay afloat – increasing sales.

Typically a recession drives small businesses to evaluate, re-design and refine their product offerings and marketing processes as they focus on cash flow, costs, customer retention and survival.

There has been an upsurge in Internet and email marketing, yet many top decision-makers in businesses nationwide and even globally still rely on traditional marketing tactics such as direct mail when positioning products, developing media strategies.

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It isn’t easy reaching C-level. I’m talking about getting your direct mail letter through to senior executives in a corporations, the ones with the letter “C” for “Chief,” in their titles. Here are just a few of the more common C-level titles . . .CEO – Chief Executive Officer; COO – Chief Operating Officer; CFO – Chief Financial Officer; CMO – Chief Marketing Officer; CIT – Chief of Information Technology; and CTO – Chief Technology Officer.C-level executives, of course, are the decision-makers you want to reach if you’re selling major systems or services. They’re the folks with the power to make big purchase decisions or instruct the appropriate person in the organization to “check out” what you’ve got to offer.Needless to say, everyone wants the ear of the C-level players. Which means that they’re protected by assistants who make sure that junk mail never reaches their desks. So what’s a poor copywriter to do? What tricks can you use to make sure that your  letter gets past the gatekeeper, gets opened by the senior executive, and generates the action you’re asking for?Here are some copywriting tips and techniques which can help get your letter in front of a decision maker.1. Forget about envelope teaser copyEnvelope copy screams “JUNK MAIL” and thus will be tossed out by the executive’s administrator. Some companies actually have internal mailroom policies stating that obvious junk mail should never be delivered to the executive’s desk! This means that you should avoid the junk look at all costs and use a standard #10 business envelope without any teaser copy.2. Use overnight mail or priority mailA better approach, if your budget permits, is to use an express service. When someone sees a FedEx package, they open it. It’s as simple as that. Of course you can’t afford to send a mass mailing via FedEx, but if you’re mailing in onesies and twosies, and following up with a phone call, this is a great way to go!3. Send a dimensional packageIn the jargon of copywriters, a dimensional mailing is a package that actually has something stuffed inside it (i.e. it has three dimensions). Often, by adding an attention-getter, you can be sure your package will get opened. For example, you can enclose a book that you think the prospect might enjoy reading. Or an important report. (Forget about calculators, caps, and any other junky gifts.)4. Use the “Peer-to-Peer” approach.This means you can have your letter signed by a person at your company with the same C-level title as the prospect’s. For example, if you want to send a letter to the Chief Financial Officer at American Widget, have it “written” by the CFO at your company. Play up the fact that both executives face the same challenges, the writer knows from personal experience what the prospect is up against, etc.The take-away message? If you’re writing to C-level executives, you have to cut through the clutter, get past the gatekeeper, and make sure your letter gets read.

Direct mail and print advertising are two forms of marketing that can reach a large amount of people that are in your target market. Direct marketing is also a very cost effective option when choosing an advertising approach.

Direct mail and print advertising pieces can be a part of a bulk package, using cooperative efforts and they can also be sent out separately through individual efforts. These mailings often include advertisements, coupons, and letters that can be useful to recipients in that zip code.

A cooperative mailing effort can include collaborating with other businesses to reach a vast number of people. Teaming up with these other businesses can involve your ads or coupons being sent out in bundle along with the other companies that are representing themselves. The coupon packages are usually sent to specific ZIP codes so that areas that would be interested in what you are offering would receive the information

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