Tips For A High-Volume Direct Mail Campaign

Considering that an estimated 85 per cent of the population checks their mailbox every day, direct mailing can be a truly powerful marketing tool if used the right way. This means partnering with a high volume direct mail company as opposed to shopping your direct mail campaigns to different mail and print shops every time you come up with a marketing initiative.

Here are a few tips to ensure that your direct mail campaign has good ROI:

1. Identify your mailing listAn obvious component of direct mailing is a list of names and addresses of clients and prospects. While there are numerous vertical lists available for purchase, it is important to find out the types of offers you can make with each list, as well as the restrictions, to avoid penalties for non-compliance.
2. Test and learnTo be successful in direct mailing, you must continuously test and learn different elements, including:
   • Market segments – When you purchase a mailing list, it does not necessarily have sufficient data to help with market segmentation. So, you should identify segments of your mailing lists that perform better than others based on your offers.
   • Offers – Test different offers to see what gets people in different segments more excited and likely to respond. For instance, you can find out whether a discount increases the sales volume sufficiently to offset the reduced profit margin. If not, try another offer and analyse.
   • Creatives – Continue developing new marketing strategies and comparing them to your current champion since the performance of a good tactic can degrade with time.
   • Cadence – You should have response models to help you analyse the response from a particular mail-drop strategy, so you can know how long to wait before mailing again.
   Choose an appropriate sample size when conducting your tests. While a small test can produce results that are not statistically meaningful, a very large one can prove to be costly.
3. Analyse your resultsTo continuously build on your tests, you must analyse the results carefully. You must comprehend all the economics of the tests: whether the high response rate corresponds to the close rate and the amount made from each sale.
4. Roll out your plan in moderationAfter identifying your most profitable segment, you should roll out the mail strategically with increasing volume. For instance, you can start with 10,000 pieces of mail and increase gradually to cushion yourself from unforeseen metrics.

Finally, it is best that you work with an expert in direct mailing to avoid common pitfalls. The money you invest in good advice is worth it, and you can proceed alone after some guidance. Interested in adding direct mail marketing to your advertising mix? Please call our Toronto mailing house at 1-866-486-0423. Troi spells success, one letter at a time! Previous Article Next Article