Are you mailing JUNK MAIL?

By Joe Leist, Sales Director

Have you ever wondered why so many companies use direct mail marketing for customer acquisition? The answer is quite simple. It works! This week I received over 15 direct mail pieces at my home address here in balmy Louisville, KY. Offers came from local companies such as realtors, auto dealers, and insurance agents. A few mail pieces were received from national retailers such as Dicks Sporting Goods, Macy’s, and Justice (you’d have to have a 10 year old daughter to know that one!). And lastly, I received some very aggressive offers by credit card industry giants, Chase Bank and PNC.

While most of us consumers get somewhat annoyed by the many offers being provided through the direct mail marketing channel, (maybe you’ve heard the term “junk mail?”), some of the offers seem to be right in line with my needs. How is it that some mail is considered junk, while other pieces might be golden? That's the million-dollar question marketers face every day, and one that can be avoided with a simple understanding of direct mail marketing basics.

If you are considering utilizing direct mail for customer acquisition, you might be interested in better understanding the top 5 mistakes marketers make when building direct mail campaigns:

1) The wrong list: Oftentimes marketers use either out-dated house files or have done a poor job in securing a great list. As postage rates continue to increase yearly and as consumers continue to get bombarded with a wide variety of marketing messages on a daily basis, it’s imperative to target an audience that meets your ideal customer profile. Why mail a furnace replacement offer to a new-home buyer if that buyer won’t be replacing a furnace for at least 8 years!

2) Poor copy: Whether you use self-mailers, or the often-used 9 x 12 with buck slip in a # 10 window envelope, copy sells. To see what others are using in their copy, either start collecting your own direct mail pieces, or consider joining “Who’s Mailing What”, which is simply a direct mail database of thousands of direct mail pieces in PDF, which is searchable by industry. If you’re not interested in subscribing, feel free to call me and I can pull some industry samples for you to review.

3) Not enough testing: It’s imperative to test, test, and then test some more. Rule number one is never to mail just one copy of anything, but instead test multiple pieces in the same mailing. You just might be surprised at which copy is working and often times it is not the piece you thought would garner the higher response rates.

4) No relevancy / No personalization: In the old days, direct mail was created on commercial printing presses and every piece delivered the same message using the same graphics regardless of age, race, income, and other demographics ultimately resulting in poor response rates. Today’s marketing service providers use data-driven technology that allows every direct mail piece to be unique to the recipient. A great example in relevancy can be seen from one of the regional grocers here in the Midwest whom uses their member base house file list for up-sell opportunities. Have you ever wondered why you received a Bonny Bell ice-cream coupon when you purchased another brand’s ice cream just three weeks ago? Data drives the offer and is easy to accomplish with today’s technology being used by marketing service providers.

5) No plan for following up: 10,000 mail pieces delivered, 1.29% response rate (or 129 responders), and no follow up plans. Yikes! It’s true, and we see if every day whereby marketing and sales continue to operate on separate floors with no follow up game plan, especially in the B-to-B marketplace. Do yourself a favor and plan your follow up processes before you launch your next marketing campaign.

Good luck to those embarking on an excellent customer acquisition marketing strategy using direct mail and always remember: build or purchase a targeted list, write copy that is compelling with a good call to action, test, test, and test some more, use personalization and data driven content to more closely communicate with your prospects interest, and always remember to build a follow up strategy prior to launch. Otherwise, you might just be adding more junk mail to the postal stream.