16 Direct Mail Marketing Tips

I recently ran into an article written in 2006 listing 99 Tip for Direct-Mail Marketing. While some of the tips are a little out dated (Example: Make a simple order form for faxing) many of them are still valid for today’s world.

Below are 16 tips I pulled out that I thought were the most important. Since the article doesn’t go into any detail on these points, I added a brief description of each.

1. Make your offer easy to understand at a glance – You may only get a few seconds to catch the attention of the reader; make sure your message can be read and understood in just a few short seconds.
2. Use colored paper to make impact and save on printing costs – In a sea of white envelopes it pays to stand out! Try using colored post cards to stand out against the crowd.
3. Use a reply card or other reply mechanism – If you require a response from your audience give them a way to easily get back to you. You can use postcards with a perforated stub to do that.
4. State your geographical service area even if its global, national, regional or local – You probably have some sort of connection with the audience you’re sending your direct mail campaign to. Whether it’s a local area on your website or a physical location near them, let your audience know.
5. Include a call to action; tell your readers exactly what you want them to do – Unless it’s a holiday you’re probably not sending postcards and letters to your audience just to say hello. If you want your audience to reply, go to your website, or order something make sure you tell them. Just as you can’t read their minds, they can’t read yours.
6. Offer a discount for a quick response and order – Is your offer time sensitive? Offer a reward for a fast response. “Limited time” deals are a good example of this.
7. Always put a sense of urgency and deadline in your copy – In correlation with number 6, make sure your audience understands that they must act swiftly in order to receive your offer.
8. Use typestyles that are easy to read, not a mix of them – A fancy script font may give off an elegant tone on your mailer, but is it easy to read? Can you read it at a glance? Remember you want to give clear instruction on what you want the receiver to do. You can give off the same elegant appeal with sleek san-serif fonts that are easy to read.
9. Use a tear-out coupon or one with a printed perforation – Sending out a coupon? Give the receiver something easy to tear off or specific instructions on where to cut out the coupon. If you’re using Every Door Direct Mailers to send out your direct mail campaign, try using a mailer with a perf so that the coupon can be easily removed.
10. Restate your offer often, especially at the end of the communication – Remember that you can never be sure about which side of a postcard each member of your audience will look at first. If they only have enough time to skim the back make sure they can get enough information out of it to perform the desired action.
11. Test different copy, headlines and offers – This is still good marketing advice. Test, test, test. Test to see if green postcards get you a better response than yellow postcards. Test one headline against another. You should never stop testing different ways to say or do things in marketing.
12. Measure results and calculate ROM (Return on Mailing) dollars – How can you know if your marketing campaign is working if you don’t measure the results? In these times we don’t use the term “Return on Mailing” but “Return on Investment” or “ROI” instead. They mean the same thing though: Is the cost of doing a direct mailing campaign worth the reward you receive from it?
13. Code your mailings to measure response – We talked a little bit about this in out 16 Every Door Direct Mail Tips post. When sending out coupons, add a small code to the bottom of the coupon that relates to a specific area or mailing list. Then you can see just how many coupons were redeemed for a particular area or mailing list.
    
14. White space is good–a clean look is professional and easy to read – Still great advice. If you cram a lot of information into a small area people will be less inclined to read it. By breaking your copy up and segmenting it into smaller chunks you make it both easier to look at and easier to read and digest.
15. Postcards are very efficient; usually both sides are looked at – There are many advantages of sending out postcards over letters. For starters the postage is cheaper! Also the open rate of postcards is 100% because the receiver doesn’t have to open anything; the message is always visible.
16. Put your website address on all mailing pieces – Don’t forget to mention your virtual address. With all the smart phones in the world many people are accessing the Internet every day. Make sure you let them know where you are in the Wild Web.

Do you have any direct mail marketing tips you’d like to share?

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