Marketing Letters
The right direct mail marketing campaign will bring in new business, improve your company’s reputation, and help you retain loyal customers—the wrong marketing letters will be a waste of money.
So how do you make sure your direct mail marketing campaign is effective? There are a few things you should know before you get started—use the following tips to make the most out of your campaign.
Choose the Right Mailing List
The right mailing list is the first (and possibly most important) key to a successful direct mail campaign. Sending marketing letters out is a much heftier investment than an email newsletter or online advertisement—you need to target specific potential customers with the right materials to ensure a worthwhile return on investment.
Instead of mailing something generic out to a huge group of people, do some research and analysis. Who is your target demographic? Are they a certain age or gender? Do they live in a specific area? What income bracket is your target customer in? Know the answers to these questions before you choose a mailing list. If you are purchasing a list, this Experian article recommends the following three options:
- A specialty list that caters to a specific demographic.
- A customized list that lets you choose the criteria for the people on the list.
- A cloned list that uses traits of your existing loyal customers to find other people like them.
Whether you are purchasing a list from a third party or crafting your own, focused research can help you choose the right target audience. This allows you to invest your money in effective customized campaigns.
Use Every Day Direct Mail (EDDM) to target a specific neighborhood or create a postcard designed to appeal specifically to women over 50. Sending customized mailers to a smaller target audience is much more effective than mass mailing weak and broad materials to a huge group of people.
Offer Something Valuable, Useful, Or Interesting
If you don’t want your mailers to end up in the trash pile, include something valuable, useful, or interesting. Consider the following options:
- Include discount code for online purchases.
- Provide a coupon for $5 toward a specific item.
- Tell customers about an upcoming sale or special event.
- Give them a refrigerator magnet with important phone numbers on it.
- Help them learn how to do something—include workout tips, sewing instructions, or dessert recipes. (Of course, whatever you include should be related to your products or services).
- Include behind-the-scenes photos of your manufacturing process or an infographic about how your product is made.
Providing something valuable or useful will make your marketing letters worth opening and holding onto.
Invest In Quality
People toss out junk mail every day without even opening the envelope. How do you make sure your mailers stand apart from the junk? Invest in quality materials and quality design.
If you want potential customers to think your mailers are worth opening and reading, they should be printed professionally on high quality paper and sent out in nice envelopes. Skimping on materials makes your mail look like spam and your company look cheap. Many print shops can even mail things out for you after they print them—making your job even easier.
Direct mail marketing campaigns can be an effective investment—you just have to do things right. Use the above tips to make the most of your next marketing letters campaign.
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Marketing Letters
Image Courtesy of Hubspot Marketing
