Ten Tips for a Successful Direct Mail Marketing Campaign

By Jay Berkowitz, CEO www.tengoldenrules.com

Direct Mail Marketing is different from traditional advertising in three key ways. First you can precisely target your message to qualified prospects, second, you can test a number of variables and thirdly you can measure your results very effectively. Here are ten tips to help you run a successful direct mail marketing campaign.

1.      Test, test and re-test

Direct mail marketing offers you the ability to test many different variables. Test variables such as target mail lists, offers and creative in each campaign, carefully measure the results and build on your successes. The winning combination of variable will become your ‘control’ or best performer, then test different variations against the control to try to beat the winner. Successful testing is one of the best ways to learn about direct marketing and how it can work for your business.

2.      Follow the 40:40:20 Rule

40% of your success in direct mail will come from your offer – print two or three different versions of your direct mail marketing campaign to test different offers. Use a different offer code, website address or 1-800- reply number to evaluate the most successful offer and evaluate which offer delivers the best returns. 40% of your campaign success will come from lists. When you start a new marketing campaign, mail small quantities to test different lists and measure the results from each list. Which list yields the most responses, which yields the most orders? Once you have identified the best lists, roll out to larger number of prospects from the best performing lists. Only 20% of your overall results will come from changing creative. We often focus too much on the color of the outer envelope and the picture in the brochure when creative normally has less impact on overall results.

3.      Your House List is Always your Best List

Your house list, the list of past customers and current prospects will always yield the best results. How else can you market to this list? Can you offer past buyers a special deal to purchase your products as a gift at holiday time? Do you have other products that they might want to buy or try?

4.      Test simple and sophisticated options

In some categories, a simple postcard direct mail marketing campaign can yield profitable returns. In other categories, a traditional style direct mail piece with an outer envelope, a letter explaining the product and offer, a brochure and a response mechanism (a reply card with -1800 number and website address) will be more effective. Test these options to find the winner for you!

5.      Follow the principles of I.D.I.C.

In their classic books on One to One marketing Don Peppers and Martha Rogers coined the term “IDIC”. In most businesses, 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your customers, how can you "Identify" you best customers or prospects? What traits are common, what demographics can you find in buyers to intensify future prospects? "Differentiate" how you treat these best customers (can you give them 'platinum card service'). "Interact" with these customers, develop special dialogue and "Customize" your products or service to better meet their needs.

6.      Use 2x2 Testing

Test the results of different offers and different creative by setting up a 2x2 test (chart below). Each test cell contains 25% of each variable, and overall the direct mail pieces will an equal split of each offer and each creative test. 

	Offer 1	Offer 2
Creative 1	25%	25%	50%
Creative 2	25%	25%	50%
	50%	50%

7.      Try personalization using variable data printing

A personalized message can significantly improve response rates. Print Pelican can provide variable data printing so you can customize the message to the prospect. Including the prospects name and crafting messages relevant to their gender or interests can yield excellent results.

8.      Get great lists and verify the addresses

In order to mail at reduced postage rates, your address list must verified against the United States Postal System (USPS) National Database. This is called CASS certification, and it ensures that every address on your mailing list is deliverable Print Pelican can help you CASS certify your list to ensure that the addresses are valid and to remove duplicates so you will not pay for postage twice.

9.      Manage your data

Managing results and accurately tracking data will ensure the long term success of your program. Great direct mail programs do not come from one-shot attempts. Testing lists, offers and creative - accurately measuring the results and building on successes will yield the best long term returns.

10.  Get outside of the Box

Direct Mail Marketing is designed to sell, and your copy and creative must grab the target customers attention, get them to open the piece and engage with it. What unique offers can you make? What large, different shaped sizes will catch their attention? If it is a high end product test delivery using FedEx or UPS, this often gets opened at much higher rates. Another creative approach is to engage the user with part of a set or a portion of what is needed to use a product. One Award Wining Direct Mail Marketing campaign included one boxing glove, the recipient had to call the 1-800 number to get the second glove which would be delivered by a sales person. Another Award Winner included a remote control car, the sales person would bring the remote control device on the sales call.

Jay Berkowitz is the CEO of www.TenGoldenRules.com a Boca Raton, Florida based marketing consulting company.  With this article you can learn about direct marketing with ten tips for running a successful direct mail marketing campaign including cutting edge technology such as variable data printing.