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Informative Articles

Direct Mail Postcard Rules
It’s a fact that your customers are your best leads. This means that the most likely people to purchase your products and/or services are the ones who have paid for them before. It’s also a fact that it costs far less money to keep a customer than...
Direct Marketing Strategies for Holiday Email Promotions
Tis the season to leverage customer interest data for successful email marketing. All of the information gathered throughout the year from customer purchases, customer feedback surveys, and other behavior offers direct marketers necessary...
Has the Internet Killed Off the Direct Mail Baron?
Has the Internet Killed Off the Direct Mail Baron? Over the past 30 years, direct mail has been responsible for generating vast amounts of money for businesses and individuals alike, but is it still an effective means of marketing? The short...
How to Increase Direct Mail Advertising Response Rates, Even During the Anthrax Scare!
How to Increase Direct Mail Advertising Response Rates, Even During the Anthrax Scare! A couple nights ago, I was watching the evening news. There was a piece about the anthrax scare. The story was about the fact that everyone is scared to...
In B2B direct mail, don’t ask for the order.
Business-to-business direct mail is different from business-to-consumer direct mail in one vital way: sales cycles are longer. A senior vice-president of information technology doesn't buy a $1.5-million network upgrade by dropping a business reply...
Increase Direct Mail Response Rates (And Revenue) By Segmenting Your List.
If you want to increase revenue using direct mail, you have two options: sell more to the customers you have, or find new customers and sell to them. The tricky part is knowing how to do that. I recommend that you start by segmenting...
Making Direct Mail Work for Small Businesses
If you own a small business, then you know the value of affordable and effective marketing. Unfortunately, many traditional and online advertising methods are becoming quite expensive. This article will explain direct mail guidelines and...
Three Cost-effective Ways To Use Direct Mail
Two of direct mail's biggest benefits are: - Its pinpoint targeting ability - Its ability to deliver a full and complete sales presentation of any length This makes direct mail a highly effective way to repeatedly expose your prospect to...
Using Direct Mail to Improve Business
Direct mail continues to be a very targeted and effective way to market to customers. It's far more likely to be read than e-mail promotions. Especially when coupled with offers, such as coupons, the medium can be a very cost effective method of...
Your Direct Mail Sales Letters Must Differentiate You
For two winters I heated my house with an old fashioned woodstove. I learned the art of reviving a bed of dying coals each chilly winter morning, adjusting the kindling, firewood and dampers just right so that the stove would heat my turn-of-the-...
 
 
 
Direct Mail --- The Followup Letter

Everyone know the importance of the sales letter. But many people fail to use one of the most critical elements of direct mail --- the followup letter.
Everyone knows to send out the sales letter. Most everyone knows to put in a reply card for the convenience of the prospect. And just about everyone knows the importance of a brochure. But most business people forget the one piece of direct mail that can very often clinch a sale...the follow-up letter.

Let's go through the direct mail piece. You send the sales letter, a reply card and, hopefully, you wrap it all in a tastefully selected envelope that will get the letter opened.

You get some reply cards back in the mail. Great! Now you've got some real live prospects. So you send them a brochure. But wait...something is missing. The prospect opens the envelope, takes out the brochure. He or she hopefully reads it. Then what?

Then what indeed. You need a letter in that envelope that tells the prospect what to do after the brochure is read. You need a follow-up letter.

Here are the points you want to put in the follow-up letter:

1. Thank the prospect for sending in the reply card.

2. Refer to the enclosed brochure. For example:

"As you'll notice when you read the enclosed brochure, our product will save your company hundreds of dollars monthly."

3. The third paragraph should sell a bit more. For example:

"Not only will it save you money but it will make your business attractive to your clients. They will want to do business with you."

4. Wrap up the benefits of your service

 


or product. Don't say you're the biggest in the state. Who cares but you? Tell the prospect what you can do for him or her. How will prospects benefit from using your product or service rather than that of a competitor? That's the point you want to make here.

5. Call for action on the prospects' part. Tell the prospect what you want him or her to do. If you want prospects to phone you, say that. If you want them to expect a personal call from you, say that. Whatever action you want prospects to take as a final action before the sale is made put in the next to the last paragraph.

6. Finally, make the final paragraph about two sentences long. Three or four at most. Put a powerful pull here to convince the prospect to take action. Persuade the prospect. Put a sense of urgency in you wrap-up without sounding too pushy. Make the prospect want to take action NOW.

For example, "Since your companies' money is important to you, save as much of it as you can. Let me show you how. Call me today. Start saving tomorrow."

The follow-up letter can make the sale. It should be sent after every mailing to those people who have responded in any way. The follow-up letter will put money in your pockets.

About the Author

Susanna K. Hutcheson is a professional advertising and direct mail copywriter with clients all over the world. Visit her Web site at http://www.powerwriting.com. Her email address is powerwriter@powerwriting.com. Telephone: (316) 684-0457.