How You Can Cash In with Direct Mail

In his first book, Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy wrote that the principles for his success came from watching what was being done by direct mail advertisers.

Since that time direct mail has gone through many changes. High-powered ad agencies that once wouldn’t be caught dead doing direct mail started buying up small direct marketing agencies and opened “direct” shops. Businesses of all kinds, from self-employed consultants to Fortune 500 companies started “doing direct.”

Problems came, however, when results didn’t. Direct mail often didn’t work because too many thought of it as a delivery system rather than a marketing technique and sent out mail without doing it right. But when done right, direct mail is the most profitable marketing a company can do to build business.

More than 528 billion dollars is spent annually to make purchases as a result of direct mail. If you would like a chunk of that 528 billion for your business, get ready to change your mind about everything you think you know about advertising.

First. Forget mass advertising. For most businesses, mass media is the least effective way to generate income. Once a system of direct mail is implemented, the difference in increased sales is dramatic.

Notice the use of the word “system.” Direct mail is not something you try every now and then. It is a system that works for you constantly. And here’s the real beauty of it. You control the system. Your direct mail system of marketing will work automatically for you while you focus on running your business.

Second. Remember that you are talking to a person when you send out direct mail.

Put some personality into your marketing! Direct mail lets you be creative in outrageous ways. You can’t bore a consumer into doing business with you. And why would you want to be boring? Yet billions of boring pieces of direct mail get delivered to homes and businesses each year. To cash in you need to maximize the effectiveness of the medium.

Third. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but it will kill your results in direct mail.

There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t copy another company’s advertising that I don’t have room to list them all. But the three most important are:

1. You have no idea whether it actually worked for them.
2. You don’t sell the same type of product or service so why would the same approach be smart for you?
3. Your customers are not the same as their customers.

It is absolutely, positively, without question or argument, imperative that you do something specifically created for your business with your direct mail.

Fourth. Timely, dated offers and incentives are absolutely essential if you are going to cash in with direct mail.

Direct mail is the perfect medium for offers. That’s because you can test them, measure their effectiveness, create clever ways for them to be redeemed and reinforced, and keep your customer motivated to do business with you.

The difference between one offer and another can be as great as a 400% increase in response. I know, because I’ve seen it happen in my own work. You can’t generate that kind of instant increase in your profits from any other marketing medium.

Fifth. Direct mail lets you choose and target who gets your marketing message.

This is a huge advantage over every other form of advertising. Every consumer and business gets mail.

You can create different direct mail pieces for different consumer niches. If some of your business comes from people in their twenties, and some from people in their fifties, don’t talk to them the same way. They are two different generations. They will be motivated in different ways.

When you know your customers, direct mail is the only way to quickly find more customers just like the ones you have.

Sixth. Every person who works for you must be willing to measure and track results.

To cash in on direct mail success you must track and measure it diligently. Reports should be issued daily for the first two weeks, then weekly for the following 4-6 weeks after a mail drop. If you don’t have systems to do this you’ll need to set them up. I had one client who never measured direct mail response but was always happy with it because every time the direct mail dropped, their sales spiked up.

Sadly, this company never saw the need to know more. Direct mail is a scientific medium. Crafted correctly it is the easiest form of marketing to measure. Had my client measured their results, they would have gathered information that could have spiked their sales even higher.

Seventh. To do direct mail without testing something each time is a waste of direct mail.

The biggest boost in profits I’ve ever generated in direct mail came from testing the pricing. I was using direct mail to sell a product priced at $12.99. It was consumable, so repeat sales were built into the model for profitability.

Through price testing we discovered that the odd price of $17.88 actually generated more sales. We tested, re-tested, and finally rolled out at $17.88. Our rollout volumes produced about 15,000 sales each time.

The higher price brought an additional $4.89 in revenue for each sale. For 15,000 sales that meant $73,350 more income without any change in marketing cost or product cost.

No other medium permits testing like direct mail. How much more income could you generate through testing in direct mail?

In the thirty-plus years I’ve been doing direct mail I find it is difficult to persuade most companies to do it right. I am always amazed at the excuses I hear when there is the potential for doubling or tripling their sales. So they walk away from direct mail and continue to run ads in newspapers and magazines, without offers or incentives, and are content to wait and see if anything happens.

We are in tough times. Do you want to double your sales or wait and see?

The reality of using direct mail effectively is that you can increase your profits in a short amount of time, with total control and not much work.

The #1 reason people tell me they don’t want to use direct mail is the post office. Deliverability is unpredictable and the postage costs are high. Yes, there are times when it has taken too long for the mail to get delivered. But where else will you find someone willing to personally deliver your advertising piece to a consumer’s door, for less than 20¢?

Now the post office has Intelligent Mail service where deliverability can be traced and tracked, even for standard rate mail. What other media will do that for you?

You have heard the quote “50% of the money I spend on advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which 50%.” When you use direct mail you will know exactly how effective every dollar is at bringing more business to you. That’s your return on investment and in today’s economy you need it more than ever.

© Copyright 2010, Excelsior Marketing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.