The right direct mailing list targets people who want your product or service.The wrong list fails to target people who would want to buy from you – and it is costly. In fact, this is what people refer to as ‘junk mail’. It is junk because it is mail that is not relevant to the people it is mailed to and does not take into account their buying habits.The direct mail mailing list is a key factor in a successful direct mail marketing campaign and a major point to consider in small business marketing strategies where marketing ROI (Return On Investment) is a key concern.What really makes your direct mail marketing and advertising campaign successful?The biggest single factor in the success of your direct mail marketing strategy is who you send your mailings to.You need a list.This can be a list of existing customers or prospects who have inquired as a result of any of your marketing efforts or a list which you purchase or in some cases obtain for free.The mailing list must contain the names of people who are likely to be interested in the benefits of your products or services.Don’t try and sell beer to the Temperance Society or real estate to people who cannot afford it. You have to target your direct mail marketing efforts.What kinds of lists are available?The four basic kinds of lists that you can use are (you can use all four):1. Your own list of prospects and customers. This is a list that you collected with your own personal marketing efforts. This is known as a house list. These people are most likely to respond to your offers, because they have responded in the past.2. A response list is a list of people that have actually done something. They have either purchased something from the people who put together the list or inquired in response to some offer or asked to be on the list. They have some level of interest in the topic or purpose of the list.These people have not previously responded to you, but they have responded to someone in a related area (if you have purchased a correctly targeted list) so you know they are at least warm. This is a direct mail mailing list you can purchase from the owner of the list (such as a magazine or company) or a list broker.3. A compiled list is a list of people who were selected to be on the list because they possess the characteristics that you asked the list broker to screen for.Examples of characteristics used to target correctly may include age, sex, geographic location, income level, etc. These are more fixed characteristics than response list characteristics, which are behavioral characteristics.Case study: California based Sun Pacific Mortgage’s Forest Tardibuono found a great way to get the right direct mail mailing list for his company which has a very successful direct mail marketing strategy based on postcards and direct mail mailing lists.“The title companies give us the mailing labels free. I’ll tell them we want all the homeowners in 95401 which is a zip we get most of our business from. So they’ll give us the mailing labels of anyone who is a homeowner from that lists. It saves money on labels and mailing lists. They’ll even limit searches to specific categories such as all homeowners from that zip that got a loan from certain companies and they’ll do the search according to that so I can really target the public so that the mailing will be more effective.”Mailing lists, correctly targeted, can make the difference in a mediocre promotional campaign to a wildly successful promotional campaign. It really just depends on what you are willing to have – success or mediocrity. So which is it?Direct Mail and Do-Not-Mail BillsAs I have just said, the road to success with direct mail is careful selection of one’s mailing list. With that in mind ‘junk mail’ would virtually fall by the wayside. The recent Do-Not-Mail bills attempting to thwart businesses and direct mailers from reaching out to potential customers is the main reason why targeted lists are so vital in the fight to cut out junk mail.Ten states have recently introduced Do-Not-Mail bills in their state legislatures indicating that consumers are fed up with junk mail. If these bills are passed, a company wanting to send un-requested mail to consumers would need to buy an updated copy of the state’s Do-Not-Mail list and check it against their own mailing lists – adding unwanted workload to businesses that will curtail productivity in response to government red tape.This in turn will have a severe negative impact on a state’s economic development as it will be a nightmare to the small business owner, who already is fighting government red tape, payroll taxes and the like – not to mention trying to run a company in the black while keeping his staff productive and customers happy.Junk mail is mail that is not directed to a specifically targeted mailing list. Consumers do not mind receiving mail promoting products and services they need – that is ‘direct mail’…there is a difference.When unsolicited direct mail (junk mail) overpowers targeted direct mail consumers begin to complain.Which brings me to the fourth kind of list…4. A highly exacting segmented list based on hi-tech systems analysis that can define key prospects for a business for purposes of hitting the mark in marketing. This precise technology, which in the past was saved only for large corporations but is now available to the small business owner, finally gives businesses and entrepreneurs the ability to micro-target their market for extreme results.One can access very specific information about any company’s consumer client base with information that goes way beyond the standard criteria of age, income and gender used in list purchasing.Imagine if a customer base can be broken down into 70 different segments and upon doing so, one learns that 30% fall into one segment, 20% into another and the other 50% is spread across the remaining 68 segments. Why mail to the micro percentages that fall into the other 68 when one can hit the 50% most likely to purchase?One can learn the spending and saving habits of one’s customers along with details like what they enjoy reading and where they like to travel. Then an analysis is done with all that info and the geo-demographics of that client base so that one can really find his/her exact market and promote only to them.Using technology like this increases response and ROI .Targeted mail lists are key in handling problems such as Do-Not-Mail bills. Bills such as these are only arbitrary solutions which will only become a bigger problem down the road.Studies show that 70 percent of the US population prefers direct mail to email or phone calls. However, in order for it to be ‘direct mail’ it must ‘direct’ its message to people whom it is relevant and their purchasing habits.The moral of the story is: Don’t stop marketing because the government threatens to cut your lifeline (communication to your potential prospects). Market! But get a list – a targeted list. And have success.

