No matter what any internet marketer might try to sell you, people still love getting mail. Of course most people hate getting junk mail, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to receive your direct mail offer. You know what they say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Your job as a direct marketing professional is to make sure your direct mail piece is sent to the right people, the people who think it is a treasure, or in other words the people who need or want what you are selling.
So, how do you send your direct mail to people who will treasure it? By purchasing a targeted wholesale mailing list, that’s how. You choose the exact demographic of people that will want or need what you are selling, then you design a killer mailer and send away. The better your mailing list the better your conversion rate and the more money you will make. It really is that simple.
One mistake that many direct marketers make is putting all their time and effort into creating fantastic direct mail advertisements and then forgetting entirely about the importance of the mailing list they are sending those ads to. Creative direct mailers with a catchy headline and a clear call to action are guaranteed to get better results than a plain black and white postcard as long as you send them to a targeted mailing list, BUT the black and white postcard sent to a targeted mailing list will still out perform the creative mailer that is sent to a random mailing list any day of the week.
The moral of the story? You should absolutely create a direct mail advertisement that attracts attention, promotes your message and then gives a clear call to action and then send those direct mailers to a targeted mailing list for MAXIMUM results. Unless, of course, you like throwing your money around for very little return on investment?
Are you putting all your advertising eggs in one basket? That is to say, have you moved 100% of your advertising budget to online advertising? If so, you are making a big mistake. Every company should be allocating a portion of their advertising budget to online advertising, no doubt about it. But, if you fail to use other forms of advertising such as direct mail you are missing a large portion of the population.
As you vary your advertising campaign to include direct mail, radio and television advertising, online ads and even billboards, you are helping to create and solidify your company’s brand. You want your company to become as recognizable as, say McDonald’s. If you take a look at how big companies like Mc Donald’s or Wal-Mart advertise you will see that they use all of the methods listed above. If the most successful companies in the world are diversifying their advertising campaigns to include direct mail what does that tell you?
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.
You might think that the warning to not send “junk mail” wouldn’t be coming from a direct marketing wholesale list provider, because after all isn’t “junk mail” just the common name for direct mail? Absolutely not. You must learn the secrets to sending a compelling offer to your clients and once you do that it will never be confused with “junk mail” again!
If you send a piece of mail that looks like junk mail it is far more likely to get thrown in the trash. In fact, I read an article that stated that the post office admits that up to 20% of “junk mail” gets thrown out by mail carriers! They figure they can save themselves time and avoid carrying a heavy sack by eliminating items they deem to be junk.
Next, a lot of recipients will throw away items that look like “junk” before they even read your headline. The key is to make your mailer look important so that you can get the mail carrier to deliver it and your recipient to open it. One common tactic that yields a lot of success is creating a mailer that looks like a check because who doesn’t want to open a check? The check is actually a coupon that the customer can use to purchase your products. Be sure to make the offer compelling and you are sure to yield a high success rate with your next direct mail campaign.
There are dozens or more sites on the internet, such as Wholesalelists.net where you can purchase telemarketing leads and it can be difficult to know who to buy from. There are some things you can look for in telemarketing lists to help make your decision easier, however. First, you need to buy telemarketing lists that comply with the National Do Not Call Registry. This will require you to get your own SAN# which you can do online. If purchase telemarketing lists through companies that are not DNC compliant, you could put yourself and your business in jeopardy.
Something else to consider when choosing telemarketing lists is a proven success rate. People are always moving or trading their landlines for cell phones these days but a company like Wholesalelists.net updates their lists regularly and will be able to keep up with these changes in order to provide telemarketing lists that have high rate of valid phone numbers.
Next, you want to be sure that you can target your lead list to include only those people who are most likely to be interested in your product or services. Good telemarketing lists are targeted telemarketing lists. You must be able to choose your list by gender, age, income level, buying habits and a range of other variables depending on your product or service.
Lastly, your telemarketing lists have to fit within your budget. A highly targeted list at a wholesale price means you will really get your money’s worth.
