Many business owners struggle to make direct mail marketing work; and by “work”, I mean profitable.
There are many reasons for this, with the biggest and most obvious being they don’t really know what’s working and what isn’t.
So above all else, and the FIRST thing I encourage you to get right is measurement and testing. You don’t have to be particularly clever or sophisticated about this, and you don’t need a college degree in mathematics.
All you need to be able to do is track exactly when a bit of business came from your direct mail and when it didn’t. It can be as easy as getting them to call in to your store with the letter in hand, but even slightly more sophisticated techniques such as having a unique URL and website to send them to (so you KNOW anyone hitting that site must have come from your letter) isn’t rocket science.
Get Your Mail Delivered!
The second direct mail marketing tip is to get your letter delivered to the right person. Obvious, yes; but not as easy as it sounds.
I regularly get marketing letters from my bank. I know where they’re from because they have the name of the bank on the outside, and they use a cheap and nasty shiny envelope completely different from the ones they use for “official” business. What’s more, they use pre-printed frank on the envelope.
The upshot is, I know exactly what’s inside it and I never bother to open it. In the shredder it goes. Bye-bye… no sale.
What they ought to be doing is what I’m going to tell you to do now: use a “live” stamp and a non-standard envelope. Put your return address in the corner if you must, but don’t put your company name. And hand-write the name and address (please don’t send it to “the owner”), or if you can’t do that, at least use a passable and realistic handwriting font.
The whole point of this effort is to make the letter look like it’s a personal communication from you to the addressee. It looks personal and from the postman’s and gatekeeper’s point of view, it might be expected. Chances are neither of them will dare do anything but make sure it ends up in the hands of the right person.
Get Your Mail Opened!
The good news is, if you’ve done what I told you to do above, your mail is going to get not only delivered, but opened, too. After all, the person receiving it is also likely to assume it’s a personal letter.
But here’s what to do if you want to practically guarantee your direct mail gets opened: make it “lumpy”. Literally put something in the envelope to pique their interest and curiosity.
And it doesn’t have to be anything expensive: recently some of my clients included a cheap packet of supermarket party-balloons in their mail. In the past, I’ve had them sending party-crackers, twigs from the garden, and packets of peanuts.
An extra advantage here is you can (and should) “theme” the letter to make it relevant to the “lumpy” inclusion. With the balloons, we said something along the lines of how they’d want to celebrate after experiencing the benefits of my client’s products; with the peanuts, it was referring to the cost of their services, and so on. Use your imagination.
And finally…
Get Your Mail Read And Acted Upon
If your mail isn’t delivered, it can’t be opened. If it’s not opened, it can’t be read; and if it’s not read… it can’t be acted upon (and then it can’t make you any money!).
Unfortunately, this is the part where you’re going to have to put the time and effort in to write the copy. There’s no point going to all the trouble of sending a hand-addressed letter with a live stamp and a lumpy “grabber” in it, if your copy puts the reader into a coma.
But don’t despair. Writing readable, engaging and persuasive copy isn’t THAT hard. True, you might not become a world-class copywriter, but there’s every chance you can not only do much better than you think you can, but also do much better than your competitors.
The keys to succeeding with copywriting are to really understand the AIDA formula (get their Attention, pique their Interest, arouse their Desire, and finally get them to take Action), and to present yourself in an open, honest, and conversational way. Don’t write like a pompous ass like they told you to at school or in college.
Write from one friend to another, because people will buy from those they like and trust, and that calls for developing a relationship in your letter. You can’t do that while writing like a lawyer!
So there you have it: 3 direct mail marketing tips pretty much guaranteed to turn your direct mail into a profit center.
Jon McCulloch, The Small Business Saviour, is Europe’s leading direct marketer. His sole aim is to grow YOUR business by 50% to 250% in the next 12 months, regardless of the economy or the downturn. Discover the truth about small business marketing here: small-business-marketing-tips.com