Direct mailing is very popular among insurance professionals to get easy and fast recognition. It leads them directly into the local market, creating leads, which generates maximum revenues for them. Studies indicate that nearly 65 percent advertisement through the Internet constitutes direct mailing mode. Here are tips to educate professionals on how they can use direct mailing service optimally to reach their target group.Get An e Mailing List To Obtain LeadsIf you have a ready customer database or access to a membership database, they can serve you as potential leads. You can start sending them the details about various products in your kitty. However, if you are a new entrant and if you have not established a customer base, you can obtain direct mailing lists from several agencies that specialize in offering business leads. If you buy email lists, find out how those addresses were collected. If people in your purchased list have not agreed to receive email related to promotion or advertisements, you might find yourself in troubled waters.Also, note that there are several approaches to build a subscriber list, including advertising, Web site sign-up forms, directory listings, and ad swapping. Avoid adding subscribers to your list without their permission.Make Sure That Your Business Is LegitimateDo not use falsifying headers to force your way into peoples’ inboxes for the sake of direct mailing. Avoid using deceptive subject lines, hijacking other peoples’ e-mail accounts or computers to send Spam, creating e-mail or IP addresses specifically to send Spam. These are malicious ways of forcing messages into the inboxes of people who don’t want them, which are not only annoying but are illegal and unprofitable.Plan Responsible E-Mail PromotionsBe very careful while choosing a subject line; it should be self-explanatory about the content within the email. Mention the real return address and place a functional ‘unsubscribe’ link in all the emails. If you have an exhaustive list of emails you will have to seek professional help to install an ASP or any other suitable program to manage ‘opt-ins’ and ‘unsubscribe’ requests. You must send commercial or promotional emails/ newsletters through your company’s official email address.Test The Mails before Sending ThemBefore sending emails as text messages or HTML versions, test them on multiple email clients. This is to avoid inconvenience, since consumers use many different email applications. Several email client applications are available for free downloads, which can be used for testing purposes. Optimize email delivery system by using dedicated list management software or services.Once you have optimized your direct email delivery system, test them with a content checking service to see if they appear like Spam. This will avoid your messages routed to the junk folders by the users.

