Create Effective Direct Mail Campaigns

Direct mail — or unsolicited newsletters, advertisements, promotions, or coupons — can help increase your sales by allowing you to target a specific market. With USPS’s Every Door Direct Mail program, companies that wouldn’t normally send out direct mail are now able to send it easily. They can target specific neighborhoods, zip codes, and mail routes, increasing the chances that the people who receive their mail will be more likely to act on that mail.

But direct mail has been around for a long time, and many companies employ the following techniques in order to create effective direct mail campaigns.

Narrow your specific market.

Instead of sending out mass direct mail pieces to anyone in a specific area, you can narrow your target market a bit further so that you can send your campaign to people who are more likely to be interested in your product or service. You can build targeted lists based on your customers’ age, their zip code, the date of their last engagement with your company, and even whether they have moved recently or not. When you understand who your target market is, you can help ensure that you get a higher ROI.

Create a flexible message.

The appeal of direct mail (besides the fact that it comes right to your customers’ doorsteps) is that you can create a variety of different campaigns. Direct mail is great for promotional campaigns (usually involving coupons), but direct mail can also prompt customers to visit a landing page in order to take the next step (purchase an item, request a service, or sign up for an email list). By leading your customers  through a specific process, you can control and adjust the type of content that they see and, hopefully, influence the way they feel about your product or service.

Create hype.

Whenever customers think they’re getting a special or personalized message, they’re more likely to respond positively. If you have customers who have been with you for a long time, or if you’d like to target people who’ve never used your services, direct mail might be able to help. By sending out early-bird specials, sign-up promotions, or refer-a-friend deals, you can entice customers who might not have been interested in your products to begin with.