Wait—wasn’t email supposed to kill direct mail? Despite the dire prophecies in the early days of the internet world, direct mail is NOT dead.
In fact, with everyone else focusing their efforts online, your message sent via old-fashioned “snail mail” now stands a better chance than ever of getting read.
Email is definitely an important tool for the marketing tool box. For keeping in touch with prospects and clients, email’s cost effectiveness can’t be beat. So you can reach out to your audience often, without reaching too far into your wallet.
But direct mail has its advantages as well. Three big advantages are the potential to…
- Generate higher quality leads. A study found that that prospects who respond to a print mailing are 10% to 20% more likely to convert to a qualified lead than email responders.
- Target a market more precisely. Obviously, it’s much easier to do location-based targeting with physical addresses. But these mailing lists also offer more demographic and buying data, which makes it much easier to home in on exactly the type of prospect you want.
- Capture a prospects’ attention. If recipients don’t recognize your name in the “From” line, they may not even glance at the email. But an eye-catching postcard or envelope can’t be missed when they’re sorting through the mail.
But together, email and direct mail are an unbeatable combination. In fact,customers spent 25% more when businesses used both direct mail and email in their marketing, according to research by Royal Mail.
Postcards and sales letters are two relatively inexpensive ways to snail mail your prospects. Here are a few tips for making them more effective:
Great results start with a great list. The more targeted your list, the more targeted you can make your message, and the more response you will get. Average direct-mail response rates are typically in the 1% to 2-3% range. Yet I once got a 16% response from a very small, targeted mailing to marketing directors at financial services agencies. And the response doubled when I followed up by phone.
Keep it simple. This means one problem, one solution. You can mention other services in a P.S., but keep the main copy and any materials you include (such as a brochure) focused on one issue.
Include a call to action. Don’t be shy, you need to tell readers exactly what to do next. Also, having multiple ways to respond (e.g. email, phone, visit your website, sign-up for a free report) will increase response.
You MUST follow-up. On average, it takes at least three contacts (some say as high as 27 contacts) before people will respond. Call, send an email, mail another letter or postcard, but make sure you contact them at least three times with similar messages before you move on.
Tip…If you’re doing a large mailing and plan to do phone follow-up, send it out in “waves” so you aren’t overwhelmed by the number of calls to make.
Track your response. Tracking can save you time and money next time so don’t skip it. A relatively easy and inexpensive way to do this is to set up a website address exclusively for each piece of the mailing and point it to the correct page on your website. Then you can measure results from web stats.
At any rate, if your marketing campaign only uses email or direct mail, it’s time to expand your horizons…and your bottom line.
Photo source: Nieve44/La Luz at Flickr shared under a Creative Commons license