Every business owner, whether large or small, knows that Direct Mail is a great tool in promoting sales or products, creating awareness and helping the business stick out. Direct Mail is a simple technique which is executed by mail offers, information, coupons and a call to action, and sent to the customers’ private address.Direct Mail has many benefits, especially because you are able to target your audience and send a personalized message to potential clients. You can contact customers using their private name and create an individual touch to your business.But how can you personalize a message, issuing thousands and thousands of letters when every small change costs big money? Easy. With the technology available today, you can control the content of each and every letter you send individually, without paying extra.Kodak is leading the print revolution with its latest PROSPER S10 Imprinting System. The S10 system does wonders for variable data print in direct mail, catalogs, magazines, newspapers, inserts and transactional documents. The system has the power to offer direct mailers the personalization theyre looking for, with the quality of laser, at the lower cost of inkjet. Users of the Prosper S10 can start printing variable data inline, saving time and money over a traditional, two-step process that combines offset pre-printed forms and offline laser imprinting.With four S10 systems you can output 80,000 pieces of direct mail per hour, or 1.6 million pieces per day, on just one press. What we are able to do now with this technology is to aggregate a series of different types of direct mail, all into one, because the technology exists.Sounds great right? But how can your business benefit from this new and exciting technology? Thats exactly where the professionals come in. When you have all of this data and they dont know what to do with it you need to get a direct Marketing solutions provider, where their job is to take the data, create a smart strategy, and have the production expertise, using the Kodak technology, to provide relevant marketing to their clients and give them a return on their investment, a big return on investment.For example, your business can now benefit form printing Gift Cards Inline Gift Cards into your direct mail. The quality of the bar codes and the logos is clear, accurate, the product looks wonderful and the response rates are higher than ever.

In the termite capital of the US, Tampa, Florida, lives a
man by the name of Chet Rowland who generates
direct mail sales leads by promoting his poor
service.In his direct mail lead generation package he includes
a copy of a letter he received from a disgruntled
customer. The customer explains that Chet’s Termite
and Pest Control failed to eradicate the customer’s
termites, and that she had to request the company to
come out and re-fumigate her home.But what makes this customer letter different from
most complaint letters is that this customer is writing
to say she asked for her money back and got it. She
thanks Chet for honouring what he calls
his “exclusive, iron-clad, no
wiggle room, simple, straightforward
guarantee.”To show potential customers that he keeps his word
and honors his guarantees, Chet includes with this
customer letter a photocopy of the refund check he
gave to the unhappy customer. It’s for the full amount
of $1,136.The disgruntled customer goes on to say in her letter
that she was thrilled that she didn’t have to threaten or
argue to get Chet to uphold his money back
guarantee, and that she is going to tell her friends and
others about how fair, honest and pleasant Chet’s
Termite and Pest Control is to do business
with.Chet says offering super strong guarantees gives him
a competitive edge over other pest control companies.
Competitors, he says, don’t have the guts to back
what they sell with a money back guarantee. Plus, he
only has to honor his guarantee a few times a year
when he refunds his fee to a few customers that he
can’t satisfy.But the cost of refunding his fee in full a few times a
year is worth the expense because of the extra selling
power he gains by promoting his strong guarantee to
potential customers. He says he even gets selling power
by showing off the refund checks. You can do the
same and generate similar results.
Guaranteed.If you’d like to read more about Chet’s approach, read
No B.S. Direct Marketing by Dan Kennedy, chapter
15. Good book, terrible title.

If you’re direct mail brochures are to have the best response they can have, they will need to look and feel the part. People will ignore about 80-90% of the brochures they see, and most direct mail advertising ends up in the bin, so you simply have to grab your reader’s attention right from the moment your brochure is posted. For this to happen, you have to approach your brochure printing direct mail campaign from a professional point of view. Everything has to be just right to ensure success.Design
The design of your brochures must be appealing to the correct demographic. This usually requires the skills of a professional designer so if you can afford one, hire one. If your budget won’t stretch this far, bearing a few principles in mind will help you as you design your own. First of all, keep it simple. The number one mistake new designers make is to try too hard. Sometimes the simplest design is the best. Next up is the text. The font size should be the right size for reading comfortably, larger is better for a senior audience and you should choose a typeface that is also easy to read and not too quirky. The text should also be formatted in terms of importance, with headings being larger than body text, and it should be no longer than it absolutely needs to be. Alongside the text should be a few well chosen, high resolution images, as these can really help to set the mood of your brochure and help your potential customers to identify with and form a link to your company. Colors should also be chosen to give the best results, and lots of information about the psychology of color can easily be found online if you’re in doubt.Print
When it comes to printing, you should always go full color and on the best quality paper you can afford. Finding an online printer for your brochure printing needs and ordering in advance and in bulk can offset some of this cost too so make sure you are getting the best deal you can. If you have kept the text short and to the point, with just a few images, the brochure should be small enough to be cheap to print and still get your message across. Tri-fold brochures in full four-color printing can be very cost effective, for example. Don’t be tempted to go grayscale or black and white with your direct mail brochures, as they will not work.Mail
Another advantage to your brochures being small comes at the mailing stage. If they are a regular shape and size and not too heavy, you should be able to get the cheapest postage rate available, which can save a considerable amount of money. Having said that, it has been shown that direct mailing advertising with real stamps has a better response than any other postage method, so maybe investing in a cheap stamp applicator and posting them yourself would be wise.

