Direct Mail Marketing US

Direct Mail Marketing: Is It Your Choice?

Direct mail marketing is a system of marketing that is directed at specific people. In direct marketing, the advertisement is directed to a specific individual. This is unlike marketing that is open ended such as a billboard or a television commercial. Direct mail marketing is a very effective means of communication in virtually any environment and for most businesses. But, there are some things to be wary about when it comes to direct mail marketing.

One of the benefits of direct mail marketing is that you can measure your success. If you send out direct marketing materials to 100 people ..

Direct Mail Marketing Done Correctly, Cannot Fail
So how do you do it?

Direct mail marketing. When it comes to marketing your product or services there are two basic challenges:
1. How do you obtain new customers or clients?
2. How do you get your existing customers to come back for more?
Direct mail/direct response marketing answers both these challenges admirably (it’s not the only way to do it but it is a proven method that always works). You can ALWAYS rely on DIRECT MAIL MARKETING.
The postcard—direct marketing’s secret weapon…
One of the simplest and most cost-effective forms of direct mail marketing is the POSTCARD. Be ..

Direct Mail Marketing
Using direct mail marketing should be a part of your business,
whether it is an offline or online business. Established
companies can use their existing client list to use as a base of
mail marketing. Alerting your current customers to promotions
and new products can keep your name in front of theirs.

If you have a website and wish to build a mailing list, it is
very important to not just get their email address. This is
important for a few reasons.

Emailing people (even existing clients) is not always effective.
Sure, it s the cheapest and takes the least work, but the mass
emai ..

Using demographic data for your direct mail marketing campaign
Targeting high potential markets with a direct mail marketing campaign can be a very affordable and efficient way to get new customers for most companies and entrepreneurs but how can you find a way to reach those high potential markets? Using demographic data could be your solution. In the United States, demographic data is easy to get through the US Census Bureau website. Although, understanding how to extract data from a database and segment markets in a way to identify which market would be your best target for a direct mail marketing campaign requires great knowledge of census data and mar ..

IT Marketing: The Benefits Of Direct Mail Postcards
The great advantage to using direct mail postcards is you don t have to worry that they ll get tossed in the trash without being read. They are already opened. Additionally, postcards are less expensive than other types of direct mail thereby saving on your IT marketing budget. In this article, you ll learn how to make your direct mail postcards work best for your business. IT Marketing: Keep it Targeted Don t send the same message to a couple thousand small businesses in your area and hope that you re going to hit one of their hot buttons. Instead, target a specific group. If you have a lot of ..

Direct Mail Marketing With Postcards -- The Headline Factor
If you re spending money on a direct mail / postcard marketing campaign, but you re not spending time developing headlines -- you re wasting time and money.

Why is the headline so important to a direct mail marketing postcard? We ll get to that in a moment. First, let s demystify the headline by breaking it down to its purest form.

A headline is a line of text at the head of a document, hence the name. I don t tell you this to insult your intelligence. I tell you this to open your mind to what all a headline might accomplish.

When you use the word headline, most people think of newspapers ..

Direct Mail Marketing And The Golden Glimpse: How To Get Your Offer Noticed
In direct mail marketing, you have what I like to call the golden glimpse -- that moment, however brief, when your prospect pulls your direct mail piece from the mailbox and actually pays attention to it.

This is an advantage not enjoyed by other marketing media. You can ignore a radio commercial and a magazine ad. But you have to give each piece of mail a moment of your attention to decide whether or not it s a keeper.

This marks the first in a series of hurdles your direct mail piece has to clear. Think of it as an obstacle course. Only instead of high bars and log jumps, your hurdles ar ..

Real Estate Marketing, Do You Use Direct Mail?
Real Estate Marketing, Do You Use Direct Mail? By Barrett Niehus http://www.realtysoftware.orgbr> Prospecting for leads is by far the most difficult part of being a Realtor or small business professional. In fact, lead development is by far the most expensive and time consuming aspect of your job. However, you level of success in lead development will determine if you succeed or fail as a real estate agent or small business professional. So how do you develop leads? Well top selling professionals realize that they need to touch as many people as possible without spending a fortune or taking up a lot of their time. They also ..

Postcard direct mail marketing tips and ideas
Postcards are perhaps the least expensive way of reaching a large number of people with your sales message. Although they have their drawbacks, they are cost-effective at attracting new customers. But only if you follow some simple rules that professional direct mail copywriters follow. Grab their attention on Side A Side A is the side with the picture on it. One beauty of a direct mail postcard is that your prospective customer does not have to open it. There in the morning mail is your sales message, seen by all. So make sure you put something on Side A that arrests the attention of your prosp ..

Direct Mail Marketing With Postcards: Got Stopping Power?
Picture this...

Tom arrives home from work, parks his car in his driveway, and walks to his mailbox. It’s cold out, so he hustles. He reaches inside, pulls out the day’s deliveries, and then hurries inside the house.

After greeting his family, he begins to sort through the mail. Tom’s a busy guy and doesn’t like clutter, so he doesn’t need much of a reason to throw mail in the trash. In fact, without realizing it, Tom has developed an effective system for doing just that:

1. Sort through the mail once.

2. Throw away anything that’s not immediately important or worth keeping.

3. Sort throu ..

Direct Mail Marketing: How to Choose a Postcard Vendor
Direct mail postcards can help you promote your business easily,
effectively and affordably. But to capitalize on these benefits,
you need a reliable and efficient program in place. That s where
postcard marketing vendors come into the picture.

