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How To Succeed With Direct Mail Advertising
by Andre Plessis

Whether you are planning to market your products and services to your target audience by direct mail, telemarketing, fax, or e-mail, here is a quick overview of a few steps to take to ensure a successful marketing campaign.

What is the specific objective of you marketing campaign and what are you trying to achieve?

The purpose of marketing is to present a product or service to consumers and businesses who need or want them, and entice them to buy. This includes alerting individuals that your product or service is available, showing your prospects its features and benefits, and making them an offer it will be difficult for them to refuse. A part of marketing is investigating your industry pricing strategies and setting prices. Marketing is also analyzing your competition, discovering the number of people who wish to buy your product or service, the saturation level of individuals who already own it, and how long your product or service has been around. Marketing includes the function of the selection of additional products and services to sell to your new clients, along with the marketing strategy to sell them. 
More importantly it is the marketer and business owner's duty to satisfy customers enough for them to purchase, then to come back to purchase again. Finally your goal should be to get repeat business and referrals from your new clients are these are the two lowest cost, most effective ways to market your business. If your customers don't come back, or you don't give you any referrals, that means that your product or service is not appealing or your marketing has failed miserably. 

Your Direct Marketing Campaign should have for objective to: 

Who is your target audience?

The objective of your marketing campaign is to correctly identify the people who are the most likely to purchase your products or services so you can promote those to them. The better you define your best potential customers, the more effective your marketing campaign will be. The better you define your target audience, the more effective you will be at reaching them. Thus, you will waste less money on advertising while trying to sell to people who aren't really interested in purchasing your products and services. Lastly you need to know what your audience needs, and what their expectations are so that you can create a valid offer. 

What is unique or special about your product or service? 

How does it differ from the competition? Think about your Unique Selling Proposition. What is the most important benefit to your audience? You need an incredible offer almost impossible to decline. You need to create a Unique Selling Proposition. A USP will distinct your business favorably apart from every other competitor. Would you want to patronize a company that has with no unique benefit, no incredible prices or selection, no exceptional, service or guarantee? Or would you prefer a company that offers you the best selection, the best prices and the best guarantee?

What enticement does your audience have to act on TODAY?

Once you have caught somebody's attention, you have only one chance to make a good impression. You need to urge your prospects to act today before it is too late. If they don't act today, they will lose all the benefits of your offer. As an example you may have an offer with a 20% discount of any item or service you offer. That might be a coupon.

What is your competition doing in your Industry? 

Gain a competitive advantage by studying your competitors’ advertising. Study the competition, the leaders in your industry the ones that have been around for a long time. Keep track of what TV programs and radio stations they're on and the location and size of their print ads, outdoor billboards. Find out about their Internet presence and which advertising network and tools they use to market their products and services. Whatever they are doing is working, which means they are reaching your target audience.

What is the budget of your direct mail campaign?

Advertising is an investment that is necessary to build sales and. Future growth of any business depends considerably on how much you advertise and how well you plan and implement your advertising program. Keep in mind that if consumers and businesses don't buying from you they buy from your competition. It should be common for any business to designate the amount of its monthly advertising budget as a percent of sales. Setting the advertising budget shouldn’t be pure guesswork. There are trade journals for various industries that provide information on the average advertising expenditure for different types of businesses. The most important think you need to know before allocating your advertising budget is to find out how many sales you need to do to cover your investment. When you know the percentage of sales you will make from your marketing campaign it will give you your return on investment.

Let's take an example and assume that you send 10,000 mail pieces and that your direct mail cost you $4,000. The industry standard 1-2% response rate on your mailing. So let's assume that 1% (100) of recipient responds to your advertising and that you make $200 per sale. If you close 50% of those who call you you will make $10,000.

You should be able to plan your marketing campaign based on a similar example described above. Find out what you can afford to invest and what your expectations are on your return on investment. If you want to increase your direct mail response and and your sales ratio you will first need to work on your Unique Selling Proposition and second on your sales skills. Be aware that people buy for the three following reasons:

Sales process & Sales letters

Remember that money is never the real issue. People buy from people they like and trust. Conviction is always the real issue.  

Writing an effective sales letter is a great weapon you need to be successful in marketing, assuming that you have a product or service that is in demand by the public. If you get your sales letter in front of the right prospect, a skillfully written sales letter will be another great weapon. Writing killer sales letters should be part of your marketing efforts to turn your venture into a money maker or pull in a large number of highly qualified leads.

How to keep customers coming back?

While many companies focus on finding new customers, it is a futile exercise if you do not retain customers you have won. It costs 10 to 20 times as much to find new customers as compared with the cost to maintain existing relationship with your own clients. Stay in touch with your customers, offer them specials, and get more orders and referrals from them. You should contact your existing customers several times a year. Too often, businesses use a mailing, telemarketing, fax or email campaign as a one-time offer. But this doesn't give a true picture of the potential. Like other kinds of advertising, repetition is the key to success in direct mail. You should mail at least six times to the same group to get best results. Why do people believe they can send out one mailing, one time, and all of a sudden become bombarded with new customers?

It's a nonsense to believe any one shot mailing is going to uncover everybody interested in your service or product.

Think about your own life. You've probably received some offers that you were interested in but you never acted on. Perhaps you do not want take advantage of an offer today because you procrastinate. It's human nature. Your prospects are the same way. To overcome this, you've got to create a plan for campaign with multiple mailers. You need to build credibility with those prospects and when the right time comes you will be the first one they call. That's why using multiple mailings often leads to double-digit returns.

One more important thing, try to mail as many as you can as you are competing with big players in your industry who have no problem sending 50,000, 100,000 mail pieces and they get results because of the number of pieces they send. Remember it's a numbers game. So if you do not send a lot you decrease your chances of success in direct mail marketing.
 

The success of your marketing campaign will depend on three things:

Create a Unique Selling Proposition that will distinct your business favorably apart from every other competitor. Would you want to patronize a company that has with no unique benefit, no incredible prices or selection, no exceptional, service or guarantee? Or would you prefer a company that offers you the best selection, the best prices and the best guarantee?

Who do you market to? You should focus on marketing to the right audience. If you send your message to an consumers or businesses who do not need your products or services then not only your throw your hard-earned money away, but also your advertising campaign becomes a total disaster. That is why it is so important that you identify who your customers are, that you understand your customers needs and buying habits, and finally meet their needs and wants.

How do you find consumers and businesses who are in need of your products and services? That is our specialty. Savings4Merchants has access to over 40,000 consumer, business mailing lists, email lists and specialty lists and through our knowledge and experience we can help you select the lists that will be the most responsive to your marketing offer.

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