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Marketing doesn’t have to be difficult. Get unstuck with these straightforward tips for improving your next direct mail marketing campaign:
Pick a list.
Who do you want to see your message? Don’t say “everyone” — define your target list.
Don’t let this get overcomplicated. If you don’t have any customers yet, think about who you want as your customers, and target them (i.e., new homeowners, people who recently purchased a car, women ages 25-54 years old who have an income of $50,000+ in Wisconsin, etc.). If you do have customers, pull together a list of your best ones, and find more of them.
Practically speaking, it’s easier to sell to people who are similar to your current customers. Spend time finding out who your customer is and how to best define them. (If you don’t already know who your good customers are, this article I wrote can help you narrow it down.)
One option to find more customers like your good ones is to download your customer data and get with a reputable mailing list company to add demographic information to your list. This will let you buy a list of targets that look a lot like your current customers. Find a company that stands behind its data. Some data sources are outdated. People move, people get older, etc., and that needs to be updated in the lists.
Choose an offer.
You want sales; you want customers. Stop thinking about you, and start thinking about them. What do your customers want? What’s in it for them? Is it a “buy one, get one” deal, some sort of guarantee, 10% off, 50% off or a free thing?
Reduce the pain/risk of purchase, or increase the pleasure of ownership. What type of offer makes you buy? Try that approach, and then try another until you find one that works for your product or service.
Create a call to action.
“Act now!” “Call today!” “Limited time!” “First 50 customers get ______.”
Why should I stop what I’m doing to give you my attention? Tell consumers what you want them to do — loud and clear. Pretend you are standing in front of your store and people are walking by. What would you say to get them to come in? Use that as your call to action.
Measure what happened and rinse and repeat.
This is where marketing often becomes wasted money. Marketing is a process, not a one-time event. If you don’t intend to measure, rinse and repeat, you could be flushing money away. Please, please, please hear this point. Pick a measurement. There is no perfect measure — just pick a reasonable one. Sales dollars is a good measurement. The number of web visitors is a good measurement. How many ____ sold in a week is a good measure. Pick one — ideally one in line with your offer. Then, optimize your campaign with testing.
A/B testing is where you market with two versions to see which version performs best, A or B. You can start by testing two lists. Try sending the same offer and same call to action to two different lists — maybe a list of people with a net worth over $50,000 and those with a net worth under $50,000. Which list performed better? Use that list for your next A/B test.
Now, market to the same list with two different offers — maybe one with “buy one, get one” and one with 50% off. Which performed better?
Lastly, email the same list with the same offer, and change the call to action. Maybe try “Call today!” vs. “Enter to win!” Again, which one tested best?
Now, take those best options, and test again and again until you feel like you are getting the results you want. Don’t do this once and stop. Marketing does not work like that.
I’m hoping we sparked an idea for you and encourage you to take the next steps in your marketing adventure. You can do this! You don’t have to know it all today; you just have to take the first step and keep learning.