These days, there are dozens of postcard marketing vendors, but
not all are created equal. This can make vendor selection
overwhelming. But it doesn t have to be. To understand the
differences between these companies, you simply have to evaluate
and compare their services.

Here are some key criteria you should look at:

Knowledge & Exp ..

Reach Wealthy Prospects With Direct Mail Marketing And A Good List.
Do you need to reach wealthy prospects using direct mail? Then work on your list. Who you mail to (your list) is the single most important thing that determines your success.

There are two main ways to target affluent buyers: where they abide, and what they buy.

Where they abide
Every area of the country has places where the wealthy congregate. The affluent are concentrated in cities (London, New York, Toronto) neighbourhoods (Knightsbridge, London, Manhattan, New York and Yorkville, Toronto) and streets (Cadogan Square, London, Park Lane, New York, Yorkville Avenue, Toronto. Reaching the we ..

Real Estate Marketing -- How to Measure Your Direct Mail Success
Article:
Eugene Schwartz, author of Breakthrough Advertising, said it
best: There are no answers in direct mail except test answers.
You don t know whether something will work until you test it.
And you cannot predict test results based on past experience.

What he means is this. You can take something that has worked
for another real estate marketer, apply it to your own audience,
and have it flop. Or it could be a huge success. The only way to
know for sure is to try it and test it.

Sure, there are best practices you can start with, and you can
learn a lot from the successes ..

Test Marketing--How to Increase Your Direct Mail Marketing Response by Using the Internet to Test

I’ve discovered a really fantastic way to discover what works best in direct marketing, BEFORE doing traditional direct marketing. Use these internet tools to find what works best, then apply what you’ve learned to your traditional direct marketing, direct mail, etc. It’s fast and less expensive.

How to Find What Works in Your Marketplace?

Overture provides an excellent tool to find what people are looking for on the internet. For all practical purposes, you can use that to apply to other types of marketing.

Go to http://inventory.overture.com Type in some keywords that apply to your product or service. Overture will ..

In B2B direct mail, don’t ask for the order.
Business-to-business direct mail is different from business-to-consumer direct mail in one vital way: sales cycles are longer. A senior vice-president of information technology doesn t buy a $1.5-million network upgrade by dropping a business reply coupon and cheque in the mail. In B2B selling, the first step in the sales cycle is usually a request for more information. Followed by a sales meeting. Then a demonstration. Then a trial. Then a contract. That s why your direct mail package should aim to move your prospect to the next step in the sales cycle, rather than ask for the order. Start your ..

It s In The Mail - Direct Mail is Alive and Kicking!
Compared to a lot of companies in our field we do a lot of direct mail – postcards, sales letters, promotions, announcements, lead generation. Between client business and ours, we’re averaging one campaign every two weeks; about 1500 pieces per mailing. We’re planning expansion to over 2000 pieces per campaign and will increase mailings to once per week. One particular business interest will grow to 10,000 pieces a month. We’re constantly building and adding to our mailing lists.

We’ve learned a lot along the way. We develop the entire piece in-house and use printing services such as ..

Manufacturers Shift Marketing Budget Away from Direct Mail in 2006
Marketing Budget Shifts Away from Direct Mail in 2006 for Manufacturers

In early Q3, TR Cutler, Inc. conducted the largest North American manufacturer survey about anticipated marketing budgets in 2006. Statistically significant findings indicated that nearly two-thirds (64%) of the manufacturers surveyed anticipate a dramatic increase in PR budgets of 50% above 2005 levels; travel, print advertising, tradeshow exhibiting, and direct mail each revealed a 30% decrease in 2006 marketing versus 2005. Manufacturers spent the past fifteen years becoming lean, efficient, and highly competit ..

Postcard Direct Mail Marketing: 15 Ways To Grab Attention
If you use direct mail postcards to generate leads or sell a product or service, you need to create postcards that grab your prospect’s attention. The place to do that is Side A, the side that doesn’t have the stamp and address on it. Here are some creative ways to get the attention of your potential buyers, some of which have worked extremely for well for my clients.



feature a wacky photograph
use a photo of your product in an unusual setting
make an outrageous (but true) claim
state your unique selling promise in an intriguing way
present your prospect s problem (the one tha ..

Direct Mail Marketing Now As Easy As Email

Direct Mail Marketing Now As Easy As Email
By Michael Lemm FreedomFire Communications

Is the United States Postal Service (USPS) a marketing innovator? As it turns out, the kind folks in the blue shorts are in fact making it easy for even the smallest business to duke it out with their biggest competitors by using the USPS new “mailing online (MOL) direct mail service - check it out at http://www.usps.com/mailingonline

With MOL, you can escape the dreary part of direct mail marketing - the printing, the stuffing, the stamps, etc. MOL users simply create a document, upload it to the MOL website with their mailing l ..

7 Secrets to Winning the Direct Mail Game

If you want to find lots of new customers, here s seven things you ll want to be sure to check before you mail the first piece.

1. Look at your direct mail as your recipient will look at it.

This is much easier to say than to do. To create successful direct mail you need to talk with your customer. Find out what s important to the people who buy what you sell.

2. Remember your primary objective - what you want your prospect to do.

As you create your direct mail think Why am I sending this mail to this prospect at this time? That is, what do you want the recipient to do when they get ..

Has the Internet Killed Off the Direct Mail Baron?

Has the Internet Killed Off the Direct Mail Baron?

