By Brian Darrow
Jan. 2005
© R-Design, Inc.


Dear valued article reader,

To thank you for your loyal readership, I’ve enclosed several astonishing secrets about how to use our handy dandy direct mail marketing system. I hope you’ll take advantage of this exciting offer. Act now and read this article sometime before the next millennium, and you’ll receive these direct mail marketing tips absolutely free!

If you’re like most Americans, you probably sort your mail near the wastebasket so you can expel the junk mail from your presence as quickly as possible. Personally, I like to give each piece a quick tear in half before tossing it in the can. Still, the vast majority of Americans choose direct mail as the method by which they most prefer to be marketed to. Perhaps this is because they can quickly toss away any uninteresting mail. It’s a little more difficult to reach across the phone lines and tear the annoying telemarketer in half…though many of us have probably thought about it.

Unfortunately, most small business owners aren’t familiar with how to make direct mail work for them. In general, there are three basic fundamentals of direct mail marketing: the offer, the advertising copy and the mailing list. The mailing list is the most important. After all, if you’re a lawn service, it’s a waste of money to send your mail piece to an apartment building full of people who don’t have a lawn.

The advertising copy is the most often overlooked part of the direct mail package. Most business owners think that they can just write down a few things about their business and that will motivate people to patronize them. It’s important to realize that people don’t care about your business. They have problems. They want solutions to those problems. Outline their problem, and then tell them how you can help them with it. Sticking with the lawn service example, you might say:

“You spend all week working hard at the office. You’d probably like to relax on the weekend, but you’re stuck maintaining your lawn when you could be spending more time with your family. We can help. Let us keep your lawn beautiful while you get some much deserved rest and relaxation.”

The offer is what truly motivates the customer to get on the phone and call you up shortly after they receive your mailing. The key is to “make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse”. The best way to do this is to offer something free. For instance, you might offer a month of free lawn maintenance to customers who sign up for a year. It’s best to put a time limit on your offer. Only give them the free month if they act within 2 weeks of receiving your mailing. If you don’t, people are likely to set aside your information to act on later, and then lose it in the pile of stuff they’ve set aside to look at later.

It’s always a good idea to attach some unique identifier to your offer. If the customer has to mention offer code A23X in order to get his free month of lawn maintenance, you’ll know exactly which direct mail pieces are working and which aren’t. This is an important element of direct mail marketing. You will have to keep testing your offers, your advertising copy, the number of repeated mailings required and your mailing list to see what works. Once you’ve got your finger on what works well, you can confidently spend your marketing dollars, knowing the return will outweigh the investment.

These tips just scratch the surface of successful direct mail marketing. I’ll get more in depth in future articles. Until then, start using these pointers and direct mail marketing to your advantage.