Direct mail experts have a secret that makes them successful and profitable time and time again. From their experience, it has been tested that, when you send out a direct mail campaign, make sure you mail out so the target audience receives it Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
It has been proven that your customers receiving mail on Monday or Friday will most likely get your mail tossed in the trash. Mondays are known as heavy mailing days and most companies sort out their mail so quickly that anything that looks like advertisements gets trashed. On Fridays, mail is equally sorted out very quickly because there is typically rush deadlines to be made in the afternoons or many workers work only a half day. There is greater chance, just like Monday’s that mail will get tossed in the trash can as well.
Tuesdays followed by Wednesdays are know as “light” mail days and the recipient will most likely study every piece of mail and open them without really checking if they are advertisements or not. This also gives your company a calculated follow up by phone, if you have that kind of program put in place.
Also, remember to carefully plan your follow up mailing to also fall to the target audience in Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Sometimes just the timing of sending out mail will make or break your campaign!
Call Us Now for Your Direct Mail Needs – 480-483-7677
Filed under direct mail, direct mail campaign, direct mail tips by on Jul 5th, 2010. Comment. 
Want to know the ultimate secret to direct mail success? First, we should all know that the fundamentals of marketing will always matter when successfully selling anything.
As with any sports team, coaches will state that practicing the fundamentals, training outstanding athletes with this method has never failed a team to the championship. Likewise, when marketing successfully, it pays to practice what has always worked.
The SECRET is repetition. Yes, when mailing to a targeted list of customers or prospects, it pays to repeat mailings in reasonable intervals so that the marketing “message” is constantly reinforced in their minds. Eventually inertia will take over and the customer, and when ready to buy, will be ready to call you and your business to make a purchase.
So don’t measure your direct mail campaign with one mailing to that one list. You need to mail repeatedly to the same list several times before you reap the rewards AND profits of that targeted list you are using!
If you like this article, tell your business associates about it and have them visit and comment!
Filed under direct mail campaign, direct mail tips, targeting your market by on May 18th, 2010. Comment.
Direct mail letters are the most effective way to personalize your advertising. This method is very attractive to the person receiving the mail piece. Postcards get glances before they get tossed in the wastebasket, and catalogs usually just get set aside for a time to thumb through that may never come along. Advertising letters are the happy medium that may mean increased sales.
Hand-written touches are the most important thing that attracts attention. First, hand write the addressee’s name. That way the consumer knows you thought of her personally and thought she would enjoy hearing about the product/service or special deal you are offering.
The body of your letter will obviously need to be typed in order to mass produce and insure ease of reading. Take the time to chose a letterhead style that is appealing to the eyes. Use white for the color of the paper and plain text for content, either arial or times roman at 12 point. And of course, a great logo and your business’ contact information.
To close your letter with that personal touch, sign every letter individually. Now, of course if you have extremely large number of letters to go out, there is technology out there that can “recreate” real looking hand written signatures in mass production. You may want to price that out with your printer if they have that option available.
It would also enhance your response if you add a “PS” at the bottom of your letter. Here is where you could add a special offer or thank them for their business…a great business retention technique. It lets the customer know you value them.
In conclusion, always think how to personalize the letter enough to let the customer know you are giving them personal attention and appreciation. After all, isn’t that what we all want?
For your direct mail processing needs call Business Helpers at 480-483-7677. Serving all of Arizona, USA.
Filed under direct mail, direct mail tips by on Jan 15th, 2010. Comment.
We found a great article that Entreprenuer Magazine did on direct mail marketing…..”99 Tips for Direct Mail Marketing”
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/guerillamarketing/article193436.html
This article was brought to you by Business Helpers in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Here is a quick list of services we are able to assist you with.