Over the past 30 years, direct mail has been responsible for generating vast amounts of money for businesses and individuals alike, but is it still an effective means of marketing?

The short answer, in the short term, is yes. But the Internet has without doubt diluted the power of pen on paper and will continue to do so, until only a few die-hard individuals and the glossy brochure brigade, are left to pick the bones of an industry once plump and ripe for plucking and plundering.

Today, the Internet offers the consumer a pure, unadulterat ..

Rising Postal Rates? Don’t Cut Down the Direct Mail
The United States Post Office in the past had some trouble with its finances and their solution was to raise the postal rates. Whether or not you agree with this approach to trying to stay in business, like the weather and government in general, it’s something you have to live with.

Many companies have used this as a reason to send out fewer or smaller mailings in an attempt to keep their costs down. Here’s a quote from an issue of Direct Marketing News:
“Despite a string of healthy annual increases, the growth of direct mail expenditures is expected to slow over the next four years. ..

Thirteen Point Checklist For Direct Mail
Thirteen Point Checklist For Direct Mail by: Larry Brophy http://findmorebuyers.combr> This checklist will help you make certain your Direct Mail has every chance of outstanding success: 1. Look at your Direct Mail as your recipient will look at it. Pretend you are they. 2. Remember your primary objective. What do YOU want your prospect, your customer to do? 3. Do your #1., #2. and #3. benefits hit your reader right between the eyes? Make sure they do! 4. Does your Direct Mail package flow ? Does it look like it all goes together? Like it was planned! 5. Does your package encourage your reader to open it NOW? At once? ..

Seven reasons to use direct mail for sales lead generation.
1. Personal Unlike an advertisement in a trade publication, which can be read by anyone, your sales letter arrives at your prospect’s place of business as a piece of personal communication from your mind to his. Also, unlike any other medium, direct mail can be personalized (Dear Mr. Smith) and customized to each reader (“As an IT manager, you know that . . .”), showing your prospect that you know about him by name and understand his business in particular. 2. Cost effective Advertising by its very nature is expensive. To reach a lot of people, you need to spend a lot of money. Direct mail, on th ..

Eleven Ideas to Generate More Direct Mail Responses

Eleven Ideas to Generate More Direct Mail Responses

1. When writing copy for your direct mail marketing pieces, make sure to indent the first line of each paragraph. It, literally, pulls your potential customers into the copy you’ve written.

2. Quote famous people or staff members often. Customers pay attention to what others have to say.

3. Gather testimonials from satisfied customers, and use them often. They not only make your sales pitch believable, they make it seem that people ‘just like them’ need these types of products or services as well.

4. Write up a situation, or case histo ..

Direct Mail Response Rate Boosters (10 of them)
1. Mail to a different list Your list is the most important part of your direct mail campaign. Who you mail to is more important than what you mail. So if you are persuaded that your offer is attractive, your creative is compelling and your timing is spot on, mail to a different group of people and see what happens 2. Change your offer The offer is the most important part of your direct mail package after your list. So if your response rates are lacklustre, change your offer (my thanks to fellow direct mail copywriter Bob Hacker for this counsel). 3. Improve your creative Maybe your response rates ..

5 Direct Mail Tips to get the Envelope Opened

If the truth were told literally millions of dollars a years is being thrown down the drain on direct mail campaigns that fall flat on their face all because the envelope containing the offer is not getting opened.
Think of it - you can work with the zeal of ten thousand men and develop an offer that is so brilliant, so good that all your family, friends and even the family dog are calling it the best thing since sliced bread and hailing you as the copywriter of the millennium
But...
Unless your prospects get to read iyour direct mail offer - you are dead in the water.
And your m ..

Read This, Sell More: Direct Mail Marketing Is About Benefits, Not Features
Your customer wants a cleaner kitchen, not a kitchen cleaner.
Your customers are interested in benefits, not features. So sell benefits in your sales letters.
The difference between a feature and a benefit comes down to this: A feature is what something does. A benefit is what something does for you.
Everything you have to say in your direct marketing sales letters boils down to features and benefits. With every piece of copy you write, however long or short your copy, you are always talking in terms of features and benefits.
When I worked on the Bell Mobility account, I discovered that the ma ..

How to Double Your Direct Mail Response Rate Guaranteed
Direct mail is a new way of advertising a product or service. It
deviates from the usual mass of audience wherein advertisers
will make costly campaigns just to promote their products.

In direct mail, you do not have to create costly campaigns. All
you have to do is to write some letters, use some effective
sales pitches, and send them out through emails.

The good thing about it is that the product is being advertised
directly to the customers. It also entails a large group of
consumers but the difference is that with direct mails, the
recipient is highly targeted. This means that ..

Direct Mail Advertising; Email Is Not Like Postal Mail.
____________________________________________________________ Publication Guidelines: You may use this article as long as the byline, resource box, and links remain intact. If the article does not fit your Web site/newsletter guidelines, please request adjustments. mailto:bobette@WebSiteMarketingPlan.com . Please notify the author of use and provide a sample copy of the publication. Word count: 627 Formatted 65 characters per line. Email questions to mailto:bobette@WebSiteMarketingPlan.com. Author Photo: Available to copy from Web site. Color: http://www.websitemarketingplan.combr> Black and White: http://www.websitemarketingplan.com/about_bobette.htmbr> Autoresponder: mailto:EMailMktg@WebSit ..

