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Keys to Marketing Success

One of the advantages of being involved in the production of printed direct mail materials is that I get to see a wide variety of the many different types of materials and ideas that companies use to market their products and services. I also get a front seat as to the types of strategies and processes they use during the course of a campaign.

Joe Olivo, President and CEO of Perfect Printing

From this vantage point I have been able to gain significant knowledge as to some of the things that can make (or break) a campaign. Based on past experiences, following are some of my recommend tips when using direct mail as part of any advertising campaign.

1. Test your mailing list- In today’s economy, with job positions changing often and companies closing and merging more frequently, it is important that you make sure that you test your list. We had a client that was ready to send out a relatively expensive promotional piece to a new list of prospects. At our suggestion, they first did a simple first-class teaser postcard. They discovered that 15% of the intended targets on the list they purchased did not received the mailing. They were then able to cut the second, more expensive mailing down by this amount. While there was additional cost for the test mailing, the significant savings on the second mailing far outweighed the cost.
2. Have a call to action- I recently received via Fedex a wonderful packet of advertising material from a contractor that highlighted their services. I am betting that this piece had a unit cost of over $30 each. One problem however, was that the piece did not request anything from me. While I was impressed with the mailing and it did sit on my desk for a few days, I eventually discarded it. If the piece had requested something from me, I would have been much more likely to act on this and find out more about their company.
3. Follow Up- It is very rare that a single piece will attract the attention of a recipient unless they are actively seeking a product or service that is being advertised. This is where the importance of integrated multi-channel campaigns will come into play. I have seen too many mailings where the client was disappointed with the response rates from a single mailing. While location, location, location is the key to real estate success, repetition, repetition, repetition is the key to marketing success.  
4. Measure and Measure some more- I have not yet come across the perfect marketing campaign that yields a 100% response rate. I am betting that if you offered to give away a $100 bill, you still would not be able to get 100% of the people to respond. By integrating your marketing efforts and testing at every level of the campaign you can find out what is working, but more importantly figure out what needs to be changed in order to improve the response rate on every subsequent touch.