With direct mail you can target the exact prospect you want, at their exact address with the ONLY MEDIA THAT GUARANTEES a 100% OPEN RATE and the highest attention rate of any media. Isn’t that the holy grail of marketing, being able to target the exact prospect  you want, at the exact time, with the exact message, and guarantee that they SEE IT.

This is exactly what direct mail delivers and just two of the many reasons that make direct mail so powerful when done right. Let me repeat that, when done right as there are so many things that will kill a direct mail campaign before it even begins. Furthermore, for most industries, direct mail is one of the easiest media to track response rate and ROI. Therefore, you can take if from does direct mail work to this is exactly how well it worked for my business.

With all that said, the reason behind asking the question “Does Direct Mail Work.” Boils down to either one or a combination of the following 6 reasons.

1. I have tried direct mail in the past and it just didn’t work.
2. XXXX told me direct mail doesn’t work. Often this comes from a digital marketing company trying to sell the direct mail or could be a friend or colleague has told them that direct mail doesn’t work.
3. I just don’t really understand marketing in general and/or do not understand the capabilities of direct mail and how it really works.
4. I just don’t think it will work for my business.
5. Let’s really break down each of these reasons and bring some transparency to the heart of the questions.
6. I’ve tried direct mail in the past and it just didn’t work.

If this is you, here are the important questions that need to be asked.

Do you know who and where your mailers were sent to?

There needs to be a sound strategy behind selecting the right areas and prospects to target. Nothing will kill a direct mail campaign more than a bad list and sending your mailers to the wrong prospects in the wrong areas.

Do you have a copy of your last mailer?

This is an easy checkpoint to identify If your direct mail marketing was designed properly both from an aesthetic perspective and content perspective.

If your direct mail marketing wasn’t easy to read, easy to scan, did not have a strong call to action, a compelling offer, contained technical jargon and did not include strategic ad copy that would resonate with your prospective customers, you might as well toss your money down the toilet.

How did you track and/or gauge the effectiveness of your direct mail response and ROI?

Tracking your marketing efforts and determining how customers are finding your business is arguably one of the hardest parts. This becomes even more difficult when deploying a multi-channel marketing approach.

I often hear that call tracking was used to a client’s direct mail response rate. Unfortunately, in 99.9999% of all cases call tracking is NOT an accurate method to track direct mail response.

The reason being is that many prospects who receive your mailer will go online, read reviews and call from the number on Google or your website. The minute a call is made from any number other than the call tracking number on your mailer, you have lost all accuracy.

Although call tracking will show some results and does have some merit, It will only show you those that called from the number on the mailer and is not inclusive or indicative of all calls made from the number on google or your website, thus making it grossly inaccurate.

However, for businesses such as Home Services, HVAC, Plumbing, landscaping, Power Washing, Construction, etc. Auto Repair, Dental Practices, Fitness Centers, Insurance, Financial, Education, etc. etc. etc. that acquire their customers address when they become a customer, it is very easy to attribute ROI.

This is done with a very simple report called a match back report. The match back report takes the new customers your business acquires after your direct mail marketing has been sent out and compares It to the list of prospects who have received your direct mail marketing matching back a detailed list of every new customer acquired that was targeted with direct mail.

Of course, it cannot tell you if your direct mail was the only reason,  they became a customer. For example, the direct mail got their attention but your website and google reviews is what pushed them over the edge. The latter you will likely never be able to solve for at scale and you could spend a decade determining if you want to consider it first, touch last touch, etc., but it surely does give you the ability to  attribute direct mail as one of the touches, if not the primary touch that got them to become a customer at your business.

For other types of business such as restaurants, retail, etc. that are not able to acquire a customer’s address at time of purchase, it is likely you will never know your exact response rate. In these cases, the best you can do is count coupons or try and track special offers with unique codes to tie them back to an offer directly from one of your mailers. Many suggest look at sales as a determining factor. As intuitive as those sounds, I have seen a customer who are getting a response and have declining sales due to operational issues.

XXXX told me direct mail doesn’t work.

First, we must ask, who is providing you with this information. If it is a company trying to sell you another form of marketing and they are bashing another marketing channel, then you should probably just disregard it and/or ask them to provide you with fact-based evidence to substantiate their claim as opposed to what they think or what they say they are seeing. I’d be willing to be they can’t provide you with anything accurate.

If it is a friend, family member or colleague, it can only have come their opinion or from an experience they have had in the past with direct mail. If it is opinion based and not fact based than it can be disregarded. If it is based on previous experience, ask them the questions above addressed above to uncover if they executed their direct mail campaign properly and/or accurately tracked their direct mail campaign results to substantiate their feedback.

