Take your business to the next level Successful Direct Mail 101 Including 11 Steps for Effective Direct Mail Brought to you by www.dwsassociates.com 651-315-7588 Successful Direct Mail 101 Brought to you by: About the DWS Associates Founded in 1982, DWS Associates is a full service marketing firm that develops and implements multi- channel marketing campaigns for organizations targeting business-to- consumer and business-to-business Contact Information: audiences in global markets. Phone: 651-315-7588 [email protected] Our focus is on data-driven, www.dwsassociates.com innovative lead generation, lead Twitter: @dwsassociates nurturing, retention, and referral programs that attract, engage and retain profitable customers. Our staff is highly experienced in market research, competitive intelligence, business intelligence and analytics, strategic planning and campaign management - so we help you increase sales and marketing performance while building strong, unique, differentiated brands. PLEASE SHARE THIS PUBLICATION WITH ANYONE YOU FEEL MIGHT BENEFIT FROM ITS CONTENTS. 2 www.dwsassociates.com 651.315.7588 Twitter: @dwsassociates Table of Contents The Basics: How Direct Mail Works ....................................................4 Direct Marketing vs. Direct Mail ................................................................ 4 Is Direct Mail effective? ............................................................................ 5 Junk Mail: How to Avoid It with Proper Planning and Execution .............. 5 The Importance of Ready,, Aim, Fire ...................................................6 Basic Math Will help You Decide .............................................................. 7 11 Steps to Successful Direct Mail ......................................................9 Your Direct mail List ..........................................................................12 How to Build a Profitable List .................................................................. 12 Using Rented Lists ................................................................................. 13 A Few More Tips..................................................................................... 13 Developing Offers That No One Can Refuse ....................................14 Effective Ways to Present Your Offer ................................................15 A Little Insight Into Direct Mail Formats .............................................16 Postcards ................................................................................................ 16 Self-Mailers ............................................................................................. 16 Booklets and Catalogs ............................................................................ 17 Dimensionals .......................................................................................... 17 Standard Elements ................................................................................. 17 A Few Tips .............................................................................................. 18 Designing and Writing Effective Direct Mail Packages ......................19 What To Look For In Effective Direct mail Copy ..................................... 19 Appendix A: Market Segmentation Checklist ....................................21 Appendix B: The Creative Brief .........................................................22 Appendix C: Links to Calculators and Tools ......................................23 3 Successful Direct Mail 101 Brought to you by: The Basics: How Direct are more like your ‘best’. Other Mail Works effective direct marketing media include: Direct mail can be one of your most effective, low cost generators of • Print advertising that includes sales – if you know how to harness response devices such as coupons, its powers. If you don’t understand phone numbers, fax numbers, email direct mail basics, you will create addresses and Internet addresses ‘junk mail’ which not only wastes (URLs); your time and money, but weakens • Insert cards, also referred to as your brand reputation with ‘blow ins’, are commonly found in prospective and current customers. magazines, and they are another example of direct marketing using In the following sections you will print advertising; learn the basics for effective direct • Radio and TV commercials that also mail so you can use it to attract include response devices such as profitable new customers and turn telephone numbers, URLs, and first-time buyers into repeat buyers. email addresses; • Catalogs which typically include Direct Marketing versus Direct multiple products along with Mail response devices such as telephone Direct marketing is a highly targeted numbers, order forms, business method of selling directly to the response cards and URLs; consumer; direct mail is just one of • Card decks that include multiple several media or communication offers from multiple companies and channels used in direct marketing. are commonly delivered via the mail The key to successful direct or as door-hangers by distributors marketing is effective targeting – and going door-to-door in this requires a clear understanding neighborhoods; of your ‘best’ customers as well as • Package inserts that are typically your ‘worst’ customers so you can found in billing statements or inside target prospective customers that the packaging of a product; 4 www.dwsassociates.com 651.315.7588 Twitter: @dwsassociates • Free standing inserts (FSIs) such as the Internet, many businesses are the advertisements found in the daily forgetting about direct mail – and that’s newspaper; a terrible mistake that could be costing • Internet advertising, especially your business tremendous revenue banner ads, that invite you to ‘click’ opportunities. If you need proof as to in order to learn more and order; the effectiveness of direct mail, just • Opt-in email which is the electronic take a look at companies like LL Bean, equivalent of direct mail and will Williams Sonoma and Lands’ End – all include an offer along with clickable of which are large, successful links that will take you to a webpage corporations using direct mail to attract, or micro-site that will provide you engage, convert and retain highly with additional information and the profitable customers. opportunity to buy the product. • Telemarketing, also referred to as But best of all, direct mail offers small teleservices, is: and medium-sized businesses a low • Telephone-based prospecting cost opportunity to increase sales in and information collection both the near and long-term. How? By • Talking on the telephone to allowing you to target your efforts to prospects or customers. specific individuals in an extremely • Inbound telemarketing is personal way for a fixed cost! usually customers or prospects Think of it this way – for as little as $1 calling your toll free number. you can sell a product or service to a • Outbound telemarketing is new customer. What other media when you place the call to a allows you such a potential return? prospect or customer. Telemarketing can be done by your in-house staff or by an Junk Mail: How to Avoid It with external telemarketing Proper Planning and Execution company. Successful direct mail is targeted and contains a valuable offer that is too Is Direct Mail Effective? good to refuse – junk mail is delivering With so much attention being placed on 5 Successful Direct Mail 101 Brought to you by: the wrong offer to the wrong person. Strategies: These are planned Most businesses will create junk actions to achieve your objective – when they focus on the wrong issues and direct mail is your strategy. To – specifically the quantity of improve your chances for success, distribution – rather than taking the you should consider making direct time to create the best offer for the mail one of several strategies that right audience. This kind of you will use to achieve your ‘saturation’ mailing is typically sent to objective – and this is called an ‘occupant’ or ‘to our neighbors at…’, ‘integrated marketing campaign’. An and are generally a waste of effective example of this would be to resources for any business. include [ex] outbound telemarketing as a follow-up to the direct mail effort The Importance of Ready, or to use direct mail in a multi-step Aim, Fire. approach (sending several direct For direct mail to succeed you need a mail packages/pieces to the target plan and a successful plan will audience over a specific period of thoroughly address the following time). This will make your overall points: campaign more effective because your target audience is, most likely, Objectives: Specific, measurable going to require several contacts objectives such as “To sell 5 units of before your message cuts through Product X at $100 each to new the clutter of their lives. customers by June 1st, 2010.” Why do you need a clearly stated Tactics: These would be the specific objective? Because if you don’t know actions used to execute the strategy. what success is, you can’t create and For example, the initial direct mail execute a direct mail campaign that package will be #10 envelope with a will be successful. After all, if you business letter, 3-panel brochure don’t know where you are going, how and a postage paid business will you know when you get there? response card (BRC) along with toll- free numbers and a special URL 6 www.dwsassociates.com 651.315.7588 Twitter: @dwsassociates containing information specific for this makes sense. campaign.