Henry David Thoreau once said, “It is not enough to be busy….The question is: what are we busy about?” The man has a point. What are you busy about? Are you focusing on the wrong things? I’m not in any position to tell you what you should or shouldn’t be focusing on in your personal life, but I have a few pointers for your focus in direct mail marketing. There are multiple factors that will affect the success of a direct mail marketing campaign; the question is which ones to stay busy about.
1. The most important factor in direct mail marketing is your mailing list. Think about it, with a bad list you’re going to get a bad response rate. No calls means no business, and no business means no profit. You can have the greatest mail piece in the world, but what good does it do if your list is no good? So how do you make sure your mailing list is targeted to a specific audience for success? Well the key word there is “targeted.” First question to ask yourself, what are you trying to accomplish and who is going to care about it? The demographics of prospective clients are the key, if you’re trying to buy a house you’re not going to mail to people at a young age, with a low income because they probably don’t have a house for you to buy; and if they do, chances are they aren’t looking to sell it. However, a person nearing retirement age, with a decent income, and multiple properties would be much more likely to have an interest in selling. Stay busy about who cares what you have to offer, and if you need some help figuring that out? We’re here for you.
2. Personalization. So you check the mailbox every day, maybe every other if your mailbox is too far away. It’s usually the same ole’ stuff, am I right? Bills, junk, bills, junk, more bills, more junk. How often do you get a piece of mail hand addressed by a real human and how excited are you when you actually do? I LOVE getting mail that isn’t immediately going to contribute to a landfill, or that isn’t a text, an email, or a Facebook message. I also throw all those bills and junk aside to open it first. Are you catching what I’m getting at here? If you have a mail piece that’s hand addressed it’s going to get opened and you’ve accomplished step one. Not only will the envelope get opened the letter can contain mail merged information, the prospect’s name, and/or address. A specific date or amount pertaining to their personal situation, it’s the little things in life. Stay busy showing someone you took the time to personally reach out to them, without any added time to your schedule. You’ll stand out and in return bring in business.
3. Grab their attention. You’ve composed the perfect list, chosen your verbiage for your variable font and mail merged yellow letter, stuffed in a hand addressed envelope. You’ve pretty much accomplished everything, yeah? Well, yeah you have but hey let’s throw a couple more options in there just to make things interesting! What if you mailed your letter in a bright, neon orange envelope? The infamous Punxsutawney Phil predicted a short winter this year which means spring should be right around the corner, so try a pink, purple or blue envelope. The options for envelope color are endless. Coordinate with holidays or seasons; add a little pop of color to the boring everyday mail we all get. Isn’t our theme staying busy with importance? Consider a multi-touch campaign, sending your prospects 3 or 4 letters will ensure your name is staying in mind. Set it up to mail every four weeks on auto pilot, that way you stay busy being productive rather than being busy trying to become busy. Change the color of the envelope for each touch, with a different ink color. Try a postcard for a follow up, and don’t hesitate to send us the name of anyone who doesn’t want or need a follow up, we will remove them and make sure they won’t receive any follow up letters.
“It is not enough to be busy….The question is: what are we busy about?” Well Henry, at Yellow Letters Complete we’re busy about people’s successful direct mail marketing, which happens to be our specialty. We stay busy to help you stay busy about your important business, and we can save you time by managing your campaigns on auto-pilot.
