You want more sales for your business. Direct Mail is one of the most cost effective forms of advertising. Like anything in life there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. We put together this article to help you have success using direct mail.

No matter whether you are using post card marketing, sales letters or special form of direct mail knowing what you need to do and the basics of how to do it will help you get better results. Our marketing specialist and graphic artists can help design the piece but the piece we design will only be as good as the information you give us.

In order to do a direct mail campaign the follow are vital things you need to know and communicate to us.

One of the most important elements of a direct mail program is “Who” you want to reach. Direct Mail is the most target-able of all advertising mediums. To get the best prospect list for the mailing and to create an effective graphic design for you we need some basic information.

1. Demographics of your target customer:

• Area: Usually a zip code but we can also pull a radius of a street address.

• Customer profile: usually age, income, sex etc.

We can also pull a list by even more tagreted criteria but when we do it will increase the cost of the mailing list.

For business lists, what type of businesses are you targeting? Employee sizes, gross sales, credit rating all are examples of how we can pull a mailing list for you.

Remember, the more specific the mailing list the higher are the costs of it. To save money it is important to focus on the key characteristics of the target prospect you want to reach.

After we get the mailing list information the following is more information to help you build your campaign. The information we need is.

When do you want to mail the piece? From this date we will work backwards to when you need to have your art approved? Keep in mind normal printing turn around after you approved the art is 3 – 5 business days. To address and process the mailing figure 2 – 3 days after printing.

The 2^nd most important part of your mailing is the message. Results-wise you can have the best, most targeted mailing list on the planet and if you do not have a good message you will get dismal returns.

1. What are you offering?
2. What are the benefits of what you are offering?
3. Call to action: Why should they respond now? You should give them some benefit for calling you now as opposed to six months from now.
4. Make sure you structure your offer from the perspective of the receiver of the message not from your point of view. Listen to what you present customers are saying about the product or service.
5. DO NOT use terms and nomenclature that people outside of your industry do not understand. If people do not understand what you are saying they will not come to you.
6. Tell them how to respond. Make it easy for them to respond give them a phone number to call and an email address.
7. Make sure you have your website on the card. This helps people who may want more information about your company.
8. If you have them, put a testimonial(s) on the piece(s).
9. Check your competitor’s offers and prices. It is not vital that you have the lowest prices. But, if you prices are higher you will need to sell the benefits harder. Why is your offer better? Sell the value. You may want to consider not putting a price on the direct mail piece but have them call for pricing. If you do this make sure your sales force is drilled and can handle the leads when they come in. If you can offer the lowest price OK fine, do it. But understand that for most products there is one spot in the marketing ladder for a “Low Cost Provider”. Most consumers are more concerned about getting their money’s worth (value) than they are getting the cheapest price. How can you demonstrate value?

** RULE**  Do not put more than one or two products in one direct mail piece. The reason you don’t do this is that it tends to confuse people. You want to keep the piece as simple and straight forward as possible. Cluttered and confusing promo goes in the trash un-read.

Next step, based on the target market and what you are offering what is the best form of direct mail to use. Refer to http://www.wilsonprinting.net/Featured/we-do-direct-mail-marketing.html for a break down on each type of direct mail and the best use for each.

The final step is setting up a tracking system.

1. Everyone in your company has been briefed on the direct program you are doing.
2. Everyone should have a print out of the piece. They should know when the piece is being mailed.
3. Everyone who has any customers should be drilled to ask the customer “How they heard about your company”. It is important to ask because sometimes people do not volunteer that information.
   1. If you have the web address on the mail piece be sure to ask what sent them to your website.
   2. If you use goggle analytics you will see the hits to your website will go up 3 – 5 days after you send out a direct mail piece. Most people today will go to the web to research and find out more information about a company they are considering doing business.
   3. Make sure your website is set up to direct people to call you. Some business models work well for online ordering but most need human interaction to close the sale.
4. Everyone who has contact with customers should have a little statistic sheet in their area where they can write down the number of calls coming in. You should have them turn in these sheets each week. Best tracking sheets would have a place to write the customer’s name and the date they called. This gives you a tool to see how many leads were converted to sales. If conversion rate is low you can track down why. Wrong product, wrong offer or poor sales skills are common whys for low conversion. Some products have a longer sales cycle so you may need to look at conversion over a few month period.
5. Calculate ROI. Refer to marketing article "What Is A Customer Really Worth To Your Business" for the formula on how to calculate an ROI for your business.

Checklist for mailing

• Target market identified. Basic list, who are they, how much money to they earn and where do they live?
• Product chosen to market. Does the prospect mailing list match with the product?
  
• Benefits of product identified. Are they clearly described.
  
• Price point of product. Is it competitive?
  
• Special offer that expires.
  
• Testimonials gathered and included on the ad.
  
• How do you want them to respond. Is it included in the ad?
  
• What type of direct mail is best for the target customer and will be best received by the customer.
• Target mail date. Does it give them enough time to respond before your offer expires?
  
• Employees briefed on the program.

We hope this checklist helps you with your direct mail program. Direct mail is one of the most effective and cost effective forms of advertising. There is not another advertising medium that is as target-able, track-able or gives as immediate response as Direct Mail. The above are common areas that can cause a Direct Mail program to fail.

Mark Hale, CEO Wilson Printing