I just don’t really understand marketing in general and/or do not understand the capabilities of direct mail and how it really works.

This is a fair concern. Most business owners and managers aren’t marketing experts. Even those business owner managers that do understand marketing or have some expertise may not be the authority on a specific channel of marketing like SEO, Direct Mail, etc. Therefore, it’s always a best practice to find an expert in that field and rely on them to help you.

The key is finding the right expert which is the biggest challenge. Fortunately using google can help make this process much more efficient. I recommend by starting by looking for companies that have expertise with your specific industry and have the google reviews to match.

I just don’t think it will work for my business.

You may be right about this concern. Direct mail may not work well for your businesses, or it may work, but you may be able to

get a much better ROI using another form of marketing. This can only be determined by consulting with a real direct mail expert.

For example, let’s assume you owned an auto body repair shop. I would not recommend direct mail as the best use of your marketing dollars and the most viable way for your business to acquire new customers.

The reason being is that the need for auto body repair cannot be determined by someone’s demographic or where they live and there is no direct mail list you can buy that breaks down vehicle owners that may need auto body repairs. A vehicles owners need for an auto body repair will typically be determined by a recent event or immediate need they have to repair  their vehicle.
A better use of an auto body repair shops marketing dollars would be better deployed to channels like local SEO, optimizing your google business profile, executing PPC. These channels will ensure you are optimized so that when a prospect has a need arise and they head to google to find a local body shop that yours is at the top of the list.

In summation, direct mail is extremely effective when executed strategically for the right type of business.

To learn more about how Best4mailing can help your business strategically acquire and retain more customers the right way. Contact us today.

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Sending time-sensitive materials out too late can hurt your response rates. And encountering last-minute problems with your direct mailer can lead to unexpected delays. To help you avoid these issues, we’ve put together some direct mail timing tips. They’ll help you make sure your direct mail hits mailboxes at the right time for maximum effect.

Anticipate Your Busy Seasons

You probably know when your busy times are, but you might not know that you should mail to prospects way before your busy season even starts. Sending mail well in advance helps you avoid last-minute marketing when you’re at your busiest. Not to mention the added bonus of beating your competition to your prospects’ mailboxes.

Effectively timing your direct mail is easy. If you get busy during the summer, ramp up your marketing efforts during the winter and spring. On the other hand, if business increases over the winter, get your mail in front of prospects during the summer and fall.

Here are just a few examples of industries with well-defined busy seasons, along with some suggestions for when they should mail:

• HVAC – Mail in the spring to schedule summer A/C maintenance and in the fall to schedule winter furnace maintenance.
• Fitness Centers – Mail in December to attract New Year’s resolutioners and in late winter or early spring for those looking to get fit for summer.
• Automotive – Mail in the spring to schedule tune-ups before summer vacations and in the fall to schedule winterization for cold weather.
• Lawn Care – Mail over the winter to secure spring and summer business. If you provide leaf removal services, mail to customers again over the summer to lock down fall jobs.

Mailing to prospects more frequently during your busy season is another great way to use timing to your advantage. Try mailing in the months leading up to your busy season, right before it starts, and even a few times during to stay top of mind. Just make sure you’re balancing frequency with your budget to avoid overspending.

Mail Time-Sensitive Materials Immediately

Timing is especially important for companies that offer timed promotions, coupons with expiration dates, or who use other time-sensitive content in their advertisements.

Promotions and Coupons

Getting coupons to customers before your sale ends may seem like a no-brainer, but delays in the direct mail process and other unforeseen problems can put you behind schedule. Mail to prospects well in advance to give them time to think about your offer and figure out when they can use it. Or you could avoid timing issues altogether by using the phrase “Limited Time Offer” instead of strict expiration dates.

Time-Sensitive Content

A great strategy for staying top-of-mind is to include useful information with your pieces. This often comes in the form of time-sensitive information like sports schedules, calendars, maintenance reminders, and more. To make sure your pieces remain useful – and to increase the likelihood of your prospects holding on to them – you need to mail as soon as the information becomes available. This helps ensure you’re delivering topical, relevant, and timely information before your competition.

Communicate with Your Direct Mail Vendor

Staying one step ahead is a great way to keep your direct mail campaign on schedule. But you also need to work closely with your direct mail provider to minimize potential issues that can derail the process. Ask your direct mailer these important questions to help ensure your pieces go out on time:

• Do you have a backlog of jobs, or can you start right away? If they can’t get to your job for a month and you need to mail in two weeks, you may need to look elsewhere.
• How long does it usually take to complete a job of my size? This answer can vary greatly between direct mail companies depending on how much work they’re doing for you, how busy they are, etc.
• Are you a full-service direct mail company, or are some aspects of my job outsourced? If they handle elements like design and printing externally, it may take longer to complete your job.
• Can you deliver my pieces on a specific day? Theoretically, any mailer can guarantee delivery by a certain date, but it’s impossible to promise a delivery date with absolute certainty. If you want to control when your mail gets delivered, EDDM® may be your best option. Since you drop your pieces off at the post office yourself, your mail should be delivered the next day. But even this isn’t a sure thing.

