Tweet

Three Vital Direct Mail Tips for the Small Business Owner

Written by: Corte Swearingen

Article Overview: Direct mail can be a very profitable marketing channel for the small business owner. This article outlines three tips for ensuring your direct mail success.

Three Vital Direct Mail Tips for the Small Business Owner

Direct mail can be a very profitable marketing channel for the small business owner. With much emphasis on website and search engine marketing, many companies have forgotten the power of a strong direct mail package to pull in quality leads and convert prospects into customers. This article outlines four tips for ensuring direct mail success.

Strategy #1: Match Your List to your Target

There are basically two types of direct mail lists; rentals lists and house lists. The reason you rent a list is to bring new prospects into your business. A list rental, when purged of any existing prospects or customers, is a list of suspects. A suspect is someone you think might be interested in your products or services, but you aren’t sure.

Your goal for any suspect mailing is not to sell – it’s to convert them into a viable prospect by building up their trust and confidence. If you immediately put on the hard sell for a suspect, chances are good that you’ll be ignored. Good suspect mailings will give away a free report, product sample or service trial in exchange for contact information like an email or address.

A house list is simply your current list of prospects, first-time buyers and repeat buyers. You should split your house list into these three areas and come up with the most compelling offer for each group. Your house prospects have shown an interest in your products and services but haven’t made that all important first purchase. Make them a deal they can’t refuse. For your buyers, concentrate on upselling and cross-selling complementary products.

Strategy #2: Track Your Results

If you can't track it, don't do it. Make sure your direct mail piece contains a way to track whether the customer took action. If you don't do this, you will never know if your mailing had an impact.

Here are three suggestions for tracking your direct mail promotions.

1. Mail a postcard that contains a promo code that must be brought into your retail store.

2. If your business is web based, use a unique promotion code that must be entered at your website when redeeming the offer.

3. If you are referring people back to your website, send them to a special page your regular web visitors can't access.

Remember, the more you can track and measure, the more you can adjust in order to create a more effective mailing the next time.


Strategy #3: Have a Compelling Offer

What exactly is your call to action? Make it clear to your customer what it is you want them to do and make sure your offer is clear and compelling. Below are some ideas to get you going.

- Free product trial
- Discount on product or service for limited time
- Free consultation
- Free report for download at your website

Make sure you capture everyone's contact information so you can add it to your database. On your website, this can be as simple as having them fill out a contact form before redeeming the direct mail offer.

Direct mail is a great way to supplement a strong ecommerce marketing program. In addition, using your website to capture new suspect contact info is a great way to combine direct mail and web communication channels.

Related Articles
  GCD Explains Direct Mail Basics
  3 Key Elements of Direct Mail
  Build Your Business Faster With Direct Mail Advertising
  Injecting Internet Marketing Into Your Marketing Mix
  Build a Referral Program for your E-zine

Article Tags: complementary products, confidence, direct mail promotions, direct mail success, email, first time buyers, mail lists, mail package, mail piece, marketing channel, postcard, profitable marketing, promo code, prospects, retail store, search engine marketing, small business owner, success strategy, target, upselling



Related Forum Posts
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
Business Tips - How about: Tips for managers to handle employees more effectively? Tips on how to deal with difficult customers? Tips on how to deal more effectively with suppliers? The only three I have in mind right now, but will try to come up with something else. Chris
Job titles - [quote:3shpwvxj]In fact, I've had friends tell me that "Founder" is better than "Owner" since it's less possessive.[/quote:3shpwvxj] For myself, I don't care for the term "Founder" [i:3shpwvxj]because [/i:3shpwvxj]it's not possessive. You can be the founder of a company and have sold it - so it no longer belongs to you. However, if you call yourself "Owner" - people know the company is still in your hands. But I don't like Owner, either. I'd prefer President or Director, because one can be an absentee owner, whereas if one is a President or Director, people assume you're involved in the day to day activities. Manager, on the other hand, wouldn't work if its your business, because (to me, anyway) that implies that you "manage" for someone else - like at a restaurant.
These maybe the coldest franchises out there: - Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops. WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure % 1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56% 2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94% 3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18% 4 COPY CLUB 36.36% 5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71% 6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71% 7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59% 8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78% 9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48% 10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33% 11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33% 12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33% 13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33% 14 BLIMPIE 31.39% 15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77% Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The Digital Diet by Daniel Sieberg

Getting The Media Attention You Deserve

Email Marketing Made Easy #11 - Avoiding Spam

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.