It’s strange how things go full circle in life. 10 years ago, we were inundated with direct mail coming through our doors, so much so, that we put most of it straight in the bin without even opening it. Then social media came along and many people redirected their marketing activities through the various online channels.

And Today? Well surprise, surprise, in a bid to ‘be heard’ amongst all the digital marketing noise, many businesses are turning back to good old fashioned direct mail to make an impact.

So what can you do to make sure your direct mail campaigns work for you in today’s marketing environment?

1. Make sure your mailing list is accurate, i.e. with the right contact name (and spelling!), address and phone number. Even if you’ve bought in a list, it’s worthwhile doing website research or calling the business to confirm their details, as many bought in lists can be months if not years out of date.
2. Make the mailing personal. Never send a ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ letter, always get the right contact name. There’s currently a trend to send handwritten mailings, in a bid to really make the communication personal.
3. Make sure your message is relevant to the recipient, i.e. you’re offering something in the mailing which is likely to appeal to them.
4. Enhance the memorability of the mailing by using an agency or freelance professional to design the letter, leaflet or insert. If your mailing is eye-catching it is more likely to be remembered when you make a follow up call (more on that in a moment).
5. Send the mailing in small batches rather than blasting a list of say 500 or more contacts. Sending 20 or so mailings at a time helps you to see if your message is achieving the desired response. If you’re not happy with the result, you can try a different message with the next 20 contacts and so on. Also, sending fewer mailings can help with cash flow and the internal resources needed to send the mailing, make the follow-up calls and then attend future sales visits.
6. Ah yes, those follow-up calls I mentioned earlier. Traditionally if you sent a mailing the average response rate is around 0.2 – 3%. However, if you make a follow-up call to these mailings, your response rate can increase to 10% or higher, so it’s worthwhile getting an experienced telemarketing member of your team to make these calls, and if no-one fits that bill, outsourcing to a professional telemarketing person or agency is always recommended.
7. Finally, always make sure you send your marketing mailings out with the correct amount of postage. There’s nothing worse than annoying a potential client because they’ve just had to pay £1 or more to collect your none-franked/stamped marketing mailing from the sorting office!