Andi Gray: Finding gold with direct mail

WE WANT TO GO BACK TO TRYING MAILERS AGAIN. THAT MEANS WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET PEOPLE TO READ THE POSTCARD, NOT THROW IT OUT AND THEN TAKE ACTION AS A RESULT OF READING THE POSTCARD.

THOUGHTS OF THE DAY: Build a campaign, not an event. Make sure your offer works. Get noticed. Make sure you target the right recipients.

Why are you sending out this mailer? To get more customers, right? And how do you do that? By building relationships with people. By getting people to trust you and your company. By motivating people to take action to better their lives.

Show prospects more about what your company does. Give them a reason to care about or relate to what you”™re showing off. Test until you know you”™re generating enough excitement that the recipient is moved to act on the spot.

Think about using mailers to share information about customers who have become more successful by working with your company or by using your company”™s products. Offer useful success tips and you might entice people to look for your next mailer. Tell your readers that you”™re giving out discounts on different products or services as part of a stream of mailers and you may hook them into contacting you to find out if you”™ll send them a postcard right away related to the specific product or service they”™re interested in.

Instead of one and done, think about engaging with the same group of prospects multiple times. Bear with recipients who may overlook your cards the first, second or third times you send them out. But make each card similar enough to the others such that readers begin to recognize the look and feel.

Figure out what your audience considers amazing, then offer them exactly that. Are the buyers you”™re targeting holding back because the price is a little too steep? Offer a discount. Do they want something that seems too inconvenient to bother with? Make it easy for them to get your product or service by offering overnight shipping or delivery at no additional cost, perhaps with an additional gift included as a reward for ordering right away. Are they seeking top quality? Give them testimonials and a top-quality sample that”™s sure to please.

Want to know who received and read your mailer? Point recipients to a questionnaire online and a gift or automatic entry into a raffle if they complete the questionnaire right away. Or give them a tear-off to mail back, with a code that identifies who the card was mailed to.

Make your card appealing enough to pay attention, but more importantly, make it simple to absorb. Little bit of info. Simple graphics. Grab your target”™s attention. Give readers enough information to whet their appetites and an offer that is hard to turn down. Then tell them how to get what you”™re offering ”” go to the website and enter a code, call this number to register. Make it simple and easy to take action. Test things out with a small target group where you can perfect things until a higher percentage of recipients take action. Then test again to see if results hold up.

You can have the best card in the world, but if it goes out to people who don”™t care, any mailer will fail. Define the criteria of people likely to buy from you. Figure out what makes them care about your company by asking a sample group a set of direct questions. Once you know you”™re talking to the right sample group, figure out what else is common about the group ”” the things they all like. Use the commonalities as part of your demographics to build your mailing list.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: “The Direct Mail Solution: A Business Owner”™s Guide to Building a Lead-Generating, Sales-Driving, Money-Making Direct-Mail Campaign,” by Craig Simpson and Dan S. Kennedy.

Andi Gray is president of Strategy Leaders Inc., StrategyLeaders.com, a business-consulting firm that teaches companies how to double revenue and triple profits in repetitive growth cycles. Have a question for AskAndi? Wondering how Strategy Leaders can help your business thrive? Call or email for a free consultation and diagnostics: 877-238-3535, AskAndi@StrategyLeaders.com. Check out our library of business advice articles: AskAndi.com.