Whether you’re creating a new direct mail campaign or updating an old one, you have an infinite variety of choices for improving response. Based on decades of testing, here are 99 of the easiest and most effective. Consider this a smorgasbord of savvy possibilities and inspirations:
Make an irresistible offer.
Give away something free to boost response.
Prefer a free gift over a discount.
Increase the perceived value of your offer.
Reduce the perceived risk in accepting your offer.
Offer attractive payment options.
Use a time limit to increase urgency.
Test a two-step offer for high-priced goods.
Test a yes/no offer to clarify the buying decision.
Test a yes/maybe offer to lower perceived commitment.
Dramatize your offer with stamps or stickers.
Make your offer tangible with a check or coupon.
Create your envelope to get noticed and get opened.
Use teaser copy to tease, not tell.
Consider using a plain envelope.
Try an official-looking envelope.
Use a low-key envelope for business prospects.
Use your sales letter to sell and your brochure to tell.
Make your letter look like a letter.
Grab attention in your letter with a short first sentence.
Express one central idea in your letter.
Write your letter in a friendly, personal tone.
Call for action early and often in your letter text.
Have a high-authority person sign your letter.
Personalize your letter if possible.
Use a P.S. to cite a benefit, deadline, or extra detail.
Use your brochure to add credibility.
Use brochure tables, charts, diagrams, and visuals to support your claims.
Design your brochure for easy reading.
Use clear benefit heads and subheads in your brochure.
Include all features and specifics in your brochure text.
Include complete ordering information in your brochure.
Test your package with no brochure.
Use a stand-alone order form.
Restate your offer on the order form.
Include an acceptance statement.
Make your order form easy to fill out and return.
Highlight the deadline.
Make your order form look valuable.
Refer to the order form as something more valuable.
Consider extra order forms for passalongs.
Order something from yourself to discover how to make ordering easier.
Offer a fax response option for businesses.
Use your order form to highlight last-minute specials.
Preprint your customer’s name and address to simplify ordering.
Restate your guarantee on the order form.
Offer a toll-free number for faster orders.
Avoid a two-sided order form.
Use the back of your order form for support information only.
Give clear, simple ordering directions.
Include a BRE if you ask for confidential information.
Pay the postage on reply cards.
Feature compelling testimonials.
Edit testimonials carefully and honestly.
Prefer many short quotes over a few long quotes.
Group testimonials to increase impact.
Use names, titles, and locations to increase testimonial credibility.
Turn a good testimonial into a lift letter.
Use a testimonial as a headline or benefit statement.
Show people using your product or service.
Give case histories of your best customers.
Display a seal of approval or rating.
Cite favorable reviews.
Cite media coverage.
Back up your offer with a strong guarantee.
State your guarantee in the strongest possible terms.
Keep your guarantee conditions to a minimum.
Make your guarantee a prominent package element.
Replace your conditional guarantee with an unconditional guarantee.
Strengthen your guarantee with a signature.
Extend your guarantee for as long as possible.
Make your guarantee look official.
Avoid asterisks and legal-looking tiny type.
Reinforce your guarantee with a merchandise return label.
Encourage involvement with a quiz or checklist.
Emphasize exclusivity with a membership card.
