We found a great video for you that talks about the benefits of direct mail and the successful strategies related to it. Enjoy!
Filed under direct mail, direct mail campaign, direct mail tips, targeting your market by on Aug 7th, 2009. Comment. 
We have a video below that you will be interested in regarding how you design a successful direct mail piece that gets opened. Enjoy.
This video has been brought to you by, Business Helpers Mail Center out of Scottsdale Arizona. Feel free to contact us for a quote on your next direct mail campaign. Call us at 480-483-7677.
Filed under Arizona mail services, direct mail, direct mail campaign by on Jul 24th, 2009. Comment.
The most important part of marketing your business is finding new ways to capture prospects and turn them into paying customers. We have given you some ideas, such as postcards but there is more to it than just mailing out something. You have to have a proven system.
In this post, we will go into a direct mail campaign. If you are a small business owner, this system works like a charm. This allows you to direct your prospects to a particular response mechanism. This could be in the form of a response form to fill out and send back, a phone number to call back to take advantage of a time sensitive offer, or direction to a website in order to purchase a product or service.
What you will need for a simple direct mail campaign:
1) a prospect list
2) a response mechanism (i.e. phone number, web page, form, etc.)
3) collateral materials
Purpose
It is most important to outline the purpose of your direct mail campaign. Do you want to expand your leads list? Do you want to retain current customers from your existing list? Do you want to make sales now? Once your purpose has been decided, then plan out your process accordingly. It is quite simple, really.
Additional Tips
Determine a timeline of your campaign. Make sure you have a way to measure results. Set a starting budget that would include postage, paper, printing, list rental, and any outsource services.
In today’s marketing climate, it has proven that coupling telemarketing as a response vehicle can dramatically raise salse conversion rates.
In future posts, we will reveal successful case studies of this simple method of effective marketing.
Filed under direct mail, direct mail campaign, direct mail tips, telemarketing by on Jun 26th, 2009. Comment.
In preparing any direct mail campaign, you naturally start with both an idea and a budget. Before getting too involved in your project, be sure to check that your concept works well with your budget, both in terms of postage and post office delivery and processing time. A good suggestion is to run the size and design by your mailing house for feedback.
Automated and machineable pieces are always quickest for the post office to process and deliver. At the same time, these pieces also receive the least expensive postage, the greatest dollar savings.
What makes a direct mail piece machineable? Several items to check:
- 1) Size. Letter size mail always processes quicker and costs less in postage, regardless of whether it is being mailed first class, presorted first class or presorted standard. Non-letter size mail can cost almost twice as much in postage. Square and odd-shaped pieces are not only considered non-letter size, but are always processed manually by the post office and, therefore, more time consuming to process and more expensive in postage.
- 2) Thickness. Be sure the mail piece is at least as thick as the minimum postal standards and will withstand post office equipment processing. Conversely, make sure it is not too thick so as to require manual processing.
- 3) Location of Address. Be sure the address can be placed where you can receive automated discounts. Also make certain it is the first address that will be read by the post office machinery. Post office processing equipment reads addresses from the bottom up and from right to left. If a destination address is placed higher on a mail piece than a return address, the post office might attempt to deliver all of the mail to the one trying to send the mail. If the mail piece is non-letter size, be sure the address is positioned in the top half of the piece. If not, there are no postal discounts available; you would have to pay full first class postage on every piece.
- 4) Room for a Barcode. A barcode is just under 3″ wide and you may not print the barcode in the ½” closest to the right margin. You should also have at least ¼” clear on the left side of your barcode. A good rule of thumb is to keep a 4″ area clear from the right side of the mail panel. Having a barcode speeds delivery and can significantly lessen postage.
Remember, any good direct mail house will always be willing to look over the design of your mail piece before it is printed. This way, potential problems can be caught while they are still an easy fix.
If you have some tips that you can add to this, we welcome your comments.
Filed under direct mail, direct mail campaign by on May 19th, 2009. Comment.
The world is your oyster! Do not limit yourself unless you must.
One of the critical components in any direct mail campaign is the mailing list. Not “who do I want to mail to?” but “who do I want to become my next customer?” “Who can benefit most from my offer?”
The more you can define your best existing customers, the clearer you can be about the demographics to use in purchasing a mailing list of prospects. Always build the universe without constraints. Only build those in as you must. The “must” being determined by the cost and availability of the selection criteria.
Define the factors and refine your ideal model. If it’s residential: geography, age, gender, marital status, presence of children, household income, home value, age of home, religious affiliation, lifestyle interest, etc. If it’s business: geography, business category, sales volume, employee size, number of years in business, single vs. multiple locations, franchises vs. independent ownerships, etc.
As you select these direct mail criteria, remind yourself that you are not trying to reach everyone. Of course everyone can use your service or product. That’s not it. Where can you have the greatest chance of the highest positive response? Go after that. You may pay more for your mailing list, but your increased positive response should more than make up for any additional cost. Further, you may find that you can cut down the size of your mailing this way – saving far more than the additional cost of the mailing list in printing and postage dollars.
Filed under direct mail campaign, targeting your market by on Apr 21st, 2009. Comment.
If you are planning a direct mail campaign and you put the job out for quotes to a mailing house, do not look only at mail handling costs and believe that printing is printing and postage is postage. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The amount of money you spend for a direct mail campaign should be the bottom line that it costs you – printing, mail handling and postage, balancing your desired delivery times.
A mailing list should be cleaned and refined before the print order is given. Very often, a mailing list could be reduced 10% or even more after the list is cleaned for move updates, the removal of duplicates and bad addresses and, if appropriate, the removal of moves out-of-area. Why waste money on excess printing and mail handling? Be sure that the expert you hire to do your mailing is proficient at this and will work with you to provide your list clean-up in a timely manner prior to placing your print order.
Similarly, the class of mail should be examined based on balancing estimated delivery time and postage cost. It could be that you are preparing a very time sensitive mailing where 40% is nationwide and 60% is local. You have asked mailers to quote the job for presorted first class mail. A good mailing house will direct you to consider mailing the nationwide pieces presorted first class and the balance presorted standard, maximizing postage savings and delivery time. You may not have thought of that – mailings is not your business, why should you?
And, finally, postage is not always postage. The more sortation you can do on a mailing decreases the amount of processing the post office needs to do and lessens postage. Where a mailing house takes the mail to be processed can also lessen postage. Again, this is not your business to know, but don’t you have the right to expect your hired expert to direct you.
Look at all these factors before you compare the total cost, not a single one.
Filed under direct mail campaign, direct mail costs by on Apr 13th, 2009. 1 Comment.
The question is often asked whether it is better to use a printer to do both the mailing and printing of a direct mail campaign, or to use independent places. The answer lies with the motivation of each.
A printer makes their money based on the quantity of pieces they print and what they look like. Therefore, the printer’s motivation is not necessarily in the customer’s overall best interests.
The mail piece’s design should be maximized to produce the greatest results and need not be the most extravagant. It should balance the desired image. This may be counter-productive to the printer’s bottom line.
Additionally, the mailing list should be cleaned and honed to produce the greatest results and need not be the greatest number, just the most targeted number – cleansed for move updates, the removal of duplicates, and, if appropriate, the removal of moves out-of-the-area. This, too, may be counter-productive to the printer’s bottom line.
Lastly, each company should do what they do best. The printer should print. The mailing house should direct on the mailing options, the postage costs, the delivery considerations, the cleansing and/or selection of the mailing list, and the processing of the mailing.
Filed under direct mail campaign, mail services, printing services by on Apr 10th, 2009. Comment.