Back to the future – DIRECT Magazine

As consumers get bombarded with emails, texts and online advertising, is it time for the tangible to make a resurgence? Sharon Williams discusses the good ole days of direct mail and shows how it can make or break the brand-consumer relationship.

I don’t know about you, but I’d quite welcome a letter delivery these days of something other than a bill or an invoice. As long as it’s pleasant!

Have the days really gone when you could look forward to something exciting in the mail?

Remember the good old days when you would come home and there in your mailbox or lying on your door mat would be a heap of letters – some handwritten, but most with colourful and exciting offers.

The letters were from a range of companies, ones you knew and ones you didn’t know existed at all. They all wanted your attention and seemed to have something fun to say. Were we just naïve back then or were the direct marketers really clever?

I remember mailing pieces as mostly fun, relevant and interesting. From the personalised ready-to-swipe credit card with special interest rates or unique offers with ‘this week only’ in bold print. I remember opening the post to be a fun experience. Not so much now.

Since the ‘90s when the dot com boom hit, direct mail marketing seems to have turned into direct email marketing. And withholding spam, email or social networks have replaced post as the way to communicate.

Getting past first base

The first goal of direct mail hasn’t changed — to get the reader to actually open it up and read it, before it is filed in the recycling basket. This window of opportunity is a fraction of a second (or it is for me).

Direct marketers can fail at first base. If the envelope is incorrectly addressed, or my name and title are spelt wrong, I discard it immediately. If a company cannot get my name and address right, I am happy to seal the company’s fate as being ignorant and untrustworthy.

Mailing lists are the biggest culprit. There is rarely a call to action, and it is no surprise that the line of effective communication is cut at first base.

90 per cent of direct marketing has turned to online, viral and EDMs because they are cheaper and provide a more immediate call to action apparatus. So do people actually miss direct mail?

Fans of the old lick and stick style are still out there. They like being addressed one-on-one and offered incentives that seem to be directed personally for them.

If the truth is, direct mail response rates hover around 3 per cent and nine out of ten times, the recipient will file it in the wastepaper bin, then if you send that piece to 1000 people, you could potentially get 30 new customers. Is that a slice of pie you are prepared to take?

Here are my top ten tips for direct mail marketing strategies:

1. Address your target audience and differentiate between them. For example, old and new customers will need a different approach than those who have never heard of you

2. Use creativity to build your brand – design a great visual that is easy-to-remember and is compelling enough for the reader to remember and even respond to

3. Have a quality list – building your own in-house database is a job for everyone – all your employees

4. Grab attention from the first line – and answer the ‘what, why, when, what’s in it for me? questions right up front

5. Use P.S. – recipients are automatically drawn to the P.S. in letters. Use this to reiterate your call to action or create a sense of urgency

6. Issue a call to action – if you don’t provide clear instructions for the next steps, then why send the correspondence at all?

7. The method of response should be easy – have you made your phone number and web address clear?

8. Build relationships – don’t use DM to sell only. Educate and value add and eventually, the reader will be interested in talking to you more

9. Patience – customers are more likely to pay attention if they have recognised your name more than once and you have earned their respect

10. Direct mail should be seen as a long-term initiative and part of your integrated traditional and non-traditional marketing mix. Use DM with your adverts, PR campaigns, telemarketing, events and social media mix to be really successful

Sharon Williams is founder and CEO of Taurus Marketing, and resident Small Business blogger on ninemsn.