Direct marketing is a highly effectual and cost effective way to sell products and services without the high cost of media advertising. You get the opportunity to market your ideas straight to the people who are most likely to buy your products and you can successfully track your responses to determine how well your campaign is doing. There are a number of methods that can be used for direct marketing including direct mail, email and telemarketing and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some direct marketers prefer one method over another while others like to use a combination of all three.
No matter which method you choose for direct marketing your product or service to the public there is one thing you will need—a good list. Whether you want to send emails, postcards or call customers directly you have to have a list of customers to contact with all their pertinent information. Best results are usually achieved when you purchase this list from a reputable wholesale list provider like us.
By properly targeting your list and sharpening your marketing skills for the direct marketing method you pursue, it is possible to make a lot of money even in a difficult economy. Achieving success in direct marketing boils down to a matter of trial and error sometimes, but once you find what works for your products and narrow your demographics down you can just duplicate the same process over and over to achieve your goals. No matter which method you choose, remember that your results will only be as good as the list you use so be sure to choose your list broker and your target market carefully so you can get the results you want at a reasonable cost.
There are some incredible advantages that direct mail has over other forms of advertising that would account for its lasting success and recent increase in effectiveness. One of the advantages of using direct mail is that you can involve more of the senses to engage your prospective customer in and allow them to have an experience that they will want to continue by purchasing your product or service.
In a piece of direct mail advertising you can engage the customer’s sense of sight, smell, taste, touch and sound. You can’t get customers to smell perfume on the internet or taste a sample of your product, but you can do these things with direct mail. You also have the customer holding your advertising in their hands where they can feel either your packaging – to make them want to open it or even a swatch of your product to see what the material is like.
Getting your prospective customer to have an experience while viewing your direct mail is a great way to build a connection with them and gain their trust. Like a firm handshake, your direct mail reaches out to the customer and gives them a feel, literally, for what your company is all about. So be creative with your direct mail, play with textures and scents in addition to color, fonts and pictures and let your direct mail go to work for you.
Lately I’ve seen some people around me agonize over what elements to include or not to include in their direct mailers. They consult books, web gurus and so on looking for the secret formula that will get the direct mail response they are looking for. There is a lot of great advice on direct mail available, but sadly there is also a lot of trash being tossed out there to unsuspecting customers. At the end of the day, however, it all boils down to one question: Would you respond to it?
If you didn’t know what you know about your product or service and all you had to go on was your mailer, would you respond? It is difficult to be truly objective, but you have to clear your mind and put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes. Does you direct mail piece grab your attention? Does it make you want to open it? Is it immediately clear what the offer is? Does it make you want to pick up the phone and call your order in or rush the order form out to your mailbox?
These are the questions you must answer. No matter what the “experts” tell you, at the end of the day what really matters is what the customer thinks. Does the customer “get it”? Do they want to “get it”? Make sure that your mailer grabs your attention, informs you about the offer and makes you want to buy and chances are that your potential customers will feel the same way.
In order for your direct mail marketing campaign to be successful you have to send the right offer to right people and the right number of people. You need to start with a good mailing list, but equally, if not more importantly, you have to get people to open the mail so they can see what your offer is. There is an age old formula for direct marketing known as AIDA which is for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. The first step is attention. If you don’t get their attention they won’t open your direct mailer and it won’t matter if you are offering them free gold, they won’t respond.
Getting attention may rely on use of color, graphics and an attention getting headline right on the outside of the mailer. Before the customer even opens your mailer they should be excited about what is inside. Remember not to overdo the hype because today’s customer is savvy and somewhat skeptical about “free” offers…they have been burned before.
One of the best ways to find out what will and won’t get a customer’s attention is to do some test marketing. Start with several ideas and send them to three areas with the same demographics. Assign each a particular code to use when they call to take advantage of the offer so you can track the response. Pick a winner and roll out your campaign on a grander scale and watch the money roll in.