Cost Effective Ways to Use Direct Mail

Cost Effective Ways to Use Direct Mail to Increase Investor Leads

Direct mail is able to offer highly targeted, detailed sales information to a large audience quickly and effectively. Therefore, sending direct mail pieces to your investor lead list is a great way to show off your businesses service or product in a positive light, with the intent that they will invest in your business. This article will detail three strategies you can use while targeting your investor lead list to increase your profits and results.

Repeat the Same Offer More Than Once
If your investor leads aren’t becoming ..

Direct Mail
Direct Mail The web is a most versatile and often misused medium for direct marketing. In this email, I will share tips and techniques to make the web a major advertising tool for your sales and marketing efforts. Do you have a website? A Web Newsletter? A mailing list of e-mail addresses for customers? Do you track and test everything? You can use the web to get sales in lots of exciting ways which are dependant on technology that’s available at the time. Almost everyone is just too busy running their businesses to take the time or to give advertising much thought. This is just crazy. Whether you ..

B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation Success Needs Planning, Testing, Measuring.
Is Direct Mail Useless for DMers?

Is direct mail useless at helping direct mail businesses generate leads?

That’s the question I was asked last week by a reader of Alan Sharpe’s B2B Direct Mail Tactics newsletter. Here is her unusual challenge, and my response.

“My biggest challenge in generating leads from direct mail is to convince our marketing people that direct mail should be used. This is a completely ironic situation given that we are a DIRECT MAIL HOUSE. Yes, that’s right. I’ve been told that ‘direct mail is not good for our business.’

“Apparently, direct mail was tried once long a ..

Direct Mail and The Real Estate Agent
For many agents, the most utilized forms of advertising and lead generation are former client contact, which may or may not lead to referrals for new business, and the old standby, the local real estate magazine. All are great ways to generate business, because you are targeting potential clients. Direct mailing can be another useful tool and make a good arsenal, great. Still, agents never really consider a direct mailing campaign as a viable source of lead generation. Yet it is, not just for former clients but to generate new clients as well. Direct mail remains one of the most successful for ..

Paper Direct Mail Is Not Dead
I recently witnessed a conversation about the “death” of paper direct mail due to the “life” of web presence and blogs. I’m not exactly sure why, but someone seems to declare the “death” of a marketing technique every few months…I guess that’s how some consultants stay employed – announce the “death” of something and create the “life” of something new. Anyway, I disagree with the notion paper direct mail is dead and as such thought I’d share how we integrate paper direct mail into our marketing, sales, and lead nurturing systems.

We do a fair amount of direct mail – postcards, sales l ..

Raise Funds For Your Nonprofit Using An Annual Direct Mail Program

A good annual direct mail solicitation program can produce unrestrictive operating funds for your nonprofit organization year after year. And such an annual direct mail program, if done right, should produce more funding for your organization each year.

There are very few nonprofit organizations that couldn’t benefit from an effective, and ongoing direct mail solicitation program. If you’re currently using annual direct mail solicitations and would like to use it more effectively, or if you’re not using this form of fundraising but would like to set up such a program. Then here are some step ..

How to Increase Direct Mail Advertising Response Rates
A couple nights ago, I was watching the evening news. There was a piece about the anthrax scare. The story was about the fact that everyone is scared to open their mail. They showed a few clips of people checking their mail with much trepidation. One woman walked up to her front door and found the mail lying on her doorstep. Instead of picking up the mail and walking inside to see what she received, she used her foot to shuffle through the mail and she kicked away any mail that she thought was the least bit suspicious. Being in the marketing business, I couldn’t help but think that she was kicking away ..

RAISE FUNDS FOR YOUR NONPROFIT USING AN ANUUAL DIRECT MAIL PROGRAM

A good annual direct mail solicitation program can produce unrestrictive operating funds for your nonprofit organization year after year. And such an annual direct mail program, if done right, should produce more funding for your organization each year.

There are very few nonprofit organizations that couldn’t benefit from an effective, and ongoing direct mail solicitation program. If you’re currently using annual direct mail solicitations and would like to use it more effectively, or if you’re not using this form of fundraising but would like to set up such a program. Then here are some ste ..

How to Know if Direct Mail Will Work for Your Business

Here s a great lesson that applies to direct mail. Ready? Some people say one thing and do the opposite.

In other words ...

One shouldn’t pay attention to what people say they’ll do as much as what they actually DO.

For example, it seems most readers of the National Enquirer don’t want to admit they read it. Just ask people, “You read that tabloid stuff?”

No way! Not me.

Maybe they’re afraid of looking silly to others? Maybe their embarrassed to admit buying a paper with headlines like, “Brad Runs To Jen As Angelina Lays Down The Law.”

Perhaps they fear people will think they’ ..

B2B Direct Mail Lists: Ask These Questions Before Renting.

If the most important part of any business-to-business direct mail package is the list, how can you be sure that you have a good list before you drop your money (and your reputation) in the mailbox? Answer: Ask the right questions before you rent that list.
1. Who is on the list, exactly?
Let’s say your potential list is high-tech prospects. Are the people on the list analysts, network administrators, product managers, chief information officers or sales managers? Knowing makes all the difference. So make sure you can select names by job title or function.
2. What is the source of the lis ..

