Loading I had someone tell me the other day that they saw no value in direct mail. When asked why they felt this way they responded, “Well, this one time I spent a fortune on direct mail and I barely got any response.”
Being the curious person that I am, I had to get more details, so my next question was, “Oh? What type of direct mail did you send?”
“A postcard,” they responded.
“A postcard?” I asked.
“Yes. It took almost all of our marketing budget to send it and we didn’t even break even on it,” they said.
“Wow,” I responded. “It sounds like you had a really bad experience. Do you mind if I ask what you were trying to accomplish with the postcard campaign?”
Our conversation then went into the fact that they had been told by a marketing “expert” that they needed to brand themselves. So they had some beautiful, full color, high gloss postcards made up with their logo on it and their address and phone number. And yes, they had been charged a fortune for the printing and mailing of the cards. Not only that, but the list they purchased was incredibly expensive. I had a sinking feeling in my gut as I asked my next questions about their list.
“How many people were on your list?”
They said with pride, “Oh, we were able to get a ‘deal’ because we went for a larger number. We thought why start small when we can hit everyone at once. We sent it out to 20,000 homes.”
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “That is a large list. What was the common factor for these 20,00o homes? Did you try a test run before you mailed it to the whole list?”
**cricket’s chirping and blank stare**
That was the response I got.
So what happened? If you said nothing, they did everything right, we will need to have a talk later about direct mail 101. If you said they were had, I would say that you are absolutely correct.
Let’s look at a couple of key things.
1) Direct mail can be defined by one word. That word is “Test.“ If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
2) Know your list. In order to have a message that matches your market, you must know who that market is. So, if your average customer is 34.5 year old black female who has a graduate level degree, enjoys cooking and pilates, and shops at Pottery Barn, then don’t be sending your direct mail to 67 year old white males who enjoy playing shuffleboard and shop at the local flea market.
3) 1 postcard ain’t gonna do it. Let me say that again. 1 POSTCARD IS NOT GOING TO GET YOU ANYWHERE! The key to direct mail is to not give up. Think of it like this. How many times does a kid ask his mom for a cookie before dinner before she finally relents and gives the boy a cookie? The answer? A LOT. He has to either a) wear her down, b) catch her off guard, or c) catch her on a good day. Am I saying to wear your prospects down? No,that would be annoying, although there are times for that. I am talking about trying to catch them off guard by getting their attention or catching them on a good day
4) Start small. That’s right. In direct mail, bigger isn’t always better. Think about it this way. If you start with a list of 1,000 from a highly targeted list and you get a lousy response, you can tweak your message and still afford to send more. But if you send to a huge list right out of the gate, you have just used your entire budget and have nothing to show for it. What if you have a great response from the 1,000? Great! Then send the same piece out again and again and again and again. You can take that piece to the bank.
And finally…
5) Branding is not the goal of marketing, it is a by-product. That’s right, your marketing professor was wrong. Unless you have the budget of Coca-Cola, you are not going to be able to use marketing to brand yourself in any way that would accomplish anything. But that is a post…or maybe even a book for another day.
So if you are thinking of sending out a direct mail piece, keep these points in mind. If you have sent something out in the past and are feeling a little horse shy, don’t give up. You need to tweak it and try again.
Till later~
Sarah
