Go Old School – Part 1

Are your email campaigns getting lost in the electronic crowd that is constantly hitting your clients or prospects inbox?

Are the spam police cutting your emails off at the intersection and quarantining your important messages before they get seen? When an email just won’t get through to who you want it to, what do you do? Well, you can consider going old school and turning to the trusted, proven and effective form of snail mail. It is a road that can be less crowded and easier to stand out in these days. Yes it is more expensive, yes it can take more time, however it can be a lot more effective and create much higher response rates. Stop, before you just hit print and post, how can you help ensure that you increase the success rate of your targeted recipient both receiving your mail piece and then opening it?

Now there is a lot to cover when it comes to a great printed direct mail piece and far too much to cover in one article, so we will spread it out in a few articles over the next few weeks. So let’s start with what the client sees first, the envelope. The envelope can help ensure that your marketing piece get’s to your intended recipient and grabs their attention! A custom printed envelope not only screams professionalism it can provide your client or prospect with the feeling that you have invested in and do really care about their business! You can apply the same rule to all marketing, 40% Call to action, 40% Copy and 20% Creative. The key is to capture the recipients attention and get them to take action and open the envelope. No budget for flash envelopes, or you don’t think you really need 500 or 1000 envelopes – as an option consider a stand out sticker. When it comes to addressing the envelope, personalise it! When and where possible use the recipients name, rather than something like “To the manager”, I am sure you would agree that if you see your name on the front, you are more inclined to open it.  Consider hand writing your prospects or clients contact details on the front, or if your database is way too big another great way is to use a handwriting font. Food for thought, a client of ours told us that they had hired several uni students with great handwriting skills to handwrite name and address details for a pretty large database.  

TIP: A very very important tip when investing in a printed direct mail campaign is to ensure that you have cleansed your database and made sure your contact details are up to date and all spelling is correct. Attention to detail goes a very long way in both earning your recipients respect and demonstrating that you do care. Depending on the size of your campaign, don’t underestimate the value of applying a real postage stamp on the envelope, it can make your direct marketing piece feel a lot less like a mass mailer and for a small cost per piece it might be a great investment! The key is to test and measure and measure the opportunity cost of each campaign. Are you tight on physical resources or the dollars you can invest – or have you got a fairly big database to get out too? Have a think about how you can break it down to several smaller campaigns. How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time! (metaphorically speaking, we don’t condone eating elephants and no animals were harmed in the production of this article….) The important thing is to start taking action, getting your campaigns out and as they generate results, reinvest some of the return straight back into your marketing activities, keep on sewing and reaping. These days it is not only amazing how much bang you can get for your buck when it comes to adding both a splash of design and colour to your envelopes. Yes it can cost more than an email, but it is more important to consider the possible and greater return on your marketing investment (ROMI). The power of print and the return on investment it can deliver when creating a nice printed direct mail campaign will surprise you.