Direct Mail Formats: How to Choose the Right One
Which pulls the best response, a postcard, a self-mailer or a letter? The answer, you’ll be irritated to know, is clear. It depends. The success of your mailing depends on who you mail to (your list), what you promise (your offer), when you mail (your timing), and what you mail (your format and creative). Here are a few questions to ask yourself to decide which format is likely the best one to use for your next mailing. Letter Does your sales message need to come from one person by name? Does it need to be addressed to a person by name? Is privacy or confidentiality a concern? Then a sales letter ..

The Big Debate Continues – Internet Mortgage Leads vs. Direct Mail

The world is flat. India is one of the fastest growing economies and SMS and SEO are the buzz words of the present moment. Content is king and the word “marketing” should be changed to what-the-heck-works-these-days-to-get-customers.
As it relates to mortgage marketing and the industry, it s important to understand how to differentiate direct mail with direct marketing over the Internet (including internet leads and email marketing). As a direct marketer, I always encourage my clients to diversity their tactics, by using a hybrid direct marketing approach. One that combines the tradi ..

Is your direct mail missing these key features?

Welcome to the world of direct mail! Chances are you’ve seen
direct mail just about every day in your mailbox. This has
proven to be an effective form of marketing, and one that
you should seriously consider.

As with other avenues of marketing, direct mail works best
when targeted. Unless you are Target®, Wal-Mart®, or
Safeway®, for direct mail to be effective, it must go to
your target audience. In this day and age, I am not
personally happy with a 2% response rate on direct mail; and
these are my personal techniques to make your direct mail
get opened, and get responses. I shoot for a 15% ..

Three Cost-effective Ways To Use Direct Mail

Two of direct mail s biggest benefits are:

- Its pinpoint targeting ability
- Its ability to deliver a full and complete sales presentation of any length

This makes direct mail a highly effective way to repeatedly expose your prospect to your salesmanship -- and positively influence his or her decision. Here are three direct mail marketing strategies (as opposed to single-shot mailing ideas) that virtually any business can put to work to achieve better, more profitable results.

1. Repeatedly mail the same letter or direct mail package to the same people.

If your sales letter or dir ..

10 Common Direct Mail Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Successful direct mail does not need to be elaborate full color printing or creative design. The major factors contributing to a successful direct mail program are in the planning and implementing of the program. Avoid the following common blunders when developing your next mailing.
1. Ignoring the most important factor in direct mail success: the list.
Not spending enough time and effort upfront when you select your list can lead to wasting money and time. In direct mail, a mailing list is not just a way of reaching your market: it is your market. Get your ad agency or list broker involved ..

3 Inside Secrets To Making You Richer Using Direct Mail
Making money using direct mail isn t easy. And anyone who tells you it is, is lying. To run a successful direct mail campaign, you must have a compelling offer... amazing copy... and most important... the right list to mail to. And even if you have each of these things running at their peak, there are many other subtle little tricks you can use to increase the responsiveness of your mailings, which is what it s all about, right? Because this means... You ll Be Increasing Your Cash-Flow As Well! And remember, in whatever you re doing: All you need is 5-or-6 little steps that each increase ..

How to Increase Direct Mail Advertising Response Rates, Even During the Anthrax Scare!

How to Increase Direct Mail Advertising Response Rates, Even During the Anthrax Scare!

A couple nights ago, I was watching the evening news. There was a piece about the anthrax scare. The story was about the fact that everyone is scared to open their mail.

They showed a few clips of people checking their mail with much trepidation. One woman walked up to her front door and found the mail lying on her doorstep. Instead of picking up the mail and walking inside to see what she received, she used her foot to shuffle through the mail and she kicked away any mail that she thought was the lea ..

Design Direct Mail Postcards Back-to-Front to Boost Response Rates
Conventional wisdom says that the front of a direct mail postcard is for the picture and the back is for the address, stamp and a short message. But some savvy direct marketers design their postcards the other way around—and boost response rates as a result. The goal of the front of the postcard is to grab attention long enough to arouse curiosity and motivate your prospect to turn the card over and continue reading. But postcards are usually delivered with the back of the postcard showing, not the front. Check today’s mail. You’ll notice that the letter carrier delivered your mail with the addr ..

Direct Mail Insights - Getting the Envelope Opened

If the truth were told, literally millions of dollars a years is being thrown down the drain on direct mail campaigns that fall flat on their face, all because the envelope containing the offer never gets opened.

Think of it - you can work with the zeal of ten thousand men and develop an offer that is so brilliant, so good that all your family, friends (and even the family dog) are calling it the best thing since sliced bread and hailing YOU as the copywriter of the millennium.

But...

Unless your prospects get to read your direct mail offer, you are dead in the water.

And your marketi ..

Direct Mail Advertising: A Key Ingredient For Successful Business Growth

Direct Mail Advertising: A Key Ingredient For Successful Business Growth
By Keturah Whitaker

In today’s highly competitive economy, it is essential that you promote your business with marketing materials that strategically position your business for increased customer traffic, expansion and growth.

A highly effective marketing tool that will dynamically promote your business is direct mail advertising. The success of your direct mail advertising will be highly dependent upon the perceived quality of your business, the design, the message you’re conveying, and the special offer. The combinat ..

Improve Your B2B Direct Mail Response Rates With Premiums.

Premiums are an effective way to increase your direct mail response rates. Whether you are selling a product or service directly through the mail, or whether you are using a sales letter to generate leads, premiums can help you boost response, increase conversions and motivate buyers to pay now rather than later.
A premium is simply an item that you offer to your buyer to take action. As Dick Benson has said, “a premium is a bribe to say yes now.”
Premiums are effective because, dollar for dollar, they are better incentives than cash discounts. Given the choice between receiving a free Ap ..

