When did you last receive any direct mail through your letterbox which looked remotely interesting? (excluding birthday cards, if you’re lucky to have celebrated recently…)
Bank statements, the odd bill and some random advertising leaflets are pretty much all that comes into my post tray nowadays. But I do remember in my early days of corporate life that we each had a daily post book – into which incoming mail was opened and sorted for my response. Think they became extinct a wee while ago…
Direct mail can help you stand out
Compare this with my email inbox – a different matter altogether! A least 10x more ‘stuff’ arrives each day – some crucial (client messages), some useful (select supplier information, relevant association updates) and some plain unwanted (e-shots from would -be suppliers, spam from unknown businesses etc). These can all be quickly ticked and deleted en masse, without even being opened! It’s brutal in the inbox…
So if you want to stand out with your marketing, why not revert to the good old snail mail and physically get your message to the right desk?
How much more exciting is it to receive a letter like in the picture, versus seeing a new, bolded, unread line added to your inbox?
There are a few tips I like to share with you to make a mail marketing campaign work well for you. We call it the Phone Mail Phone strategy (PMP for short!)
PMP-What to do:
1. Be targeted in who you want to reach
2. Be relevant to your targeted people. These two always apply, whichever marketing strategy you’re using.
3. Make sure your mailing will reach the right desk by phoning ahead to check the name and position of the person you’re reaching out to as, as well as confirming the correct address.
4. Personalise the letter, rather than sending a totally generic leaflet or flyer. Remember we’re in the highly personalised, relationship-based era of marketing.
5. Pop your letter in a coloured envelope – with a handwritten address. Why? So that it looks like some form of invitation and is more likely to get through any gatekeeper/ mail sorter. Add ‘Private and Confidential’ to boost the chances of it landing on your target’s desk unopened!
6. Send it first class – you’re quality, right? And it’s important? So make it look the part…
7. The most critical step is to make a follow-up phone call a few days after posting. Remember (virtually) no-one actually takes action in response to a snail mail or email message, even if they’re interested, it’s just not their priority – yet!
8. Keep calling until you manage to speak to your person. Did you know 48% of salespeople never follow up; only 10% of sales people make more than 3 contacts, and yet 80% of sales are made on the 5thto 12thcontact! (source: National Sales Executive Association). How much business are YOU leaving on the table?
When it goes wrong…
Don’t try to cheat! Missing out a step can be disastrous on your results. The eagle-eyed readers amongst you will have spotted in the photo the error that meant I shouldn’t have ever received this direct mail piece. Yup! I don’t have an address in Leicestershire. Never have done. This is the ActionCOACH UK HQ address! The sending business missed out the first P in the PMP process and wasted the investment in this letter – postage, contents, envelope, time…
[So how did I get it? Because HQ called me wondering if it could be a client using me as a test run? I said no, but forward it to me anyhow, as it will make the basis of a good blog!]
When I speak with business owners who’ve tried a snail mail campaign I often find one or both of a couple of situations. Either they didn’t do the pre- and post phone calls, which massively hits the success rate, or they didn’t have a tracking process in place to be able to measure if it was a successful marketing strategy or not?
The opportunity to stand out from the e-shot masses is huge – just make sure you follow the tips, test and measure properly so you know your results and keep tweaking until you’ve achieved a success rate you’re proud of. Happy mailing!
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