A trustworthy direct mail company will let you know beforehand whether they can finish your job on time. But if you haven’t worked with them before, there’s no way to be 100% sure they’ll deliver. That’s why you should always build an extra day or two into your schedule to anticipate any unforeseen delays. If problems do arise, you’ll be ready.

Conclusion

It’s easy to overlook timing when planning your direct mail, but it’s a crucial component you can’t afford to forget. Mailing in advance of your busy seasons, timing your promotions, and communicating with your direct mailer all help you get your pieces to prospects at the right time. Get the timing right, and you’re well on your way to maximizing your direct mail success.

The post Direct Mail Timing Tips for Maximum Impact appeared first on Best4mailing.

Maybe it’s time to consider a strategy that puts your message straight into the hands of the consumers you want to reach: direct mail marketing.

Unlike bulk media advertising, which has no particular target audience and is largely ignored by those it does reach, direct mail ads are personalized, tangible and pretty darn hard to miss.

When done right, applying marketing psychological principles to direct mail campaigns can be extremely effective, and help you stand out in the mailbox. These tips will help give you your edge.

Choose the Right Colors

One of the most important things to know about creating any advertisement is this: viewers skim. If you want your audience to actually dig in and read your ad, you have to first catch their eye, and color is the #1 most effective tool at your disposal.

Over the years, the field of color psychology has revealed a lot about how color affects the human brain. But no matter how much you learn about general color associations, it’s important to remember these three things:

1. There are always exceptions based on individual experiences.
2. Different cultures have different color associations.
3. Color associations evolve. Green didn’t always mean “eco-friendly,” but is sure does now!

So, before you pick your colors, do a little research. And, when in doubt, don’t hesitate to enlist the help of a professional graphic designer.

Make Your Font Work for You

Like every aspect of ad design, the type of font you use should depend on what you’re trying to convey. Many amateur ad designers will try to find the weirdest font they can in the hope of catching their viewers’ eye, but the truth is that’s seldom effective.

It’s not that you can’t use “fun” fonts — it’s that you have to use them deliberately and appropriately.

Otherwise, you may wind up being the next Daniel Gilbert, who to this day is still mocked for an angry rant he wrote nearly seven years ago. The rant itself may have been well-founded — the team he owns had just lost the legendary LeBron James. But it was written in one of the most notoriously silly fonts known to typography — Comic Sans.

Don’t be a Daniel Gilbert. Decide what kind of mood you want your ad to create, then choose fonts that convey that mood.

Find the Balance Between Unique and Professional

If document design isn’t your forte, the best thing you can do for your direct mail campaign is to enlist the help of a graphic designer or even a graphic design student at the local university. If you’re determined to take on the challenge yourself, though, here are a few key dos and don’ts:

Do:

• Experiment with uncommon shapes, sizes and textures of stationary.
• Make use of contrast in your designs. You can really catch someone’s eye by using complementary colors or two extremely different styles of font in one ad.
• Display your text in an organized, easy-to-read manner.
• Choose a tone that matches the goals of your ad and conveys your business the way you want it to be conveyed.

Don’t:

• Use too many uncommon design qualities in one place. The ad will look too busy.
• Go overboard with contrasting design elements. Using more than one or two will make your ad look amateurish.
• Choose text that’s difficult to read, or display text at unreadable sizes or angles on the page.
• Resort to over-the-top, “look at me!” tactics. “DO YOU NEED NEW TIRES? WE HAVE THEM!” comes across as yelling at the reader.

A word of caution: “Unique” is not synonymous with “anything out of the ordinary will do.”

For instance, if you’re advertising your lawn care service, it’s both misleading and ineffective to slap down a giant picture of a monster truck. Monster truck enthusiasts will resent the false advertisement, and people who need a new lawn care service will dismiss the seemingly irrelevant ad before reading it. Lose-lose.

Learn From Other Ads

Start looking at the advertisements you see. Which ones catch your eye? Which ones annoy you? Which ones would you have never noticed if you hadn’t been keeping an eye out for them?

Take note of the colors, designs, fonts and overall advertising tactics that seem to work and seem to flop. What did you learn?  If there’s a better way to apply marketing psychology principles to that piece of mail, you have an idea for your next campaign.  Fortunately, these principles can combine in multiple ways. Mix it up. Give people an experience they can’t get digitally.

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