Direct mail marketing executed in a professional manner can make wonder for your business in terms of awareness, sales, brand building and customer interest. Here are 8 important factors for a successful direct mail marketing campaign.
Marketing Alternatives:
Marketing in Local or national radio stations
Advertisement in local or national newspaper
Commercials on local or national TV
Advertisement on billboards and posters
Direct Mail marketing via local flyers, postcards, brochures etc
Direct sales marketing through telemarketing
Business to Consumer communication via SMS & mobile communication
Direct Mail Marketing – Primary Advantages for your business growth
Target Advertising – most important benefit is the targeting a specific group of customers.
Personalization of Marketing Message – tailored to your customers specific needs based on previous transactions and gathered data.
Optimization of Marketing Message – Because of its direct accountability, direct mail marketing can be tested to find the best address list or customer target group; the best product offer; the best timing for your sales or marketing campaign (and many other factors). Then the winning tests can be rolled out to a wider audience for optimal results.
Secific data collection on customers – Responses (and non-responses) can be added to the database, allowing future mailings to be better targeted.
Successful Direct Mailing Campaign in 8 steps:
1. Define PRIMARY PURPOSE of your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign
Information regarding launch of your newly established company
Increase sales and customer contacts
Decrease customer churn
Increase profitability from existing consumers
Counter on competitor activities and product offerings
Advertise your company’s new products / services
Advertise a promotion and limited sales campaign
Brand building for your existing product line or company
Others marketing purposes not covered in this article
2. Marketing decisions based on UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMERS
Marketing Message – What and when do you want to communicate and to whom?
Total cost for the campaign; e.g. marketing material, advertisement costs, purchase of address information, distribution costs, and follow up costs such as telemarketing.
Sales targets – What is the total number of shipments, the number of responses, and the average order value per response?
Effect on churn levels on existing customer base – before the direct mail marketing campaign and after the direct mail marketing activity.
Hit rate, i.e. number of customers that you expect to respond
Break even for this campaign, i.e. what sales revenues are required in order for your direct mail marketing campaign to become positive.
3. Consider the following CUSTOMER CHARACTERISTICS
A very important aspect of effective direct mail marketing is understanding which customers to contact. Logical starting point for understanding how to construct your customer target group is to analyze your current customers. When you understand existing customer base you can effectively expand your customer target group by identifying similar companies that are not your customers today.
What revenues do different customer groups generate to your business?
Which of your products shall the customers purchase?
What industry segments are your customers active in?
Geographical distance from the customer to your stores?
Your potential customers turnover and sizes?
Timing – when should you activate your campaign? When is this customer group most likely to accept a sales proposal?
4. TEST your direct mail marketing assumptions – GO LIVE
Test group – order or collect approximately 500-600 customer addresses
Divide these customers into 2-3 small target groups
Test different marketing messages or product / service offerings on each group of customers
Observe customer response, hit rate, number of sales and effect on revenue
5. ANALYZE the Direct Mail Marketing Test, draw your conclusion and Decide
Did you reach your primary purpose defined under section 1.?
If your purposes where not reached find our why?
What communication message and was most effective?
What print material (flyer, brochure, postcard etc) and was most effective?
What sales channel was most effective?
When and how did the customer contact you?
= > Decide on final direct mail marketing message and product offering
= > Decide on the timing for the direct mail marketing campaign.
6. Take very good care of all CONTACTING CUSTOMERS
As a general rule – the more response alternatives your give your customer (Internet, mail, coupons, fax, telephone, SMS, in-person visits) the better is the hit rate.
Assign responsible person on your company for managing the customer responses.
Consider server capacity for peak in incoming traffic generated by contacting customers?
Secure mail server access on your company to the people involved in handling the customers response
Secure proper storage of the incoming customer mails?
If the direct mail marketing campaign involves coupons, take decisions on the in-house vs. external outsourcing? Remember to store the customer coupons are stored for sales and tax purposes.
Make sure your company’s telephone can handle simultaneous calls, a “call back” solution perhaps?
Customer contacts vary over the week and during the day. Peak for customer contacts are often in the beginning of the week and around lunch hours, but draw your own conclusions and be prepaired.
7. DECIDE on FINAL STRUCTURE for your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign!
What message should be communicated to your target group?
What product offerings or services should be in focus?
What customer segment/-s?
What response channel/-s should be presented to the target group?
Where can you purchase or get free access to the customers’ addresses?
Make your product offering or service stand out from your competitor!
Size format of the print material
Text format of the add or sales message
Distribution format of the print material
Timing of the shipment (preferably Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday)
8. IMPLEMENT
Depending on the distribution volume of your campaign, try to negotiate with your local distribution companies in order to achieve a better pricing structure.
Season variations or vacations: Are your customers in any way affected by the season, and will this affect your Direct Mailing? Are your customers at home or on some holidays?
Last minute changes: Have there been any large changes in the circumstances since you tested your hypotheses? For example, changes in competitors prices, marketing campaign from your competitors, bad publicity and so on? Will this require you to change anything in your campaign?
FOLLOW UP and draw learning’s from your direct mail marketing campaign!
Which customers did actually respond?
What did the customer purchase?
When did the consumer of your product or services make the purchase?
Average Order Value compared to estimations
What did they not buy?
Industry segmentation based on customer response and
How did customers respond? Via what response channel?
Who did some customers not respond?
Why did customers not respond? Contact a small group of customers.
Industry segmentation – can you identify any trends?
What would the customers like you to offer them in order to close the sale pitch?
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