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Direct Marketing Article |
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Direct Mail Postcards - 7 tips for more
successful postcard campaigns
4 Article Series on Postcard Marketing - article 3 of 4
By Jeffrey Dobkin
This is the third in the four article series by Jeffrey Dobkin on creating
effective direct mail marketing campaigns with post cards. The first article
listed 5 objectives and goals of your direct mail post card campaign. The
second article on post card marketing highlights 5 ways to create your
postcard campaign to make your phone ring with maximum response.
This article continues with 7 more new ways to increase response from
mailing post cards.
1. When you offer a FREE booklet in your post card, make sure Your
Booklet Title is Fantastic.
The booklet title is where "good" just isn't good enough. Your booklet
titles need to be spectacular.
- 12 Ways to Lower Your Insurance Premiums.
- How to Stop Your Roof Leak by Friday!
- 10 Things to Check before Calling a Tow Truck.
Make sure your booklet title - way beyond a shadow of a doubt - will drive
every reader to call.
2. Mail Frequently.
While a single postcard can certainly hold it's own with a hot headlines,
crafty copywriting, tight transitions, and irresistible offers, postcards
campaigns - like most other direct mail marketing campaigns - work best when
you mail with frequency and regularity. Consider a 5 or 6 postcard campaign
to stay in top of mind awareness of your best prospects and customers, or to
build loyalty and exposure for yourself through multiple brand impressions.
Cost? Just $3 for 6 cards. For a longer sales campaign over time or for
products with a long sales cycle, continue mailing with regularity. Even if
you mail postcards every two weeks, the cost of this direct mail post card
campaign is just $13 (26 x $.50) for an entire year.
When mailing a sequence of postcards, place the sequence number on each card
to let readers know each card is an integral part of a full postcard
marketing campaign. Print "Postcard Series, Card Number 5 of 20" or whatever
the card number. If you don't know how many postcards will be in the
marketing campaign, just say "Postcard Series, Card Number so and so". This
adds credibility to your firm and your direct mail marketing campaign. It
lets readers know you're not single shot in the dark or a one trick pony.
3. Postcards are cheap to mail and are delivered fast.
Postcards get a special rate from the post office. And since they are easy
to handle you can get a mailshop to address your card, image the barcode
automatically and mail first class - and the postage savings will usually
cover the cost for the mailing house to do all the work: the ink jetting
addressing, sort in zip sequence, and mail. Even with a mailhouse doing the
work, your postcard campaign will still be cheaper than mailing postcards
bulk mail. The cost for the mailshop is offset by the savings in postage.
Delivery will be faster too - your postcards will arrive in just a day or
two.
4. Mail to a Great Mailing List.
By specifying the right mailing list there's no wasted expense. Your ad is
precisely targeted and delivered only to the tightly qualify recipients on
your direct mail mailing list. With the correct selection of a direct
mailing list, you can mail to only the most highly qualified prospects, or
past and/or current customers.
With a hand-selected mailing list, virtually 100% of your postcards reach
your best targets in your marketing campaign. The better your mailing list,
the better your response — the more your phone will ring. An excellent
resource for how to tightly specify your mailing lists can be found in the
book, "How To Market a Product for Under $500!" from the Danielle Adams
Publishing Company. The chapter on direct mail is almost 100 pages.
This book dedicates over a dozen pages to the correct selection of direct
mail mailing lists. It emphasizes how to tightly specify mailing lists, how
and where to find mailing lists, test mailing lists, and the technical in's
and out's of negotiating a mailing list purchase.
Additionally, in the book "Uncommon Marketing Techniques," a chapter
similarly titled "How to Buy a Great Mailing list!" is an excellent resource
in mailing list specification.
You are only as good as your mailing list - make sure you spend additional
time in finding a great direct mail mailing list. It's impossible to spend
too much time investigating which mailing list is the best list to test and
mail.
5. The size of your postcard campaign
How many postcards do you mail? Here's what to mail in your postcard
marketing campaign: Micro business? Mail postcards to your top 1,000
prospects, and your top 200 customers. Midsized business? Mail postcards to
your top 10,000 prospects, top 2,000 customers. Large business? Call me and
let's talk. BTW, when I write and design postcards for clients, I always use
oversize postcards that are 5-1/2" x 8-1/2".
6. Yes, you can reuse the same post cards.
Suppose you create ten post cards, and you have a heavy mailing schedule -
like you mail every two weeks. To complete this direct mail marketing
campaign it would take you almost half a year. While you know your postcards
by heart and are probably sick of seeing most of them so many times through
the writing, editing and design process, your customers got them and glanced
at them in a heartbeat before they called you, then tossed them out or filed
them away. They won't remember them. Feel free to repeat the cycle starting
with card one.
Better news: if customers remember one or two of the postcards - this means
you received excellent recognition and brand retention. Congratulate
yourself. Good job. OK, party's over, now get back to work. Continue mailing
the rest of your post cards, or create new ones.
7. The value of your post card campaign.
What's a client worth to you? $500? $1,000? $5,000? Maybe $500 a year?
$5,000 a year? Here's a proposal: suppose you sent prospects a postcard
every two weeks - or 26 postcards a year. Your cost? At 50¢ each, that's $13
bucks. And if you get one client from this postcard marketing campaign?
Success! Don't forget all the while the rest of your postcards are still
hanging around generating calls. And if they are also written and designed
correctly they can be building a relationship of loyalty and trust.
Is it worth a $13 postcard direct mail marketing campaign to entice a
prospect to call you? How about spending $13 on postcards to keep clients
active and thinking about you (and how great your service is) all year long?
Is it worth $13 a year to use postcards to build loyalty and trust into a
lasting relationship. Let me put it to you this way... How much does it
currently cost for you to get a new client? Now how does that figure compare
to $13?
In the fourth and final article in this series, Jeffrey Dobkin shows you 15
offers you can make on post cards to get your phone to ring. Since these
articles were written for the insurance industry, offers are for insurance
agents. Fortunately, if you're not in the insurance field, most of these
offers will still work pretty well for you anyhow.
About the Author:
Jeffrey Dobkin will now take your questions, call him on it: 610-642-1000
rings on his desk. Write to him at The Danielle Adams Publishing Company ·
Box 100 · Merion Station, PA 19066. Dobkin has written 4 books on increasing
response in your direct mail and direct marketing campaigns. Titles include
"How To Market A Product for Under $500," "Direct Marketing Strategies," and
"Uncommon Marketing Techniques." Please order his books at the
NMOA Book Store
or call directly, or download Dobkin's e-books on this website,
www.danielleadams.com.
Another source for specifying and purchasing mailing lists is the one hour
audio, "How to buy a great mailing list!" by Jeffrey Dobkin interviewed by
internet wizard Markus Allen. This audio is available in MP3 format on the
website
www.danielleadams.com. Learn to specify and buy a mailing list like a
pro in just one hour by listening to this download. |
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