I often compare direct mail to a first date.
You dress yourself up in your finest clothes, put your best face forward, and hope for the best. That really is a lot like direct mail.
You take your best, strongest message, craft it as clearly, cleverly, and concisely as you can, and hope it impresses your audience enough to take action. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, but don't let that discourage you!
Direct mail really does work and it is still relevant, even in this age of online marketing. The key is conducting it in a way that is smart and cost effective.
In this article, I'll focus briefly on three key elements of direct mail. Do these things right, and you'll be well on your way to creating a profitable direct mail campaign.
Mail to the right list
Mailing to the right people or organizations is critical in direct mail. The perfect message directed to the wrong audience is, quite frankly, a waste of your time and money.
When determining who to mail your message to, I encourage you to be as specific as possible. For example, don't mail your piece about hot flashes to women under the age 30. They have no reason to care -- yet. And don't mail your postcard about retirement to a zip code loaded with college students. Again, they don't care.
Test, Test, Test
While you may think you know what your market wants, none of us really knows for certain. That's why we test.
There's an ongoing debate within the direct mail industry about how many elements should be tested at once. My opinion is to test just one element at a time so that you get good, clean results.
So, for example, next month you may want to test your offer.
Let's assume that you have to charge a certain amount for your product or service, but you want to test the manner in which your "deal" is presented.
So you mail a "2-for-1" offer to half of the names on your list and a "50% off" offer to the other half of your names. Yes, this is essentially the same offer, but you're testing how the two different approaches are perceived. (You may be quite surprised by how your market may respond to one vs. the other.)
You can test almost anything -- from headlines to body copy to colors to fonts. The key is to test anything capable of yielding results you can use in your next direct mail campaign.
Carefully track your results
The value of any good direct mail campaign is in the results. That's why it is so important that you set up your campaign and test in a manner that makes it easy to read and act upon your results.
The key is to learn something in every campaign that can be applied to your next campaign. This is how you stay in the mail profitably.
GCD Explains Direct Mail Basics - To learn more about this author, visit Gail Diggs's Website.
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Gail Diggs
(Visit Gail's Website)
Gail Clanton Diggs is president of [GCD
Writing and Marketing Solutions www.gcdwritingandmarketing.com].
GCD is a full-service company dedicated to
providing clients with high quality
writing and marketing assistance.
“I love this work”, says Gail. “I enjoy
listening to the visions of my clients and
then working with them to create strong,
current web site copy, write press
releases, create ads, develop brochures,
and more to help ensure that their
professional dreams come true”, she said.
Gail has almost 25 years of experience and
her happy client base includes health
professionals, women’s ministries,
financial experts, and authors. While her
experience is broad, much of her recent
work has revolved around initiatives
related to health. She takes seriously
her responsibility to each of her clients
and sees their success as intricately tied
to her own.
She has a BA in Communications from the
University of Dayton and a MA in
Journalism from University of Maryland,
College Park.
To learn more, visit her [web site http:ww
w.gcdwritingandmarketing.com] or email
Gail at gail@gcdwritingandmarketing.com.
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