Add fun with a rub-off or hidden message.
Answer objections or highlight a benefit with a lift letter.
Increase credibility with a testimonial insert.
Answer questions or objections with a Q&A insert.
Prove your product superiority with a sample.
Share supporting information with an article reprint.
Deliver a quick pitch with an ad reprint.
Announce last-minute news with a buckslip.
Offer a premium on a buckslip.
Draw attention with a yellow sticky note.
Include company name, address, and phone number on every piece.
Establish a solid control before testing elements.
Test one element at a time.
Run statistically valid tests.
Retest anything that shows a significant change.
Track results meticulously.
Train your people on the importance of tracking.
Analyze your results in writing.
Use your test results to determine creative strategy.
Keep using your control until you beat it.
Test.
Test.
Test some more.

Are you ready for the holiday advertising season? If not, then it’s time to start your holiday advertising campaign. Yes, I am aware that its still summer, but many online and offline publications are already gearing up for the holiday shopping season which means, you need to get on the ball and plan out your holiday marketing campaign now!If you are looking to do in-print ads to attract the gift shoppers, now is the time to be securing those ads, as many print publications work months in advance. If you are looking to do online shopping advertisements, now is the time to secure your October, November and early December advertising spots. You will find that many online websites only have a limited amount of spots available, so now is the time to be securing them.I recommend sitting down and coming up with a plan of action and writing it down. Divide your marketing plan into two lists, one for online and one for offline advertising. Your next step is to decide how much you can afford to spend. Yes, you can find free ways to advertise your business but if you truly want a successful marketing campaign, you will need to spend some money. Once you have your lists and budget in hand, it’s time to put it into action.There are only a few weeks left of summer and if you wait until the end of September or early October to get started, you could be left in the dust. Take the time out now to come up with a holiday advertising and marketing plan, and set it into action next week.

If you use direct mail to generate leads for your sales force, and if you’re hunting for an offer that will motivate prospects to respond to your mailings, how about asking your sales force for some advice?Your best sales people know what to say to prospects to close sales. Different folks need different closes. You can take these closing techniques and make them your direct mail offers.For example, certain buyers are short on cash. They prefer extended payment options, such as leasing or vendor-supplied financing. Your best sales people will often close these prospects with an offer of interest-free financing. So make free financing your offer in your direct mail piece. A closing technique that consummates a sale is likely to persuade a potential customer to start the buying process by responding to a similar offer.Other potential buyers are more concerned with negotiating a deal. They want a bargain. Your more successful sales people know that the best way to close these types of prospects is to use a drop close (a closing technique where the sales rep asks for the order by dropping the price). So offer a discount in your direct mail lead generation piece.Other potential clients are motivated by fear. They fear making a poor buying decision that will look bad on their annual review, or embarrass them in front of their colleagues. Ask your sales people how they close prospects like this. You may discover that the best close is the one that feature a money-back guarantee, or an extended free parts and labour warranty at no extra charge, or a free demo. Each of these closes has the potential of being an effective offer.By matching your front-end direct mail offer with a proven closing technique, you should generate more leads, close more business, and increase the quality of leads that you hand over to your sales people.

