Direct Mail Marketing – Getting It Right

Although it may seem that everything these days is done via email, there are still situations in which working to a physical mailbox can be an alternative – or even an additional – strategy to a virtual mailbox. A lot depends on your market, of course. If you have a bricks and mortar business and a local customer base, then the personal touch certainly has its merits. Reinforcing your status as a local business (and therefore a local employer and supplier) allows you a certain amount of goodwill with your customers, and can be beneficial.

Direct mail marketing, though, is only as beneficial as your strategy allows it to be. You yourself will know how you respond to unwelcome junk mail – and junk mail is exactly what your direct mail can look like to people unless you give them reason to believe that it is otherwise. There are plenty of old tricks direct marketers used to use, which stick out like a sore thumb and can be a turnoff to customers. Equally, there are some which still hit the right spot if done correctly.

A lot of direct mail marketing follows the old rule of getting the customer’s attention by giving them something for free. This is an important trick to get right. A free gift offer will only be as successful as the free gift is attractive. “This Item Free” always sounds good, as does “50% Off”. This rapidly sounds less good when it has “To All Customers Spending $50 or more” tacked on to the end of it. Don’t insult the customer’s attention by pretending to give them something for nothing. If you can, give them an offer that they want to follow up on.

Another aim of direct marketing is to provoke action. Your direct mail marketing strategy has not failed if you don’t immediately have customers spending money in your store. Sometimes playing a long game engages the customer more. Making your first mailout into a competition can work wonders, for example. If you use a little bit of originality, offer as a prize something that people are genuinely keen to have, and make people think about it, you have already created a connection in their mind which will cause them to think positively about your company.

One of the most frequent recommendations to people designing documents for direct mail marketing is “Use color!”. This recommendation is altogether too short and uninformative. Yes, using color is important, but has led to far too many people reinterpreting that phrase as “Go mad with Microsoft Paint/Powerpoint!” and producing frankly terrible advertising literature which is garish and does not encourage further reading. Excessive use of exclamation marks and the Comic Sans font are also no-nos in this category.

Keep your advertising copy short but informative, use bullet points and underlining for emphasis, and remind the potential customer where you can be found. Give them a range of contact options – a postal address, an email address and a telephone number as an ideal minimum – and make your message stand out. Don’t be afraid to sell yourself, but don’t take that as an invitation to act like a crazy person.