Direct mail, also called direct marketing mail, junk mail or post office mail, and door-to-door mailing are the delivery of marketing material via postal mail to residential recipients. It’s a relatively inexpensive way of reaching out to prospects. With today’s high cost of living, businesses can take advantage of mailing lists and target them directly. Direct mail has also become increasingly popular with local government agencies, such as schools, city, county and city governments.
When considering using direct mail or email marketing, you’ll want to determine how targeted your efforts are going to be. Are you sending postcards, newsletters, or catalogs? If you’re just putting flyers in mailboxes, then your chances for success are not as good as if you are mailing to potential customers in your zip code or area code. It’s also important to consider where your marketing efforts will focus. Will they be focused on a particular neighborhood or across the country? For many marketing strategies, cost is a major factor.
The size of your direct mail package is very important in determining your response rates. Mailing samples should be evaluated to ensure that you have an effective response device. A response device is any offer, program or promotion that can result in a purchase. In this case, you would include a special offer like a discount, free trial, free shipping or demonstration, or a savings coupon.
Keep in mind that successful direct mail campaigns involve a mixture of traditional and electronic media. You may either use an electronic form of advertising, such as email marketing or online advertising through websites, search engines or social media. Alternatively, you may opt to send mail only to your target audience, and then use other advertising channels, such as television, radio or print. Direct marketing also takes into consideration whom you are appealing to. If you are appealing to only a specific group of people, such as a certain age group, you may not want to send out the same offer to all of them. For example, if you were insuring young children, you wouldn’t want to advertise your child’s birthday party in your direct mail advertisement.
Direct marketing involves mailing to actual recipients in addition to sending catalogs or brochures to potential recipients. You can add photographs, postcards, or personalized cards to your direct mail campaign. You can go so far as putting your company’s logo or motto on these items. Even though it’s considered junk mail by most people today, it can still be highly effective in reaching your target audience. A well-designed direct mail campaign can reach more recipients than any other marketing campaign. This is especially true when you mail your materials to those recipients who have shown interest in what you’re advertising.
Direct mailings are a great way to increase your business’s revenue. However, the success of direct mailers lies in the ability of the recipient to open and read the materials that they receive. If the recipient of your mailings cannot immediately begin to use the item that you mailed them, chances are they will delete it without ever seeing it. Therefore, you need to make sure that you carefully choose your target audience and carefully select the appropriate materials for them to read and open.