Creating a Direct Mail Campaign

If you are a small business owner looking to increase sales, a direct mail marketing campaign is great option. This allows you to direct consumers to a particular response mechanism, like a response form included in the mailer, a hotline or a unique webpage, in order to purchase products. By driving consumers to this unique vehicle, you can easily track how effective your promotional effort is.

You'll need:

• A Prospective Customer Mailing List

• A Prospective Customer Phone List (Optional)

• A response mechanism (can be a unique webpage, a phone number, a response form, etc.)

• Direct mail collateral materials

Determine Direct Mail Goals

Determine what your goals for the direct mailer are, specifically in light of anticipated increase in sales over a specific period of time, and as a function of how much money you allocate for the direct mail promotion.

Determine your timetable. Direct mailers work better if there is some urgency attached.

Determine your budget for the direct mail campaign. Costs will obviously include printing, but also consider promotional incentives, such as discounts, you may offer consumers who become customers. Incentives generally increase the response rate.

Plan other marketing activities or public relations activities to occur concurrently with your direct mail campaign. If a consumer sees an ad in a magazine about your product around the time they receive a piece of mail from you about their product, they may be more likely to buy. Telemarketing coupled with direct mail can also drastically increase response rates.

Develop Your Mailing List

Determine who your prospective customers are - those most likely to purchase. This may be a composite of existing customers, culled from your firm's internal records, as well as others who may have demonstrated evidence that they are likely to use your product. For example, if you sell baby furniture, you may want to send out a direct mailer to all new mothers in your local area, in addition to existing customers.

Once you have made a determination of who is most likely to buy your product, compile a list of those of your existing customers most likely to buy.

Then purchase a list of other prospective customers in your target market from a list broker. A list broker is an individual or a firm who specializes in compiling and creating mailing, phone and/or email lists of individuals for use by businesses. The Direct Marketing Association of America is a good place to find begin to find a list broker who can help you compile the rest of your list.

Determine the method(s) most appropriate for customers to respond to you. If you are a small business owner who sells a wide-range of inventory, it may be best to sent your target market copies of a catalog of your products. Alternatively, you can mail your customers a mailer that drives people to a unique webpage featuring your products. Determine the most manageable and cost-efficient response mechanism(s) for your organization.

Limit the number of response mechanism(s). The more you use the more likely you are to confuse the customer, and the more labor-intensive it will be to gauge response.

Design Your Collateral Material

To design a great direct response piece, keep text short and simple, emphasizing key brand attributes, incentives and urgency: marketing messages should emphasize that the products this promotion is only available for a particular price for a short period of time.

The material should have response instructions and the response mechanism clearly on the material in multiple locations. Make sure the response instructions are clear and concise.

Mail Your Material

Send out your direct mail pieces to your list.

Assess the Results

As the responses begin to pour in, begin to assess the results. There are a number of ways to assess the effectiveness of a direct mailer, but first you must gather the raw data. Determine how many times consumers responded to you. If you directed consumers to purchase your products over the phone, then count the number of calls and sales were made to the unique phone line they were sent to. If you sent customers to a unique website, take a look at how many times the page was viewed and how many products were purchased on the site.

Use the data to determine the effectiveness of your direct mail piece. Calculate ROI-Return on Investment. Subtract the total gross revenue from the direct mail expenditure and then divide the result by the direct mail expenditure. This will give you the percentage gain netted by your direct mail campaign. Subdivide this by the number of months of the campaign to determine monthly yield. Research other direct marketing metrics and use accordingly.