Direct mail continues to be one of the most effective forms of marketing available. I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. Just look in your mailbox and you’ll see proof. I’m sure you get at least a dozen pieces of direct mail every single day and reason is that it works, at least in some situations.There’s no question direct mails is better suited to some businesses than others. In particular, any business where timing is a factor in the purchase decision is a good candidate for direct mail advertising because you need to stay in front of those prospects so they’ll think of you when the timing is finally right.This alludes to the most important point. Direct mail is only useful if you do it on a regular basis. And by saying that, I’m not talking about sending your marketing piece to different people each time. No. I’m saying you have to send your marketing piece to the exact same audience, over and over and over again. The key to a successful direct mail campaign is repetition.Companies who do direct mail spend millions of dollars each year analyzing their campaigns and how to maximize the returns they get. In fact, this area of marketing is probably studied more than any other area. And the consensus is that an average person doesn’t even realize you exist before they’ve seen your marketing piece at least seven times.This is an amazing reality and many would argue it’s a function of being over-marketed in our daily lives. Let me say it again. The average person doesn’t even realize you exist before they’ve seen your marketing piece at least seven times. Seven times! And there are some who estimate that number is actually much higher than that.As a result of this reality, there’s absolutely no point in doing a direct mail campaign unless you can afford to run the mailer at least seven times before expecting any results. Seriously. If you can’t afford to send your marketing piece to the same audience at least seven times, don’t even bother because you won’t get a proper gauge of whether the campaign will work or not.You also want to consider a two-step approach. That means the initial marketing piece invites recipients to get more information by taking some predetermined step. They might be invited to call an 800-number and hear some pre-recorded information. They might be invited to request a free information booklet or they might be invited to visit a website with additional details.Two-step marketing is a great way to pull prospects into your sales funnel. By giving them an opportunity to get more information for free, you invite them to take action. You also have a way of getting their contact information so you can follow-up afterwards. And lastly, you give yourself a second opportunity to earn their trust by providing valuable information. All three dramatically increase the odds of making a sale.In order to implement a program like this effectively, you’ll need to decide on a value item before you get started. What additional information will you be providing? Whatever it is, it should be something your ideal customer would really appreciate. Think about what information your target market really wants. Think about what would make their lives easier. Then put it together before you even design the direct mail piece. Doing it this way will add focus to your marketing piece and save you time along the way.Direct mail is still an effective way of touching new customers but it won’t deliver any results unless you send your mailer to the same audience consistently. You’ll get better results if you use a two-step approach, giving recipients a way of getting more information painlessly and the best way to prepare for the campaign is to create the information piece first. Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

When I first got online after doing marketing videos for several years, I realized some similar traits and I also realized some major differences. The one major difference I noticed is that online, the end user has complete control what they want to watch, listen to, experience and how they receive their information. This allows them to completely dismiss traditional brand advertising if they want to. With brand advertising offline, companies and ad agencies get together to form campaigns where you, as a consumer will see or hear about it so much, that it will stick in your head and eventually you will end up using that product or service. This way of advertising can also be vague because of how hard it can be to track results offline. Unless there is a tracking system with different contact or website information from each channel of advertising, many companies are unsure of what forms of advertising are working.With marketing and advertising online, any smart online entrepreneur will test and track their results. With all the free tools that are out there, most entrepreneurs are even able to test brand advertising concepts online. Going back to the points above about the end user having complete control, companies are seeing how important direct response marketing is more than ever. In a matter of seconds, consumers can click on a google ad and if they don’t like what they see or can’t find it right away, they’re off the website and I don’t blame them.One of the points of direct response marketing or direct response video marketing online is to inform consumers about exactly what they want to hear and then show them how to get what they want in a very efficient sales funnel with the least amount of hoops to jump through as possible. The more hoops, the less likely you are to get the sale. Why? One reason I have seen firsthand is because offline, consumers are use to jumping through so many hoops they accept it. Online, consumers know that if they are jumping through hoops that are shortening their attention span even more, they can just go back to google and search again or click the back button and see what else the search results offered.Offline, if a consumer is at a store and someone in a long checkout line tells them that they can get the same product, cheaper and perhaps without waiting in line, but the store is thirty minutes away, what do you think that person is going to do? The convenience of waiting a few more minutes to be out of the line may outweigh the hassle of driving thirty minutes away. Online, there is no thirty minute drive, just the convenience of clicking on another site that will give the user the same product with less hoops to jump through and that will walk the consumer through the sales process, step-by-step, efficient and clutter-free.In order to have consumers follow the sales process, use the power of direct response marketing or direct response video that will tell the consumer how to get to the other side of the sales process rather than having them guess where to go and how to get there. Avoid the typical “Welcome To My Website” introductions and instead tell the consumers what they want to hear, show them how to get there and do it without all the loopholes and confusion that your competitors and ninety percent of websites do so well.