Good, Better, Best: Direct Mailing

There’s an art to really effective direct mail marketing. If you’re a first-timer, it can be a little overwhelming, but even direct mail veterans can find room for improvement.

If you really want to kick your direct mailing up a notch, you’ve come to the right place. At Printing Solutions, we’ve helped dozens of businesses launch direct mail campaigns with outstanding results, and we’ve got our best tips for taking your direct mail from good to better to best below.

BONUS: 5 Reasons to Use Direct Mail

Good

It doesn’t take a lot to have a good marketing strategy. The main things to focus on are how your mailers look and where they’re going.

With any direct mail campaign, you want to make sure you’re targeting the correct audience. For instance, if you’re selling garage doors you’ll want to target homeowners and property managers, not college students who are in dorms or apartments.

You’ll also want to make sure that your message is clear, and that everything on that mailer supports the message. If you use images, they should be cohesive with the written copy and not distract from the words. You may also choose to emphasize certain key points of your message with a different color or font, but don’t go too crazy — the mailer should still be recognizable as your company’s brand.

Better

The above is a great strategy for starting out, but it’s not really enough. If you’re putting in the effort and money to send out mailers, you need to be able to tell how effective they actually are. To really make a campaign better, you need tracking. You can do this many ways, from call tracking to including a promotional code that is specific to that batch of mailers — or better yet, specific to that customer. You really just need some way to monitor which materials are generating a response, and how big that response is.

Best

So you’ve got a good design and clear message. You’ve made them even better by implementing a way to track results. How do you really make your direct mail campaign the best it could possibly be?

You expand. Chances are direct mail isn’t the only way you’re marketing your business (and if it is, it shouldn’t be). If you’re like most businesses, you’re also using Facebook, Twitter, or other social media to promote your business. You may even be using email marketing to connect with customers. If you are, that’s great, but why not combine your efforts and make them work together?

For every customer that doesn’t respond to your direct mail flier, follow up with an email reminder. Include an incentive on your mailers that ties in with your social media efforts, like a special discount for customers who like your Facebook page. You can even print a customized hashtag on your mailers, encouraging customers to engage across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (all of which use hashtags).

The bottom line: Your customers don’t use just one way to communicate. If you want to really connect with them, neither should you.

BONUS: What’s Your Direct Mail Strategy?

For help choosing the direct mailing strategy that’s right for you, give Printing Solutions a call at 480-596-6300.