6 Important Steps to Prepare Your Direct Mail for Success

Direct mail marketing is one of the leaders in Return on Investment and Cost per lead. But in order to achieve these high ROIs and low Costs per leads, you have to ensure that your direct mail campaign is effective and avoids mistakes that will hurt your results. If you follow the tips and suggestions below you will be well on your way to receiving great results!

1. Proofread your content - and verify your information.

It’s happened to all of us. You’re in a rush to get your project out the door, all the copywriting is done, time to get it off to the design department! Don’t forget the all important proof-reading step. The last thing you, and we as your printer, want to see are typos in your already printed documents. Don’t be the only one to look over your document either, have a co-worker or trusted friend look it over as well. If you have the money in your budget you can also have it checked over by a professional proof-reading service. Also be sure that any data or statistics you use reflect your most current data.

Bonus tip: Want to save time, and money? Of course you do, who doesn’t. One way to do this is to proof-read and verify your content before sending your project out to be designed. Doing so will avoid costly and time consuming revisions.

2. Get your mail opened with creative and eye-catching design.

Make your recipients first impression of your mailer a positive one to ensure that it is read. If the first impression of your piece is drab and dull, there’s a good chance your recipient will ignore it. Print a tagline that calls the recipients attention to what’s inside. Is there a special offer, or a great opportunity to help your organization inside? Let the reader know right away!

Bonus tip: Unique Sizes, Bulging envelope, and interesting finishing ideas can help you get your mail piece opened. But they can also dramatically increase the cost of your mailing in both production, and postage (as well as impact your timeline). Check with us on the cost of your idea before setting your heart on a concept. We may have another great idea that works just as well at a better cost.

3. Make sure you have a Call to Action, and make sure it’s easy to use.

The recipient of your mail loves your piece, he’s read it and is ready for the next step! Make sure that next step is easy to find and it spells out exactly what you want him to do next. Whether it’s to contact you for more information on your services, a website to order your product, or to donate to your cause, it’s your job to make it apparent and easy for them to do. 

Bonus tip: There are several ways to make it easy for your recipients to get in touch with you, whether it be QR Codes, PURLs or even a specific phone number JUST for this campaign. Some of these will also help you to track the results of the campaign.

4. Know your data.

A great mailer that was beautifully designed, with an excellent call to action will get no results if you send it to the wrong person! Also you’ll get your best results with a highly targeted mailing. Segment your mailing so your message is more relevant to their interests and needs. For fundraisers, this could mean different letters for previous donors, and new prospects. For people selling products, it could be segmented by what a consumer has purchased from you in the past.

Bonus tip: A clean list could also help you out of sticky situations. By running your list through the NCOA (National Change of Address) list, if the recipient has reported a move with the post office recently, the address will be updated to the newly reported address. You can also suppress your mailing by different factors, such as Deceased suppression, Prison, Nursing Homes, Trailer Parks, Military Bases, and several other factors.

5. Know your timeline.

The design is complete - the copy is perfect it’s in the printers hands now so it’ll be going out tomorrow and in your recipients mail-boxes in 4 days, just in time for your big conference!

Not so fast, it takes time to print and get your project ready for mailing. Contact our production team early in your process and find out just how long your project will take in production. Don’t forget time in the design and proofing department, production time doesn’t begin until your piece is approved to run. If you know the date you want the piece in the hands of your recipients you can then work backwards from that date to give yourself a timeline on when all of the steps in the process need to be done.

Bonus tip: We understand that sometimes you’re under the gun and need something out FAST! Contact us and together we can find ways to streamline your project by simplifying, or coming up with other ideas to get your project out faster!

6. Ignoring other Channels of contact

It’s said it takes 7 points of contact to make a sale. These points of contact can be from various sources, Direct Mail, Email, Social Media, Phone, or even face-to-face. It’s also said that the best marketing campaigns are mixed media campaign meaning a campaign that hits several channels with the same or very similar messages. The same goes with non-profit and fundraising appeals, it may take more than one appeal letter or other mailing to get a donation.

Need help getting those additional touches? Contact us to find out how we can help!

Direct Mail is still relevant in the age of Social Media and E-Mail Marketing

In the age of social media, and e-mail marketing, you may be surprised to find that direct mail still proves to be amongst the most effective use of your marketing or fundraising budget. While the web is a great source for dynamic information and instant gratification, receiving a piece of direct mail is a more tangible experience.

Many of your recipients will prefer direct mail and print marketing over digital. With the proliferation of e-mail marketing, e-mail boxes are getting more crowded, while physical mail boxes are becoming less so. With less mail hitting these physical mail boxes comes less competition for the recipients attention. And while e-mail can be discarded with a click of the button, or filtered directly to a spam folder, your mail piece has to have at least been placed in the recipients hand and glanced at before hitting the recycle bin.