Direct Mail, Direct Sales

A person can do business in a small to mid-sized town for years and never realize exactly what the business two blocks down is and what they could provide to that person when needed. Big cities are even worse; a business can get lost in the over-whelming surroundings.

One way to overcome this problem is direct mailing to the businesses in your area. Of course, you have to create a mail-out that truly stands out and says in a brief manner exactly what goods or services your business provides and how you can help their business grow. Determine if a brochure, a letter, or the inexpensive yet q ..

The Big Debate Continues – Internet Mortgage Leads Vs. Direct Mail
The world is flat. India is one of the fastest growing economies and SMS and SEO are the buzz words of the present moment. Content is king and the word “marketing” should be changed to what-the-heck-works-these-days-to-get-customers. As it relates to mortgage marketing and the industry, it s important to understand how to differentiate direct mail with direct marketing over the Internet (including internet leads and email marketing). As a direct marketer, I always encourage my clients to diversity their tactics, by using a hybrid direct marketing approach. One that combines the traditional meth ..

For Direct Mail Lead Generation Success, Clone Your Best Customers.
I don’t relish being proven wrong. But a while back I sat down to discover who my best clients were. I wanted to increase my revenues. I figured that the best way to do that was to discover who my best clients were and to then go after more firms that were like them.

I had hunches about who my best clients were, but my hunches were proven wrong. So I adjusted my marketing plan accordingly. And doubled my income that year over the previous year.

If you want to increase your revenues and lower your cost of acquiring new customers using direct mail, then I invite you to learn from my mistakes.
..

How to Convey Trustworthiness in Direct Mail Marketing Sales Letters
A person or business that might buy from you is called a prospect. But they might just as accurately be called a skeptic. We live in the age of the spam filter. And call-display. We live in what fellow-copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis calls, “The Age of Skepticism.” Your sales letters must overcome your reader’s built-in baloney detector. Your prospective customers are on their guard. Here, in no particular order, are some tips on how to prove your trustworthiness on paper. 1. Third-party endorsements If your product has won an industry award for innovation, say so. If your service was ranked am ..

Like Direct Mail, Landing Page Conversion Starts Above The Fold.
In the Good Old Days of direct mail, which is to say, before 1997 and the advent of the Internet, I and other direct mail marketers agonized over what to put “above the fold.” Maybe you did as well. That tiny top panel on a sales letter or self-mailer had to grab attention and stimulate interest or the whole package was likely to end up in the file that is emptied daily. Your landing page faces a similar challenge today. In an age where the landing page has replaced the business reply card as the reply mechanism of choice among folks who market by mail, what you say “above the fold” is vital. The ..

Increase your direct mail response rates with freebies.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, giving something away at no charge can lower your cost per lead. That’s because offering a freebie usually increases your response rate. Here’s an example of what I mean. Your cost per lead is the money you must spend to acquire one lead. When you mail 10,000 strangers at a cost of $0.50 each ($5,000), and get a response rate of 1% (100 leads), then your cost per lead is $50 ($5,000 in cost divided by 100 leads). Now let’s say you offer a free information booklet. The booklet costs $1 but offering it increases your response rate from 1% to 3%. Here is what h ..

Eight Common Direct Mail Mistakes.
Some companies that use direct mail to sell their products and services are like the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn t there. They repeat the same mistakes, and enjoy the same poor results. Here are their eight most common misdemeanors, and a cure for each. Wrong list The most important part of any direct mail campaign is not the copy. It s not the art direction. And it s not the offer. It s the mailing list. That s why you can mail identical packages to two lists, one good and one poor, and find that the good list pulls 10 times more responses than the poor list d ..

Direct Marketing Puts Information In The Buyer’s Hands
Direct marketing is advertising from a manufacturer or front-end supplier directed to the ultimate consumer of a product or service. Another way of looking at direct marketing is selling to a consumer directly, whether is from a printed magazine campaign, TV or radio spot, or from a direct mail package. It means that salespeople are not physically moving your product; promotions are. Direct marketing is a simple approach but also can be useless if not done right. In today s worldwide marketplace, direct marketing takes on many different shapes and sizes. Some companies use direct marketing as j ..

Direct Mail PR: Introducing The Postcard Release
Ever thought of sending a press release in postcard format? Sure, it s unconventional. But it can also be effective, provided you follow a few rules.

The point here is not to replace your standard press release channels. Keep those! The point is to try and monetize your news, affordably, by using direct mail postcards.

If you generate a press release to announce a new product, service or other newsworthy event, you would probably go on to submit the release through one of the wire services. Great! That s an excellent way to generate awareness, interest and inquiries.

But why not get more ..

Test Your B2B Direct Mail Offers To Boost Response Rates
The secret to success in business-to-business direct mail lead generation is testing. I have hunches. You have hunches. But testing settles the debate. When you test your package against my package and we measure the results, we know for certain which package performed better.

Assuming your list is good (in other words, assuming you are mailing to people who are likely to buy), the first thing you should test is your offer. Your offer, after all, is the second most important ingredient of direct mail success. And as Axel Andersson says, “If you want to dramatically increase your results, dram ..

