Direct mail marketing tips

If you want to increase your sales quickly, a solid direct mail campaign is the way to do it. Direct mail allows you to increase your visibility with your customers and it allows you to promote your products to a captive audience. Direct mail advertising usually comes in the forms of catalogs, brochures, newsletters, and postcards. The information you receive through a direct mail campaign can be used to educate your customers or it can be used to get your customers to complete a sale. Here are some tips to help you create a successful direct mail campaign:

Tip # 1 - Get a good list

One of the most important aspects of running a successful direct mail campaign comes down to your list. Far too often businesses do not have software that integrates all of their different lists and gets rid of the duplicate or invalid addresses. Combing several Excel files is bound to leave you with a few duplicates. You will also get duplicates from employees that re-enter customer information. To avoid duplicates for the future, use phone number look-ups versus name look-ups. This way you will pull up the account that is listed under that number and you will avoid re-keying the information.

Spend some time filtering through your list. Are you still sending catalogs to customers that have not ordered in 10 years? Perhaps you should take them off the direct mail list for the larger, expensive promotions. If this customer is a lost cause, remove them from your database altogether. The only bad thing about this is that their name may re-appear if you purchase a new mailing list.

Always have someone spend time adjusting the addresses that are returned. Sometimes an invalid entry, like a wrong zip code, will be the reason why you are not receiving attention from your customers. Whenever you get a return to sender direct mail piece, either update them in the database or remove them if they have moved. Return to sender pieces can quickly add up and cost your company a ton of money.

Tip # 2 - Create an exciting piece

Open up your mailbox and sort through all the different direct mail pieces that have been sent to you, which ones actually capture your attention? If you want people to respond to your direct mail campaign, you need to create compelling advertising pieces that will compel them to act.

If anything, they should catch their attention and cause them to at least read or flip through the brochure, catalog, or newsletter. Since printing up catalogs and newsletters can get expensive, consider only printing the cover in color and the rest in black and white. This will allow you to catch the attention of your customers with an impressive cover and they will look at your marketing piece and hopefully act upon it.

If you are dealing with budget constraints, try other direct mail pieces like postcards. A postcard provides you with a great opportunity to reach your target audience for a fraction of the cost of catalog mailers. Try to use action words to entice your customers to visit your web site for more information.

Tip # 3 - Audience

The last tip to remember with a direct mail campaign is to find the right audience. Every marketing promotion you do will target a different audience so it is important to neglect some names from the list that may not be interested. If you purchase a mailing list, find out what type of audience these individuals are before you buy the list so you can figure out if they are even included in your target audience.