- Mail List Preparation: Merge/Purge, clean, remove duplicates, CASS certification (ensure accuracy and deliverability), NCOA (updates change of address)
- Mail Processing: Address (directly onto mail piece), collate, stuff, fold, seal, affix wafer seal closures, sort, stamp/meter, bundle for postage discounts, and deliver to the post office. We can accommodate a wide variety of insert and envelope sizes
- Letter Shop Services: Print personalized, high quality laser letters, folding, tabbing, and inserting while accommodating a wide variety of insert and envelope sizes
- Custom Printing: We find the best price and quickest service available through our printing partners
- Hand Assembly: Quality hand assembly (collating, folding, inserting, labeling and addressing) for custom or unusual jobs
Let us make a no obligation quote for your next mailing job. You will notice the difference on the service and attention we provide! We love what we do and looking forward to helping you.
Call us now at 480-483-7677
At this time, we want to wish all of our customers, vendors and visitors a most successful and prosperous new year!
Filed under Arizona mail services, direct mail tips by on Jan 4th, 2010. Comment.
Here is the 5 most common direct mail mistakes most businesses make.
- Not spending enough time and money on the list. Quite often we throw a direct mail campagin together without a thought to what kind of list we are going to market too. We find out later that the direct mail piece, the message and the call to action was perfect but the list, which we “rushed” to purchase without checking the validity and the integrity of the list broker has let us down. Think more of the list broker and explore the quality of the list and also the types of buyers the list has. Sometimes it could change the direction of what kind of marketing message you are going to plan for if you find another target market ready to buy your product or service.
- TESTING! This is a biggie. More than half of direct mail customers will give us a direct mail campaign to mail out, give us the list and fail to give us some parameters of changing out how the mailing piece looks to test the headline, the direct mail piece design, etc. There are so many things to test, the color of the envelope, size of the piece, the message, making it “lumpy,” and so on. Be a test “junkie” and you will find you will be consistently doubling and tripling the money brought in on a campaign.
- Stress the benefits to the customer in your marketing message as opposed to the features your product or service has. The buying customer does not care about the fancy, schmancy features your product has, as a matter of fact, they do not have the time to listen to how great you are, they want results! What kind of result can you customer achieve by using your product?
- Have an offer. What is a direct mail campaign good for if you do not have an offer. Even just asking for the order in your message is good enough to get you results. Research what kind of offer you are going to make. It has to be compelling and benefit driven.
- Lastly, and most importantly FOLLOW UP with your customer list. I highly suggest you get the phone numbers of all your direct mail prospects too. That way, you can follow up and get a good probablity that you will make sales right on the phone from the mailing. Do not underestimate the power of follow ups!
For your direct mail processing needs call Business Helpers at 480-483-7677. Serving all of Arizona, USA.
Filed under Arizona mail services, direct mail campaign, direct mail tips by on Dec 7th, 2009. Comment.
Have you ever wondered what your recipient does with incoming mail, mail that you may have sent to them via a direct mail marketing campaign? They have a “ritual” in which they sort out the bills, personal mail, interesting looking mail, and the all famous – “junk mail.”
We are all guilty of this sorting process of our mail whether it is at home or at the office. Mail is quite often the first thing we give our attention to, so that is a good thing to direct mail marketers. But the most important thing here is to make sure your mail piece is personalized or somehow geared towards getting the attention of the recipient to open your mail piece. It should not be gaudy or obnoxious, slightly business-like, and non “salesy.”
We have a video below from a direct mail marketer that should drive out point, when thinking about your next direct mail campaign.
The Secret of Direct Mail Success
For your direct mail processing needs call Business Helpers at 480-483-7677. Serving all of Arizona, USA.
Filed under direct mail campaign, direct mail tips, targeting your market by on Dec 2nd, 2009. Comment.
Probably, the most important part of your direct mail campaign will be choosing your mailing list. That is also the most challenging part of your success or failure when doing a mailing. The most common way to get a good list is from a list broker. Here are some tips when going out to secure your mailing list.
- The first thing you have to do is find a qualified and targeted list for your product or service.
