Trick #1 - More Targeted Mailing List
There are several simple ways to improve your “targetability” when developing your mailing list. You can suppress your existing customers so you’re not inviting people who already know your business. This is a simple but very effective process to improving your targeting.
You can also suppress prospects with a low life-time value. If you consider the number of times a customer will buy from your business over the span of their life, it’s sometimes beneficial to focus your marketing investment, all things being equal, on the younger audience. Here we’re assuming if the younger a person starts buying your products and services, the more apt you are to achieve a higher life-time value than mailing to the older segment of your prospect list.
The key to postal direct mail is mailing smarter, not mailing more. If you’re mailing to the Consumer Database and you can target segments of this database buy using selects or filters such as Income, Length of Residence, Year Home Built, etc, you’re better able to zero-in on better, more responsive prospects.
Trick #2 - Consider Multi-flight Campaigns
More times than not, mailers get a better response if they mail to the same people multiple times. This happens for two reasons. One, is that people develop brand recognition over time, so the more they see your logo, your offer, your products and service, the better chance they’ll trust you and your business, and are more apt to respond to your offer. And Two, people are busy. If they see your offer, but are just too busy to make a purchase and/or commitment at that moment, your mail piece is tossed in the trash. But the second or third time may be all that’s needed to trigger action.
Trick #3 - Nurture Brand/relationship, tell a story
The population receives 1,000’s of impressions of advertisements a day, both on and off line. We’re become very skilled at becoming desensitized to the many offers that cross our attention, minute by minute. However, if you can nurture your brand by telling a story, your products and services become much more memorable.
Trick # 4 - Integrated Campaign
Very few successful businesses rely on just one medium of advertising. Either they’re using multiple mediums of advertisement in unison, or they’re constantly testing different mediums to get the word out. If you’ve not considered it, try to develop your story, and tell it similarly across multiple channels like digital banner advertisement, doing an email campaign, or social media campaign.
Trick #5 - Test and Measurement
If you have a budget to mail 40,000 pieces, test 4 versions, or 4 different segments with 10,000 pieces each, rather than just mail to the same type of people with the same message. Remember, always be testing.
Trick # 6 - Model Your Existing Customers
Consider having a model created around your existing best customers. This can easily be done by taking a list of your existing customers names and addresses, and having a modeling process performed on those records to find new prospects that look very similar to your existing customers.
Bonus Trick - Mail Your Existing Customers - #1 Best List for repeat business
There is no better list to mail than to your existing customers for repeat business. If you have a limited budget, your existing customers are the first best people to mail.