For my money, nothing is more effective at getting your brand in front of a prospect than Direct Mail. But if you’re a DM newbie, it’s easy to make mistakes that are sure to blow up your budget and leave you with few responses.
If you’re looking to incorporate Direct Mail as part of your strategy (which you should be), I’ve laid out 5 tips that will help make any campaign you run not only successful, but cost effective. These tips are things I’ve learned over the past decade of running B2B and B2C Direct Mail campaigns across multiple industries, and I still follow them to this day.
1) Choose a targeted audience: Ever hear the saying, “practice hard so the games are easy”? Well the Direct Mail equivalent is “Spend the time qualifying your prospects so you don’t blow away your budget on people who ignore your mailer.”
Direct Mail is not a “spray & pray” strategy where you send out as many pieces as possible hoping for a call. You need to do the prep work of weeding through your prospects so you’re not wasting money sending to people who are not likely to respond. So who is likely to respond? My favorite target is a prospect who has already engaged with you, either by downloading a piece of content from your website or by having an introductory call with a salesperson. Direct Mail is a perfect followup strategy for people who have showed interest, but are still shopping around. If you have a salesperson or sales team, they can do most of the heavy lifting here because they’ll know which prospects are most interested.
2) Understand the goal: Almost no one who receives your piece, no matter how great it is, is going to pick up the phone ready to buy. If they do, great. You deserve a raise and pat on the back for choosing the perfect prospect to send something to. But you should neither expect nor concern yourself with the idea that anyone will want to buy right away. Think of Direct Mail as a conversation re-starter for prospects who are past the first stage of the funnel. If you can get them to reach out, or follow through with whatever you asked them to do in your mailed piece, then you’ve won. Now it’s on you or your salesperson to build on the value and momentum that the Direct Mail piece created. Which leads nicely into the next idea…
3) Make your Call-to-Action “action worthy”: The unfortunate truth of any campaign is that the vast majority of people are going to ignore it. So for the 1%-4% that are statistically likely to respond in some way, make sure that you’re giving them something enticing to respond to. Your Call-to-Action doesn’t always have to be a call or email to a salesperson (in fact, often times it shouldn’t be). Push your prospects to a webinar or a new piece of content to download. Have them sign up their entire staff for a seminar where you, as the topic expert and authority, fly out to give them an hour-long presentation about some new development in their industry that will effect their livelihood. Remember…the point is to get your prospect to the next stage in the funnel so you can continue showing them why they’re missing out by not doing business with you.
4) The written message is more important than the object you’re sending: You could read an entire book about how to write an effective Direct Mail message (in fact, you should. Go pick up The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy right now. It will tell you just about everything you need to know about crafting a successful Direct Mail message), but there are a few key points you should know right away before you start:
- Length doesn’t matter. This is controversial to those who haven’t done a lot of Direct Mail, but the fact is people who are ready to buy are hungry for information, and that is who you are writing for. Think about the last large-ish purchase you made. Did you read reviews? Watch videos? Scour the internet looking for anything you could find to help you decide? Make the message as long as it needs to be in order to get the recipient to keep reading and get fired up about buying, and if anyone asks you “Who’s going to read all that?” your answer should be: “Those most likely to respond.”
- Continue the conversation that’s already in their head. Here’s what I mean: Say you’re talking to a friend when a watch salesman walks up and starts pitching a new timepiece. Annoying, right? Now imagine instead that salesman overheard you saying that your wife just got promoted and now your once idyllic family life has been thrown into chaos because you’re both so busy that everyone is constantly late: to work, school, soccer practice, dinner with the in-laws. Now Mr. Watch Salesman could walk up and enter the conversation gracefully, relate to your frustration about how hectic life can be, and mention that he has a unique watch that others swear by to ease your burden by helping you be more punctual. The point is, know your audience and what motivates them. Then provide them solutions to their problems.
- Be honest about what you’re doing. Don’t be salesy and don’t try to fool them into thinking you sent them something “just because.” Tell them the truth: you sent them something to get their attention, because you think you have a solution that will improve their life in some way. If you’re truly providing value to them in that moment, they’ll genuinely want to read what you have to say.
5) The piece you send just has to get their attention: Don’t think of Direct Mail like you’re sending someone a gift. I’ve especially seen this misconception when it comes to mailing more affluent prospects…marketers think the mailer has to be more extravagant the more revenue a prospect generates. Not so. I’ve had millionaires respond to things that cost me pennies to send (such as the inexpensive but mighty sales letter) because I was able to clearly describe how my product or service would improve their life, and they wanted to learn more.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and place for truly impressive mailers, but that has more to do with the industry, the difficulty of getting something you mail past his or her gatekeepers, and how far down the funnel the prospect is (someone who is close to becoming a client should get something more personal and extraordinary than someone who has only downloaded a whitepaper from your website).
In my experience, the “cornier” something is the higher the response rate, so have fun and let your imagination run wild, but with one caveat: If you’re sending something really silly (like one of my favorites: a picture of a camel along with a straw so you can ask, “will this be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back?”), make sure you point out in your message that you know how “over the top” your mailing is, otherwise you’ll be insulting their intelligence. Just let them know everyone’s in on the joke, and you were trying to get their attention because you think you have something that will truly improve their life. Those with a real need will love what you sent no matter what because it enticed them to learn more about your solution.