Avoid Direct Mail Suicide with Postcard Magnet Mailers

Keep your direct mail from going directly to the trash can by sending a postcard magnet mailer. Stand out from the competition, get long term quality exposure and increase sales with one powerful, affordable product.
On their 10 year anniversary American Printing & Promotions, Inc. launched www.postcardmagnet.comto make business owners aware of postcard magnet mailers: a powerful direct mail alternative that accomplishes what traditional direct mail cannot.
Experts say, “The most difficult task of any mailing is to stay out of the trash can long enough to deliver a message.”
Everyday, enormous amounts of dire ..

Direct Mail Invitations: Eleven Ways To Boost Response To Your B2B Campaign
Will your business-to-business direct mail package ever produce a standing ovation? It might. When you mail an effective invitation to a seminar, workshop, awards show or other live event, you literally move people—out of their seats and into yours. That’s one of the hardest jobs in B2B direct mail. Here are 11 ways to boost the success of your B2B direct mail invitations.

SEMINARS

1. If you are offering a free seminar as a way to generate leads, sell the event, not your product or service. Promote the valuable, exclusive information that the prospect will learn at the event.

2. Prove there ..

Direct Mail Envelope Tips For Successful B2B Lead Generation
In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, more prospects see your mailing envelope than will ever see what is inside. That s because prospects spend only a few seconds examining your envelope before deciding whether to peruse it or pitch it.
Naturally, this tempts some copywriters to start selling on the envelope, stressing features and benefits, even describing the offer. Which is a mistake, most of the time.
As Herschell Gordon Lewis so well observed, The only purpose of the carrier envelope, other than keeping its contents from spilling out onto the street, is to get itself op ..

Direct Mail Response Rates Low? Eliminate these Mistakes
Are your direct mail response rates lower than you expect? Check your sales letter or direct mail package against this checklist to uncover the reasons for your poor response. LIST You are mailing to people who are never likely to buy You are not mailing to others in the same business who influence the buying decision Your list is out of date Your names and addresses are not formatted correctly for proper delivery Your list has job titles only, not names FORMAT You are using the wrong format for your audience (self-mailers to professionals, for example) Your letter and brochure are not complete sales p ..

Direct Mail --- The Followup Letter

Everyone know the importance of the sales letter. But many people fail to use one of the most critical elements of direct mail --- the followup letter.
Everyone knows to send out the sales letter. Most everyone knows to put in a reply card for the convenience of the prospect. And just about everyone knows the importance of a brochure. But most business people forget the one piece of direct mail that can very often clinch a sale...the follow-up letter.

Let s go through the direct mail piece. You send the sales letter, a reply card and, hopefully, you wrap it all in a tastefully selected e ..

The 4 Step-Program For Using Direct Mail To Recruit
So you’re are looking to recruit for new mortgage brokers. When you think about doing that you probably hope that you can create enough interest in your company that you have enough hiring prospects to choose from and still be able to get the cream of the crop. There are many options out there for recruiting. But when looking for good mortgage brokers, it is best to look at what will get you the best Return On Investment. Just like in attracting clients to your business and calculating the ROI by tracking what each of those leads spent, take a look through the same window in applying Direct Ma ..

How to get prospects to open your direct mail envelopes.
In direct mail, you have a formidable enemy—the wastepaper basket. Your prospects take one look at your mailing envelope and decide if they will open it or fling it into the trash can (or recycling box). One way to persuade them to open your envelope is to make your envelope irresistible. Here are a few ideas. 1. Unusual colours Keep your mailing envelopes the same size and weight, just change the colour from white to something different or more daring. 2. Odd size or shape Send your message in a jumbo-size envelope. Or in a square envelope. Or send your message in a tiny envelope. Just remember ..

Avoid Direct Mail Suicide: Life Saving Insights
Keep your direct mail from going directly to the trash can by
sending a postcard magnet mailer. Stand out from the
competition, get long term quality exposure and increase sales
with one powerful, affordable product.

On their 10 year anniversary American Printing & Promotions,
Inc. is re-defining effective direct mail and offering business
owners a more powerful way to reach consumers.

On 1 November 2005 www.postcardmagnet.comwas launched to make
business owners aware of postcard magnet mailers: a powerful
direct mail alternative that accomplishes what traditional
direct mail cannot.

Don t Throw Y ..

Get Personal: Letters vs. Direct Mail
One of the reasons direct mail works is the personal aspect. It’s ostensibly a letter from you to your prospect. Because of this, the more personal you make it, the better your response will be.

If you’re mailing to 100,000 people, putting your prospect’s name on your letter is about as personal you can get. But there are times when you can – and should – send out highly personal letters to individual prospects.
Say you sell gardening supplies, and driving to work one day you notice a home with a lovely garden, but dying roses. You find out who the owner is and send her a letter com ..

Why Envelopes Outpull Self-mailers In B2b Direct Mail Lead Generation
In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, letters invariably outpull self-mailers, including postcards. Your sales message belongs in an envelope for a number of good reasons.

1. Better privacy

An envelope announces to the recipient, “private correspondence enclosed.” A self-mailer, on the other hand, particularly a postcard, says, “this message has been read by all and sundry, including the letter carrier and Joe in the mail room.”

2. More personal

I realize that, with digital imaging, postcards and self-mailers can now be personalized with the name of the reader. But they stil ..

Landing Pages And Direct Mail: Increase Conversions By Answering Top Three Concerns
Your landing page conversions will increase once you answer three of the most common questions asked by visitors who receive your direct mail invitation to visit their website. Q1. Am I at the correct place? What you sell in your direct mail piece needs to match what you sell on the landing page. Visually, this means that if you feature a photo of an iPod on your buckslip you should feature that same photo on your landing page. If your offline offer is for an interest rate of prime plus 1.8%, then your landing page needs to match that. Q2. Where is the one thing I’m looking for? Landing pages have ..

