Direct marketing to consumers with advertisements, fliers, promotional letters, etc., is one of the most reliable methods of modern marketing. While alternatives like inbound marketing have been stealing away way much of the attention owed to direct marketing in recent years, there’s no denying that direct marketing delivers results. Although the battle to keep your marketing content on the kitchen table rather than in the dustbin takes time and effort, mastering some simple direct marketing techniques can go a long ways towards doing just that.
The Perks Of Direct Marketing
Compared to its alternatives, one major perk of direct marketing is that it’s much easier to measure your progress. If you send out 500 brochures and receive 50 responses, it takes only a few seconds to figure out that you had a 10 percent response rate, and only a few seconds more to determine how much those brochures were worth to you.
Depending on how you choose to market your brand, direct marketing can also be fairly cheap and easy to produce. For example, if you opt to launch a marketing campaign using unsolicited email advertisements, it takes almost no time and effort to send out your content to thousands of consumers. Best of all, whenever you send information directly to consumers, you’re able to target specific high-value demographics. Depending on what your business offers, you can mail your content to a gated community, student housing, the suburbs and so on.
Finally, direct marketing can be made highly personalized, which can drastically increase the chances of recipients responding to your marketing. Form letters and mass media lacks the personalization that people expect of physical mail they receive, and the countless instances of “junk mail” that are discarded before being opened each year demonstrate that.
The Dos And Don’ts Of Direct Mail Marketing
Do Personalize
If you make your letter look like personal mail with high quality paper, a personalized hand written envelope, and a manually placed postal stamp, you can be sure that these fine details won’t be lost on any of the recipients. While mass production is far easier, that fact isn’t lost on the recipient of your mail either.
Don’t include your company’s name or PO Box on the return address label. Instead, use a personalized return address label that directs mail to an individual’s name at a street address. The more personal you can make the letter seem on the outside, the more likely you can get the recipient to look inside.
Do Provide Incentive
If personalizing your mail isn’t an option for you, it’s possible to head in the opposite direction and steer further from personalization for a similar marketing effect. Making no attempt to disguise the fact you’re mailing an advertisement allows you to cover the envelope with phrases, or information on promotions, that help allure consumers into opening your content. You can say anything you like, as long as you catch the attention of your recipient enough to cause them to open the letter and read on.
Don’t Tease With Keywords
However, it’s important that you don’t make your teasing too transparent. Because teasing has been used with great effect for sweepstakes mail marketing in the past, consumers are wary of obvious teases like “Open ASAP!” How genuine you are in your efforts to engage your audience will show to anyone who has received junk mail before, so being original and creative is truly worth the effort.
Do Go the Extra Mile
If you’re marketing to wealthier demographics or executives, spending money on UPS or FedEx with an official looking envelope and high-quality, professional presentation goes further than you might expect. Not only does this method give the impression of personalization, it also allows your content to stand out among all the cheaply made stock paper and flimsy pamphlets that direct marketing is usually printed on.
Photo credit: oneims.com
