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3 Direct Mail Ideas That Almost Any Business Can Use To Increase Sales and Profits
Sending direct mail to current and past customers is an easy way to improve existing customer relationships, and drive revenue and profit growth.
This article discusses three strategies that are consistently profitable across varied...
7 Secrets to Winning the Direct Mail Game
If you want to find lots of new customers, here's seven things you'll want to be sure to check before you mail the first piece.
1. Look at your direct mail as your recipient will look at it.
This is much easier to say than to do. To create...
B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation Success Needs Planning, Testing, Measuring.
Is Direct Mail Useless for DMers?
Is direct mail useless at helping direct mail businesses
generate leads?
That's the question I was asked last week by a reader of Alan
Sharpe's B2B Direct Mail Tactics newsletter. Here is her...
Design Direct Mail Postcards Back-to-Front to Boost Response Rates
Conventional wisdom says that the front of a direct mail postcard is for the picture and the back is for the address, stamp and a short message. But some savvy direct marketers design their postcards the other way around—and boost response rates as...
Direct Mail Deadlines: How To Use Them Effectively
Giving your prospect a deadline for ordering, particularly when that deadline is a date and not simply a period of days ("Order within the next 30 days"), will outpull mailings with no deadline almost every time.
But you need to be cautious about...
Direct Mail Formats: How to Choose the Right One
Which pulls the best response, a postcard, a self-mailer or a letter? The answer, you’ll be irritated to know, is clear. It depends. The success of your mailing depends on who you mail to (your list), what you promise (your offer), when you mail...
Direct Mail Response Rate Boosters (10 of them)
1. Mail to a different list Your list is the most important part of your direct mail campaign. Who you mail to is more important than what you mail. So if you are persuaded that your offer is attractive, your creative is compelling and your...
How to Write a Direct Mail Fundraising Letter (Four Tips)
1. Address your reader as a friend, not as “Friend.” When was the last time you received a letter from someone dear to you, addressing you as “Dear Friend?” Never, right? The days of the Dear Friend letter are dead. I heard recently of a...
Read This, Sell More: Direct Mail Marketing Is About Benefits, Not Features
Your customer wants a cleaner kitchen, not a kitchen cleaner.
Your customers are interested in benefits, not features. So sell benefits in your sales letters.
The difference between a feature and a benefit comes down to this: A feature is what...
Writing direct mail that really, really works
So, you have something you want to sell. It may be a product, a service, or a cause. It could be a membership, a subscription, or a motor car. It might be paper, health products or the idea that the humane society or the Alzheimer’s association is...
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Direct Mail
Direct Mail
The web is a most versatile and often misused medium for direct marketing. In this email, I will share tips and techniques to make the web a major advertising tool for your sales and marketing efforts.
Do you have a website? A Web Newsletter? A mailing list of e-mail addresses for customers? Do you track and test everything? You can use the web to get sales in lots of exciting ways which are dependant on technology that’s available at the time.
Almost everyone is just too busy running their businesses to take the time or to give advertising much thought. This is just crazy.
Whether you budget is £600 or £6000, I can show you how it’s done effectively time after time after time!
So here's what I do when I start working with clients and I would like to offer it to you as a gift now. Have a look at this list of ten great ways of marketing. I guarantee, that nearly all web site owners will not have every one of these simple methods in place right now.
Please pick at least two that you're either not doing, or not doing that well - and MAKE A DECISION to add them to your marketing mix in the weeks ahead:
Direct Mail
Internet Marketing
Email Marketing
Advertising
Telephone Marketing
Direct Sales
Strategic Alliances
Referral Systems
PR
Additional Products/Services
We will tackle these in order
Direct Mail
Direct mail is often overused and badly done. It’s got a bad reputation over the years, mainly due to spammers, used instead of the telephone or by con artists seeking their next victim.
There are a lot of myths and nonsense about mailings. You may want to print this out, because in my continuing efforts to help you reach success – I am about to share the secrets of direct mail - I’d be surprised if the contents of this mail does not save you thousands of pounds over the next 12 months.
By the way, if you are totally new to Direct Mail - “It’s anything sent by post, sales letters, electronic mail or brochures etc”
I want to dispel some things about DM to you. “Direct Mail doesn’t work” . This ingenious conclusion is arrived at by the fact that most people throw most of the mail we get directly in the bin - therefore the thinking is that it's a waste of money. The truth is that 90 out of 100 people might throw your mailing in the bin, but if 5 people look at it, 5 more read it and one of those 5 buys from you - you may well have a highly profitable mailing.
Last week I sent 400 emails to potential clients, and got 37 replies. That’s to say that 37 people actually read my mail, and I got exactly 9 new clients as a result.
Now what would happen if I doubled my mailings next week? I could expect from 800 mails, about 80 replies and maybe 20 sales!
And that’s easily doable by the way, because I’ve done it. But saying that, your mailing may not work – it depends on what you say, pricing of your product and some products may just not be suited to an email campaign. It’s very much
a numbers game, but one thing is certain, email is free!
(A word of warning though) You have to enter this knowing that most of your mailings will go unread, but at least it’s cheaper than other advertising methods.
Large companies like Capital One, know their mailings DO work – they’ve spent a fortune fine tuning and testing these campaigns. But just to warn you – direct mail can fail, and they are the ones, usually, small to medium businesses send out, because they don’t understand what they are really doing.
If it’s done right, it will make your profits increase dramatically, and when it’s done badly – it can eat into a budget, so be very careful!
There are 2 types of mailings:
Potential Customers
Existing Customers
If you don’t do much mailing – start doing some now. It’s easy to not email out of fear of upsetting clients, scared of bombarding them with too many mails, thus losing a sale.
That’s crazy and it’s to nobodys advantage.
Actually, most sales emails are helpful and quite genuine. I was once told “You’ve got to be mad to not listen to a salesman – they might have something you need!” So next time you receive a mail or telesales call, consider that it could well be in your favour.
And there really is nothing wrong with sending out 2 mails each week.. So don’t worry.
I have noticed that many clients are sitting with 1000’s of email addresses – yet they aren’t contacting these clients. That’s like throwing money down the drain. They could say NO, then again they could say YES to your product. Imagine if a further 10 bought your services next week – how do you feel about not emailing those customers now?
Try it today….. Think of something you can offer these customers, you must have something you can offer! Even something for free. Send them a letter and measure the response. If it works, mail them and measure the results. If it keeps on working, keep on doing it!
The best email is a personal communication with a customer you know. It may read as follows:
Dear-----------
I wanted to follow up after your purchase of (your product) on (date) to see how it's working out for you and to thank you for your continuing business. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know by return email, or feel free to call my private phone number.
Many Thanks
Regards
Mr X
Your customer is going to open, read and appreciate an email like this. They may even respond to it, and even if they don't, it doesn't look like spam or bug anyone. And they probably will appreciate that.
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Give it a go – you’ll be surprised.
Regards
Christopher Given
www.busigen.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher is a Sales Promotion Expert and owner of Busigen.com - an Office directory portal that holds company information to do with an Office environment.
http://www.Busigen.com
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