Direct Mail Advertising: How I made $47,325 in 30 days by mailing 2,200 letters
How do you create a direct mail advertising campaign that gets
results?

The following tips on creating a direct mail advertising
campaign have been street-tested and will bring you huge returns
in a short period of time.

In Fact, these tips enabled me to generate over $47,000 in
mortgage commissions in less than 30 days! Keep reading and I
will share 3 key elements to creating an effective direct mail
advertising campaign:

Key Element #1: The prospect list - Mail to a targeted list of
prospects

Here are a couple of ways to find targeted prospect mailing
lists in your nic ..

Making Direct Mail Work for Small Businesses

If you own a small business, then you know the value of affordable and effective marketing. Unfortunately, many traditional and online advertising methods are becoming quite expensive. This article will explain direct mail guidelines and methods.

Direct mail is an often over-looked method that can be very effective if executed properly. There are three guidelines to follow when conducting an effective direct mail campaign:

1. Catch the reader s attention immediately. You only have a few seconds to do this before your mail ad is thrown away as junk mail. Therefore, opt for postcard mailings ..

10 Elements Every Direct Mail Piece Should Have
Don’t want your direct mail to end up in the trash with the rest of the unread mail?

Studies show an effective direct mail campaign should draw a .5 to 1 percent response.
These 10 tips will help you get the results you want:
1. A clear, bold headline.
On the envelope or front of the mailer there should be one central message. The best way to achieve that is with a bold, clear headline that’s not cluttered up with other text. A good guideline is to have the headline fill up at least 15% of the front of the mailer.
2. A graphic that supports the message.
The graphic should be ..

Increase Direct Mail Response Rates With Double Window Envelopes
Here’s something to test.

Take your existing business-to-business direct mail package and make just one change: put two windows on the mailing envelope instead of one. Mail it and see what happens.

According to direct mail author, publisher and speaker René Gnam, “two windows usually get more attention and response than a single window.” In tests that René conducted for his clients, two (or more) windows on the carrier envelope increased response rates. The increased sales also paid for the added cost of producing the special envelopes.

Some direct marketers use one window to show the recip ..

Direct Mail Response Rates Mislead if You are Careless
I could tell you that the average temperature in the world is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But that fact wouldn’t keep you from getting sunstroke in Cairo. Or frostbite in Tuktoyaktuk. Averages tell you only so much. Direct mail results only tell you part of what you need to know. They tell you the percentage of people on your list who responded. That’s it. They don’t tell you if you broke even. If you made a profit. Or if the sales people who followed up on the leads closed any sales. Response rates are misleading if you read them incorrectly. For example, I recently wrote a fundraising package for ..

"Internet Direct Mail Is Different: 14 Things To Remember"
Internet Direct Mail (IDM) and Traditional Direct Mail (TDM) both have the same goals in mind. They are to generate leads or orders. However, marketers need to respect that online media and print media present different hurdles in achieving this goal. Some of these hurdles will require that copy be written differently for each media. And some not. Here is a list of 14 things you should remember when writing copy for Internet Direct Mail. And how each one relates to Traditional Direct Mail. 1. FROM and SUBJECT are very important. During the anthrax scare in America, these two items became very i ..

Using Direct Mail Promotion to Build On-Line Traffic
There are many effective on-line promotion techniques. Everyone¹s using them. In fact, they are being used so much some are becoming less effective. It¹s getting more difficult to break through all the on-line advertising clutter and build your business. The solution? Direct mail advertising. Direct mail combines the targeting of on-line marketing with the longevity of off-line marketing. Your mailing list can be targeted to your prospect¹s demographics, geographics and interests. And because mailers are tangible they demand attention ­ and can be kept as a reminder. Our client¹s have had the most succe ..

Deliver Profits with Direct Mail
If you are in business, you might want to consider using direct mail to find new customers or drum up more business from your existing ones. If using a print broker or a direct mail agency isn t within your budget, you might opt to do the mailing yourself. Experts say that increasing your leads through direct mail is both an art and a science. However, you ll improve your response rates if you keep these secrets in mind: 1. Your mailing list accounts for 603f your mailing s success. It must contain recipient s name (not just the title) and must reflect your target market. Additionally, it mus ..

Google Adwords vs. Direct Mail
We recently ran a test to see whether Google Adwords could outpower traditional direct mail advertising. Here is how we did it. We created a new Adwords campaign choosing a few of our favorite targeted keywords, mainly keywords such as “small business web design”, “custom web design” and “promotional print services”. We set a budget of $500 for the whole campaign with a ceiling of $20 per day per keyword. Also, we set the campaign to target two regions, California and Florida in this instance. At the end of the week we ran out of money and only had 1 valid customer contact. That’s right, 1! We ..

USING INTERNET DIRECT MAIL TO INCREASE YOUR COMPANY’S PROFITS
“I want to sell my company’s products on the Web, but how do I get potential clients to visit my site,” a client asked recently. The answer is a strategy that has proven extremely effective for many different businesses…Internet Direct Mail. One of the most common mistakes many businesses make is putting up a website and then sitting around biting their nails waiting for people to come. This approach isn’t going to work. If you want people to visit your site, you’ve got to make it happen. And sending an e-mail invitation is one of the best ways to build website traffic and boost your company’s ..