In a tight situation, a radio ad can be on air within a few hours. That’s a benefit of the medium. Well, direct mail has lots of benefits but getting through production quickly, is not one of them. A major mail campaign can easily take a couple of months to prepare. It is very much a detail business. Little details in many cases. But if you don’t attend to every last detail, things can go horribly wrong.
There are many cases where people say they have tried direct mail, ‘and it didn’t work for us.’ In most of these cases, even a scant analysis reveals that they have ignored fundamental elements.
The practice of direct mail is one where experienced practitioners have proved over and over that certain techniques ‘work.’ It’s crazy (and sometimes expensive) to ignore this experience.
Thinking and briefing This is the most important part. Getting the thinking right. If this front end loading is comprehensive and informed, the campaign is on the way to a joyful success.
Right up front you have to nail down one thing very precisely: what is your objective and is it feasible with the time and budget available?
One of the pillars of direct marketing is that it is measurable. Logically, therefore, your objective has to be measurable. As well as specific and time related. Your objective is normally aimed at either:
- new customer acquisition,
- growth (up sell or cross sell),
- retention,
- win back.
The briefing has to involve every element of the campaign. The initial briefing session should include all the hands-on workers who will have the capacity to wreck your promotion.
Include them all, up front, so they know what you are aiming to do and also so that they can provide the practical input you need.
Analyse your targetThe biggest single mistake in direct marketing is failing to spend enough time getting to know your target market. And I don’t mean ‘all women 18 to 39”. That’s not a target at all – it’s way too broad.
You have to dig deep and get to know your audience: what are they really like as people, what media do they use, what might they be doing when they read your direct mail, what distractions might they encounter, how do they prefer to respond, what motivates them?
A handy technique is to map out a day (hour by hour) in the life a typical member of your target audience. Get to understand them. Then there is much more chance of developing a mail piece to connect with them.
If you are using a list for new client acquisition, make sure that the list you use is made up of people who ‘look like’ your current customers. For targeting, there is excellent software tools on the market today so use them.
An offer they can’t refuse To overcome prospect inertia, the most powerful tool in the armoury of the direct marketing practitioner, is the offer or incentive.
In direct marketing, the ‘offer’ is not the bundle of benefits inherent in your product or service. It is the added incentive. ‘Thirteen bottles for every dozen you buy this weekend.’
The offer is designed to answer the “what’s in it for me?” question that recipients ask as they open your mail piece. It is the offer that creates urgency and ‘forces’ people to act now. Obviously, there is usually a cost involved which has to be carefully assessed.
Offers can include free samples, free information, two-for-one deals, special previews, entry into contests and the list goes on.
Offering free stationery items to folks entering a night club is an example of an offer gone wrong. Whereas, a landscape gardener offering a free fact sheet full of garden design tips, in exchange for a no-obligation landscaping quote, is extremely relevant.
Test, Test, TestThere’s a proud history of testing among direct marketers.
It provides extensive learnings about the audience and about what works and what doesn’t;
It saves heaps of money - you don’t go out to your full database of 150,000 with a mail piece that bombs. You test it on 10,000 first. If you do monthly mailings, say for new client acquisition, you will have a particular mail pack that is your best performing pack (the control). Every month you will test another pack on a small segment with the aim of out-performing your control.
If you have no ‘control’, with every campaign you should do a split run test of something such as:- a different offer
- a different approach in your covering letter
- a different form of response
- a different look and feel to the mail piece.
It’s best to test the elements that are most likely to make a major difference. And be sure to test one differential at a time.
How creative can you be?
Whether you choose to use a classic mail pack (covering letter, brochure, response device and reply paid envelope) or an all-in-one mail piece (self-mailer), there is tremendous scope for your creativity.
And don’t forget you are not restricted to regular letters. ‘Three dimensional mail’ carrying all sorts of unexpected goodies can create added impact. If in doubt about what you can send, Australia Post (or similar) has people to help.
In being creative and looking at communication challenges with new eyes, there is also a budgetary issue. Set a clear budget for your campaign as early as possible.
The creative people working on your campaign, need your trust. If you believe in them, they’ll produce better work for you. If you can’t trust them to produce effective work, take your business away.
Once the creative presentation is agreed, it’s into production mode. As a client, the best way for you to contribute at this stage is to allow enough time for the job and keep out of the way.
Fulfilling your promises
When the phones start ringing and orders come pouring in, this is not the time to begin your fulfilment plans.
The fulfilment of the order is the part that interests the client most. It has to be planned well in advance and implemented with care and attention to detail. And remember, excellent fulfilment that delivers even better than the promise, is the first step towards repeat purchase.
There are any number of mailing houses to handle fulfilment for you or you can do it internally. When making your decision on this, be realistic about your internal resources – especially systems and people. You can end up paying a high price over the long term for any angst caused at this point.
A sure way of extracting more value from your direct mail spend is to fulfil orders and handle queries and complaints with the professionalism and timeliness that your customers expect.
Measure everything
As your campaign is in progress, you need to monitor and measure your results. Here the database is your greatest asset.
Precise measurement is one of the great attributes of direct marketing. Apart from telling you what works and what doesn’t, it can teach you a great deal about your target market.
The more you can measure, the better. In production, mail packs going to different segments are coded differently so that when the response comes in, you know which segment is responding.
It’s not unusual to have a campaign where the response overall maybe, say 5%, but the response from a particular small segment may be 25%. This sort of data provides a valuable insight into your target market.
Through analysis of your database, you can get information such as, which segments contain the most young people, which channels the new buyers use or where the big spenders live. Every campaign provides learnings to help you make the next one more targeted and more effective.
| To say that direct mail is a detail business is no idle comment. There’s writing, artwork, photography, design, printing, database preparation, inserting and packaging. And that’s just for starters. But for all the detail it can be very rewarding. It is a one-to-one medium that has a proven track record. There’s no reason it can’t work well for you. |