- Your list should be current with all duplicates removed
- The list should be sold from an experienced and reputable list house that has a proven record in high quality lists
- Know the profile of who you are mailing too. This goes along with knowing your product and service enough to know who is likely to buy
- Lastly, check on the past record of the list broker and even ask for references of current or past customers…..and check up on them.
You don’t have time to fool with less than quality list brokers since normal response rates in the direct marketing field is about 1.5%. That means you have to make sure your quality of the list is high enough to practially “guarantee” that percentage norm.
For your direct mail processing needs call Business Helpers at 480-483-7677. Serving all of Arizona, USA.
Filed under direct mail campaign, direct mail tips, targeting your market by on Oct 21st, 2009. Comment.
We have complied a short list of 4 of the most helpful resources when planning and implementing a direct mail campaign.
3) USPS direct mail resource page
shows how to create your mail piece
direct mail defined
create mail list
sending procedures
mailing and shipping tools
direct mail research
We hope you find these resources helpful to your next direct mail campaign. Remember to always do your due diligence when hiring a direct mail house to process your mailing. Check on their references, their past history of clients and programs they worked on, check with the Better Business Bureau, and make sure they are proactive in following up with you.
Filed under US Postal Service, direct mail, direct mail campaign, direct mail tips by on Oct 12th, 2009. Comment.
We found a very informative video revealing what it takes for a successful direct mail campaign. First, you have to have a great list from a source you can trust, and a very compelling offer that is clearly stated in the direct mail piece. Enjoy!
Filed under Arizona mail services, direct mail campaign, direct mail tips by on Sep 22nd, 2009. Comment.
1) Using the wrong list. Perhaps the biggest mistake that you can make is to use a mailing list that does not represent your target audience. Too many people send out mailings, receive no response, and wonder why. Make sure that your list is current and targeted to meet your needs.
2) Poor copy. It may only be 100 or even 25 words, but they need to be the right words. Take the time to do several rewrites until the copy will grab the reader’s attention.
3) No call to action. If you don’t tell the reader what you want them to do, it defeats the point of sending the direct mail piece. Do you want them to call you? Email you? Send in the enclosed postcard? Buy something? Make it clear what they should do or they will not respond.
4) No testing. Too many people learn the hard way that their direct mail piece is not effective. It should be common practice to test out anything you plan to use to market or advertise your business in order to see if it makes an impact.
5) Using hype over meat. It is all too common to hype your product or service with superlatives instead of highlighting and explaining the actual benefits of your product or service.
6) Not proofing the copy. There are too many stories of great direct marketing pieces that were missing phone numbers, addresses, or other key information. Errors in the copy are also too prevalent. Proofreading is an important aspect of all of your marketing campaigns. If you feel that you are lacking in those skills, hire someone to proof your copy. Or ask a colleague who has a way with words to take a look at your text.
7) Not focusing on your headline. One of the reasons we all toss direct mail quickly is because it does not grab us. Somewhere between boring headlines and gimmicks is a smart use of a headline that catches someone’s eye without insulting their intelligence. You only have a few seconds to grab the reader, therefore you need to put great stock into your headline.
8) Highlighting form over function. One common mistake is placing too much focus on the design elements of the direct mailing piece, which results in marvelous four-color graphics, interesting shapes, and eye-catching color, but a discrediting loss of content.
9) No follow up. Many businesses send out brochures, fliers, and other materials with no follow-up plan. Follow-up refers to calling, mailing additional information, or at least being prepared to fulfill requests for the product or for additional information.
10) Not tapping into expert advice. Direct mailing has been around for many years because when it works it works very well. Many people have spent their careers mastering the art of direct mailing. They know the right words to use and the best ways to get results. However, far too few people tap into this bank of knowledge. Do your research and learn from experts in the field.
This information is taken from All Business (dot) com
http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/direct-marketing-direct-mail/3986-1.html
Filed under Arizona mail services, direct mail, direct mail campaign, direct mail tips by on Sep 1st, 2009. Comment.