Five Secrets For a Better Response with your next Mail Marketing ...

Let's face it, you don't like to waste money. Nobody does, but to grow your business and keep it healthy, you've got to invest some money in marketing.

You want to do everything possible to assure a healthy return on your limited marketing budget.

Savvy marketers like you realize that you can't just market using a single channel. I'm a proponent of social media marketing, blogging and e-mail marketing, but I still see my best returns with traditional marketing including direct mail marketing.

I've been helping entrepreneurs, fellow marketing professionals and nonprofits with direct mail marketing for the last eight years. Based on my experience with hundreds of campaigns, here are five tips to improve the response of your next direct mail marketing campaign.

Keep it simple: I list this tip first because my clients struggle with it the most.

Remember, that your prospects have a short attention span. The less you include, the more likely they are to pay attention to your message. White space is your friend.

Do you feel obligated to include every feature of every product or service you offer? The logic is that the feature or product that you omit may be the one that's most relevant to the recipient.

The truth, however, is that no one is going to read all of the info that you cram on a marketing piece. You have just three to five seconds to capture someone's attention. Focus your efforts on getting your prospects' attention, not drafting the Magna Carta.

Have a give-away (something real): Everyone likes to get something for free, but many have become skeptical of discounts and coupons. Try giving away a real, tangible item. Your give-away doesn't need to be something expensive, it just needs to have value to the recipient.

Examples include a Starbucks gift card, an umbrella, a book of recipes or a white paper. The key is to think of something that will appeal to your target audience, it doesn't necessarily have to relate to your product or service.

Have a limited supply: If you're doing a give-away, you should always advertise a limited quantity. This creates urgency.

Urgency is a very important, often overlooked, critical ingredient to success. You want people to respond to your direct mail offer before they set your mail piece aside and forget about it.

You can offer limited seats for a presentation, or limit the amount of physical items that you give away. This will help you to manage your budget as well. Urgency increases response.

Have a deadline: A second way to generate urgency is to provide a deadline for response. Your natural inclination will be to make your deadline too long because you don't want to alienate anyone, but this is the opposite of what you want to do. If your offer is good for six months, this will not create urgency. If your offer expires in just a few days, prospects will feel compelled to respond quickly.

Remember, if someone contacts you after the expiration date, you can always make an exception and still honor the offer. In this scenario, you get the best of both worlds by creating urgency, but not disappointing a new customer.

Make it relevant: All successful marketing requires that you know some key information about your prospects. Be sure to use this information in the message that you craft and the offer that you make.

Don't send a senior citizen discount to an audience of new mothers. However, if you have a mailing list of avid anglers, send them a link to a video with fishing tips if they sign up for your e-newsletter. You must always have your audience in mind when crafting your message.

In summary, you can increase the response of your next direct mail marketing campaign by keeping your message simple, including a freebie with a limited supply, adding an expiration date to your offer and making your message relevant to your audience.

Do you have questions or need help executing a direct mail marketing campaign? Please contact me for help.

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What tips do you recommend to improve response rates? Please share your comments below.

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