Businesses must create and implement an effective and efficient marketing strategy based on their studies, research, and understanding of their target market. One good marketing strategy is direct mail marketing.

Direct mail marketing is a powerful form of experiential marketing. You have either a product or service that you want to generate awareness about through using physical mail.  Your intended client or customer opens up their mailbox, holds this item or product in their very own hands, and engages with your marketing experience. The ultimate result is they are motivated to get in touch with you. We’ve all opened our mailbox and had this experience for ourselves.

What is direct marketing examples?

Emails, flyers, database marketing, promotional letters, coupons, postcards, and catalog distribution are examples of direct mail marketing strategies. Effective marketers are utilizing direct mail more than ever before. Direct mail marketing generates a stronger emotional connection, better brand recall, higher response rates, and more persuasive power than broadcast or digital messages alone. And with these results, it’s not hard to see why.

Successful direct mail marketing is more than dropping several items in the mail to a group of potential prospects. Once received,  hoping that people will then turn around and reach out back to you. Between that initial idea of generating awareness and the final step of a client or prospect consuming the marketing content, many essential steps are required to get an effective mailer out.

Many elements occur during and once the initial campaign is sent. The coordination of all activities is equally important to make a campaign more effective ultimately. These several different steps are all elements of a direct mail fulfillment process. Depending on your desired results, it may benefit you to work with an experienced expert to make the direct mail fulfillment process efficient and effective.

Creating Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign

Three keys to successful direct mail marketing are media first. Offer second. Creative third.

The first element is understanding how each medium works and, more importantly for our discussion, why direct mail marketing makes sense. As we discussed earlier, this is an experience that you are delivering to each mailbox. An understanding of how to transfer your experience to this is vital. It can mean the difference between numerous responses and none at all.

The next key element is the offer.  What is the payoff your prospect gets for how much money and according to what terms. If your offer is wrong, uncertain, or too complex, you can limit your response rates. The end result can create emotions from apathy to distrust.

3. The final element is your creative. What you say to sell your product or service is of critical importance but has less potential effect on response rates than media or offer.

Creating a useful direct mail piece involves a synergy of different areas of expertise. You may want a copywriter to craft copy that strongly engages a reader or informs them efficiently of everything they need to know to take action. You may need a keen-eyed graphic designer to compose and lay-out a striking visual design for your mail marketing that ensures your content isn’t cluttered. At the same time, the colors require to be both bright and eye-catching. Your company brand needs to comes across as both strong and recognizable.

Testing and research are vital elements of your media. People’s needs and preferences aren’t in a vacuum. Don’t rest on past success. Keep on conducting more media testing and more experimenting with your offer. Just because everyone in your circle likes your marketing, this doesn’t mean your target audience will. And to make sure each test is as strong as possible; you should be able to answer the following questions:

Is this offer simply irresistible? – Does it come across as a solution to a real problem and seem almost too good to be true?

Is it appropriately guaranteed? – Can your offer walk its talk and fulfill the claims which you make?  While marketers like to make broad claims, the resulting buzz may do more harm than good if it doesn’t do what you say.

Is it specific? – Can most people repeat what you claim to do?  Is your message and value proposition focused like a red, sharp laser, or is it a bunch of wandering generalities?

Is it unique? – In a world of ‘me too’ solutions, is there something that you do better, bigger or brighter than the competition.  If you have to be known for one aspect of the product, what is this one aspect for which you will be forever known?

How important is my offer going to be to my prospect? While people buy benefits and solutions, do we understand for what our end-user is ultimately looking?

Is the offer easy to understand? What parts of the offer do most people recall? Same day delivery. Will not run or streak. Lasts for ten years. Cleans up with soap and water. Lighter weight. Stronger.  No one ever buys from someone who is ‘me too.’

A Call To Action

It’s always best practice to include a clear and deliberate call to action,  a specific reason for your clients or prospects to act (and hopefully act quickly) to connect with you. When done right, you know that you will be receiving many responses from new customers and need to craft a response or fulfill an offer request in return. Having this in place is a vital element of direct mail fulfillment.

One example is processing individual responses for specific information, including additional pamphlets or brochures, which your customers can request.  The right partner can also fulfill these. Businesses that need to distribute material for further promotions also want to rely on a system to send follow-up materials as requested as part of a direct mail fulfillment service.

Direct mail fulfillment can play a vital role in the execution of a complete, effective marketing campaign.

What is direct marketing fulfillment?