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B2B Direct Mail Lists: Ask These Questions Before Renting.
If the most important part of any business-to-business direct
mail package is the list, how can you be sure that you have a
good list before you drop your money (and your reputation) in
the mailbox? Answer: Ask the right questions before you...
Direct Mail Advertising: A Key Ingredient For Successful Business Growth
Direct Mail Advertising: A Key Ingredient For Successful Business Growth By Keturah Whitaker
In today’s highly competitive economy, it is essential that you promote your business with marketing materials that strategically position your...
Direct Mail - For Small Businesses
We hear a lot of talk about junk mail nowadays. Many people will tell you that they dump it straight in the trash. But why do you think so many organisations send out so called junk mail - because it works! I dump most of my junk mail just like...
Eight Common Direct Mail Mistakes.
Some companies that use direct mail to sell their products and services are like the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn't there. They repeat the same mistakes, and enjoy the same poor results. Here are their eight most...
Eleven Ideas to Generate More Direct Mail Responses
Eleven Ideas to Generate More Direct Mail Responses
1. When writing copy for your direct mail marketing pieces, make sure to indent the first line of each paragraph. It, literally, pulls your potential customers into the copy you've written.
2....
How To Get Past C-Level Gatekeepers With Your B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation Sales Letters
If your business uses direct mail to reach C-level
prospects, you face a unique challenge: getting past
the gatekeeper.
Gatekeepers are usually found in Fortune 1000 firms,
where the CEO, CFO, CIO and other chief executive
officers are...
How to get prospects to open your direct mail envelopes.
In direct mail, you have a formidable enemy—the wastepaper basket. Your prospects take one look at your mailing envelope and decide if they will open it or fling it into the trash can (or recycling box). One way to persuade them to open your...
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...
Increase Repeat Business and Referrals with Direct Mail
So you have been writing mortgages like crazy now for the last few years. You have a pretty big database of customers and hopefully you have been getting and keeping full contact information for them. An organized database is the first key to...
RAISE FUNDS FOR YOUR NONPROFIT USING AN ANUUAL DIRECT MAIL PROGRAM
A good annual direct mail solicitation program can produce unrestrictive operating funds for your nonprofit organization year after year. And such an annual direct mail program, if done right, should produce more funding for your organization each...
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Seven reasons to use direct mail for sales lead generation.
1. Personal
Unlike an advertisement in a trade publication, which can be read by anyone, your sales letter arrives at your prospect’s place of business as a piece of personal communication from your mind to his. Also, unlike any other medium, direct mail can be personalized (Dear Mr. Smith) and customized to each reader (“As an IT manager, you know that . . .”), showing your prospect that you know about him by name and understand his business in particular.
2. Cost effective
Advertising by its very nature is expensive. To reach a lot of people, you need to spend a lot of money. Direct mail, on the other hand, only targets the prospects you want to reach. Instead of pitching your product to a huge audience of potential buyers, you aim your sales message only at prospects most likely to buy.
3. Breaks through the clutter
Your ad can easily get lost among dozens of competing ads in a trade newspaper. Your sales message is also easily forgotten on radio or television unless you repeat it many times, which is expensive. But a simple letter, addressed to your prospect by name and arriving on her desk in the morning mail (which she must open), cuts through the media clutter and gets her attention.
4. Measurable ROI
Direct mail is one of the best mediums for measuring the return on your marketing dollar (or pound or yen). Simply code your business reply cards, and count how many return to you in the mail. Then calculate how
many of those replies generate a sales meeting or a sale. Now you know immediately--and exactly--how effective your mailing has been. Direct mail numbers never lie.
5. Predictable
One advantage of knowing the success rates of your past mailings is that you can predict the success of future mailing. If you mail the same package with the same offer to a similar group of prospects at the same time of year, you can predict how many responses you will receive, and how many of those will translate into sales.
6. Can be improved through testing
Because you can measure your direct mail results, you can also test your mailings. Test one package against another, one list against another, one offer against another, and you’ll discover what works and what fails. That way you’ll spend your marketing dollars where they are most effective (without relying on guess work or hunches).
7. Immediate
General advertising builds brand awareness. Sales brochures inform. But a direct mail letter asks for action now. So if you need to generate sales leads, and don’t have time to wait for your ad to appear in “IT Buyers Quarterly,” send a direct mail letter and wait a week or so for a response.
About the Author
Alan Sharpe is a business-to-business direct mail copywriter, sales lead consultant and owner of www.sharpecopy.com. Alan helps businesses attract qualified prospects using creative, compelling, cost-effective direct mail marketing.
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