Distributing your direct marketing message through the mail is an extremely effective way to advertise your product or service. It usually pays to send out as many direct mail pieces as you can afford because you are always going to get only a certain proportion of responses. The two factors that determine what that proportion is are the quality of your direct mail and the quality of the mailing lists you are using.
Sending out large numbers of direct mail ads to all the wrong people is a waste of time and money. You may sell some items by chance if your mailer is good, but in order to get some really big numbers you need to send your direct mail advertising to the right people through a highly qualified mailing list. What makes a highly qualified mailing list? For instance, if you are advertising anti-aging skin care, you might want to target women over 30 because a 16-year-old guy is probably not going to buy your wrinkle cream.
It makes sense to increase the quantity once you have a targeted mailing list, however, so quantity is certainly not out of the picture. The more high-quality ads you send to people on your targeted mailing lists, the more sales you will make. The quantity and the quality of your mailing lists count, but neither is very good without the other. Direct marketing is a proven and highly successful way to make a lot of money, but you must take out all the stops and market your product or service to as many of the “right people” as possible.
