Make Money Marketing

Consider what your own actions are when you receive promotional mail through the post. It is likely that you sort the post in order of importance – you may have a pile of things which are obviously bills and letters addressed specifically for you, then a pile of magazines and other things you are interested in and then a pile of mail which is destined for the bin. The aim for marketers is to get your mail shot out of the last pile and into the ‘A’ pile so it gets opened.

Make you sure your mail is addressed to someone

If a mail shot is personalised it is far more likely to get attention. The most effective method is to have a handwritten envelope with an actual stamp rather than being franked. Letters which are addressed to ‘The Occupier’ or ‘Home Owner’ are unlikely to get opened. Those impersonal touches will get your mailing thrown into the trash without a second glance. Avoid using a font which mimics hand writing. They’re easy to spot, so they won’t help get your letters opened.

Vary the appearance of your future mailings

Variety is important. If someone opens your letter, sees it’s a mass-mailing and decides they’re not interested, they’ll throw away any similar looking letters in the future. Vary the look of the envelope by sometimes using printed envelopes, sometimes using window envelopes and sometimes using plain envelopes. Your prospects won’t anticipate your mailings and will be more likely to open them. Different people will react in different ways to your mailing, some people may open a window envelope because it looks like a bill but not a plain envelope if it’s not addressed to them.

Vary the mailing and keep testing

This is an important aspect of any marketing campaign. Make sure you record key variants for each campaign and obtain figures for the response rate for each mail shot. Carefully analyze and report on the results so you can see which customers respond to which style of mail shot packaging. Take on board any feedback and keep trying new things. From the results you maybe able to rule out certain strategies and build on tactics which had show positive results. If you get a better response, you can evolve your current program into the new one. You can pick and choose which type of mailing you want to send to certain groups depending on whether or not they had previously responded or not. You can try one design on those who have previously responded and then another to those who haven’t, In that way, you may be able to achieve a good response rate from both groups of recipients.

Mail shots aren’t always going to be opened, and even those that are may not get a response. However, carefully testing strategies, personalising the mailings and varying the packaging are strong strategies for improving the number of letters opened, and therefore the response rate of your direct mailing program.