Response rates for direct mail marketing hover at around 3.4% while e-mail marketing response rates  land at a much more modest 0.12%. Admittedly direct mail marketing is a more expensive process - therefore e-mail marketing has a higher return on investment on average. A lot of marketers use this as an excuse to do so called "spray and pray" email blasts where they send generic emails to large numbers of email addresses and hope their message gets out enough to generate a decent response.

There is a better way. The most successful marketing campaigns are integrated, or multi-channel campaigns. These campaigns use aspects of direct mail, e-mail and social media combined. Perhaps you start with a highly targeted direct mail piece, one that is tailored towards the recipients interests. Along with the piece is a traditional return device to order a product, sign up for your service, or to donate to your cause. Along with this traditional return piece, there is also a QR Code or Personalized URL (PURL) which leads to a landing page for the recipient to sign up, purchase or donate. This web site can also serve as a source to gather more information from the recipient such as their e-mail address. It can also serve as an easy way to get them to follow you on twitter, or like you on facebook. This will allow you to communicate with them on a more regular basis, keeping you in front of mind when they are ready to purchase or donate.

Maybe your initial direct mail didn't get you an immediate response - but it was a first touch. It's been said that to make a sale, unless it was an impulse buy, you will need to "touch" the buyer several times. Maybe your next step would be a follow-up mailing, e-mail or even a phone call. If you managed to get the recipient to follow you on a social channel, sharing content relevant to your target markets interests will also keep your company in mind, and be considered a "light touch". According to the ‘Rule of Seven,’ formulated by marketing expert Dr. Jeffrey Lant, to penetrate the buyer’s consciousness and make significant penetration in a given market, you have to contact the prospect a minimum of seven times within an 18-month period.

To find out how Movad can help with your next campaign, click the button below.

Direct mail to the deceased - a marketing and fundraising nightmare ...

When a family member passes away, one of the last things that a spouse or other relative who was left behind wants to deal with is receiving direct mail addressed to the recently deceased. The United States Post Office will continue delivering mail to the deceased until they are officially notified that delivery is to cease. This requires a grieving family member visit the post office with a legal death certificate. There have been instances where a deceased person has continued receiving mail several years after their passing.

You can wait until the post office is notified of the passing and stops mailing to the deceased. Or you can wait until you receive a request from the family of the deceased to remove them from your mailing list.  But the last thing a fundraiser or marketer wants to do is cause further pain on the family of a previous donor, or customer. Nothing is more embarrassing or insensitive - especially when paired with slogans such as "Donate now to save a life", or "Act now for a once in a lifetime opportunity!".

Many of you may know of the passing of Dennis McCloskey in May of 2012, Movad's owner. Dennis' wife and partner is now the President of Movad. She recently received a direct mail piece personalized to Dennis from a large organization. In the piece they included a box with a real cork, and a letter which included phrases such as "we want to help you celebrate a new phase of your business or personal life with a toast to what's next", and "Visit (personalized web address) to learn more about how we can help you live the life you deserve." She relayed to me how much the letter had upset her, and how she's been trying to reach out to the Executive Director to inform him of his blunder.

What's the alternative to this, how can you avoid this terrible situation?

By being proactive with your mailing practices and using a deceased mailing suppression service which will either flag your mailing list with a deceased field in the data, or by removing the recipient completely from the list. These databases are updated on a monthly basis, and the process begins once a death is reported to the Social Security Administration. The processing may take a few months before all of the deceased suppression databases have been updated. While no service can guarantee 100% suppression - a vast majority of the deceased recipients will be caught by using such a service. Besides the benefit of avoiding an insensitive message to the family, depending on the size of your mail lists and how clean you have kept it, this may also save you money in printing and postage.

Along with deceased mailing suppression, you may want to consider further cleansing of your mail list which includes DMA Suppression - this stops mailing to recipients who have signed up for the national DMA Do-Not-Mail list. You could also use a suppression suite which cleanses both DMA mail preference, deceased suppression, and also includes prison, trailer park, and nursing home suppression as well. While you may not wish to run your entire list against this kind of suppression, you may want to consider this for people you have never contacted before - such as an acquisition list, or a list you recently purchased.

Maintaining your data, and keeping it clean is a responsibility you should not take lightly. A mistake such as those described above can cause pain to a previous donor's family, and prevent future donations or purchases. Movad offers the services mentioned in this blog, and we welcome the opportunity to work with you. Whether or not you use our services, we highly recommend that you recognize the importance of this suppression and look into this now.

Do you have questions about this service, or do you have a similar story to share? Let us know in the comments below. You can also reach us through our contact us page, or call us at 215.638.2679. And please feel free to share this blog with your colleagues - the more who know that these services exist the better!