Direct mail is still a useful tool for getting your message out. Not everyone is online (yet) and many people still prefer to see and touch parchment rather than pixels on monitor.
But email is free and quick – snail mail isn’t!
Get this! 5,000 emails would cost you around £60 to send with a bulk email client. Direct mail would cost around £1,750!!
So here’s some pointers to make sure your Direct Mail campaign isn’t the equivalent to posting money into a big, red bin.
Five tips geared to actually getting them to open the envelope
- No flashy envelopes. Plain white please. Nothing shouts JUNK MAIL louder than lots of pretty colours.
- Either address it to them in person, or just put the address on. ‘Dear Homeowner’ is another phase for ‘Hello, I’m Junk and I want your money’.
- No pre-paid envelopes. Yes, it’s lots of hassle to put on individual stamps, but you want your audience to feel like you’ve spent a bit of time thinking of them as an individual (don’t you?).
- If possible, hand write the envelopes. Your children will see this as an excellent opportunity to practice their handwriting.
- Put a return to address on the back. Make sure it’s not a P.O. Box.
Five tips geared to making sure they read it, then call you
- Address your letter “Dear Mr & Mrs Jones”, not “Dear Homeowner”.
- Make the Headline enticing – Split test it before hand (duplicating what works best in your Google Adwords campaigns is a good way to start).
- Short, sharp, punchy paragraphs please. Use AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action).
- Make sure you have a call to action. “Contact us by the 14th and receive a free Widget”
- Sign each letter personally. Pre-printed signatures (unless a very good quality scan) immediately take away the personal, one-on-one, contact your trying to establish with your reader.
Bonus Tips
- Little yellow post-it notes with a couple of handwritten words, stuck on the front of each letter, has proven to increase response rates substantially.
- Try adding a ‘P.S.’ at the end of your letters. Again, this has proven to increase response rates.
- As with any marketing campaign, make sure you test with a small number first, before rolling out to large quantities.
Good Luck, and Good Times to you…