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Direct Mail Marketing Now As Easy As Email
Is the United States Postal Service (USPS) a marketing innovator? As it turns out, the kind folks in the blue shorts are in fact making it easy for even the smallest business to duke it out with their biggest competitors by using the USPS new...
Improve Your B2B Direct Mail Response Rates With Premiums.
Premiums are an effective way to increase your direct mail
response rates. Whether you are selling a product or service
directly through the mail, or whether you are using a sales
letter to generate leads, premiums can help you boost...
Raise Funds For Your Nonprofit Using An Annual Direct Mail Program
A good annual direct mail solicitation program can produce unrestrictive operating funds for your nonprofit organization year after year. And such an annual direct mail program, if done right, should produce more funding for your organization each...
Raising Funds For Your Nonprofit Using An Annual Direct Mail Program
A good annual direct mail solicitation program can produce unrestrictive operating funds for your nonprofit organization year after year. And such an annual direct mail program, if done right, should produce more funding for your organization each...
Seven reasons to use direct mail for sales lead generation.
1. Personal Unlike an advertisement in a trade publication, which can be read by anyone, your sales letter arrives at your prospect’s place of business as a piece of personal communication from your mind to his. Also, unlike any other medium, direct...
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Direct Mail Formats: How to Choose the Right One
Which pulls the best response, a postcard, a self-mailer or a letter? The answer, you’ll be irritated to know, is clear. It depends.
The success of your mailing depends on who you mail to (your list), what you promise (your offer), when you mail (your timing), and what you mail (your format and creative). Here are a few questions to ask yourself to decide which format is likely the best one to use for your next mailing.
Letter
Does your sales message need to come from one person by name? Does it need to be addressed to a person by name? Is privacy or confidentiality a concern? Then a sales letter inside an envelope is the way to go.
Postcard
Is your sales message short and simple, and designed to motivate your prospect to visit your website to hear your full pitch (and place an order)? A postcard is a good option.
Self-mailer
Do you need to illustrate your sales message while keeping printing and mailing costs down? Then try a self-mailer (a document that mails without an envelope, such as an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of card stock, folded once on itself and sealed with a tab).
Classic direct mail package
Do you have things to say that do not really fit in a letter (technical specifications, for example)? Is your sales message longer than 600 words? Does your prospect need to mail back a check or order form? Then a classic direct mail package is your best choice, consisting of a mailing envelope, letter, brochure, business reply card or order form, and business reply envelope.
Dimensional mailer
Do you need to reach C-level
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executives in Fortune 500 companies? Executives who have mailroom staff and executive secretaries who screen their mail? Then a dimensional mailer may be the most effective way to reach their desk with your sales message. One firm recently mailed a portable DVD player in a high-end box, and enclosed a sales letter explaining that the executive could get the remote control unit (without which the player did not work) by meeting with a sales rep from the company who mailed the package. The response rate was high.
Catalog
Do you have a lot to sell? Do you need to show the color, shape or quality of your product? Mail a catalog.
Unaddressed flyer
Do you have a message that needs to reach everyone in a given geographic area, such as a business park, for the least amount of money? Consider mailing a simple 8 ½ x 11 sheet with copy and design on one or both sides.
Email
Do you have a short sales message for your existing customers? Send them an email (with their permission, of course).
Buckslip
Do you have a short announcement for your existing customers? Do you need to remind them about something? Include a buckslip in your next mailing. A buckslip is a slip of paper the size of a dollar bill, with copy and graphics on one or both sides, that is enclosed in a mailing envelope with other materials).
About the Author
Alan Sharpe is a business-to-business direct mail copywriter, lead generation specialist and publisher of “Sharpe & Direct: The B2B direct mail marketing e-newsletter.” Receive a free report when you sign up at www.sharpecopy.com.
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