So, what is the best type of media to send?  Think about the types of mail that you like to receive.  The odds say that you prefer to receive personally addressed letters in envelopes, rather than unaddressed brochures or loose leaf flyers.   And so, too, do the majority of your prospects.

In general, letters are much better than brochures for direct marketing purposes, but make sure that you follow these rules:

• Try to make your letter appear like a normal letter – normal letters are well received, whereas letters that are blatantly for marketing purposes are often discarded.
• Choose envelopes over no envelopes – enveloped letters have a better read rate
• The envelope is the first impression – make it look good
• Make sure that the envelope is addressed correctly.  Errors in the address detail will likely see it discarded before being opened.
• Personally address your envelopes and letters – a salutation like ‘Dear Valued Customer’ is an immediate turn off.
• Handwritten envelopes, salutations and signatures will be well received and improve the chances of your communication being read and acted upon (even more so if the CEO or boss signs the letter).  Obviously this strategy might not be appropriate for large campaigns where handwriting will be too time consuming.
• If printing your envelopes, make sure the the address is printed parallel and perpendicular to the edges of the envelope – it will look tacky if the address appears crooked.
• Include a return address on the envelope so that undelivered letters are returned to you – use the returned envelopes to update your database.
• Consider the tactile experience of your creative – try to think of ways to engage the senses of your reader.
• Keep the textual content to a minimum – we don’t read, we scan.  Short and snappy is best.  Paragraphs should be no more than 4 lines.
• Use amplifiers and fixing points, such as underlining, bolding, headings and sub-headings to draw attention.
• There is a natural ‘reading curve’ that most readers follow when scanning a letter.  The ‘reading curve’ starts at the top right then top left of the letter (who is this from?  Is it for me?), then progresses to the title beneath the salutation (what is this about?), down the right hand side of the letter, to the signature block (Who signed it?  What is in the PS area of the letter?) and then back to the top.    The eye typically lingers over the  address area, the title area, the first few words of the first paragraph, key words on the right hand side of the letter body (particularly the last paragraph), the sender’s signature, and the PS area.  It is proven that a PS message is often the first thing read and this is where the question ‘What’s in it for me?’ is commonly answered!
• Include a response device (eg. response slip with a postage paid return envelope)  in your letters so that recipients can act upon your letter easily and quickly.  Most people are time strapped and disinclined to act if too much time and effort is required – make it easy for them.  Including the word ‘YES!’ in bold caps draws attention and acts as an amplifier.
• Pictures in letters and brochures are good, but they should have captions and the benefits of the offer must be contained with the picture. Use pictures sparingly for best effect.  Steer clear of incongruous stock images that add nothing to your overall message.

Some of the points that you might consider in framing your offer:

• Free gifts – ‘free’ remains one of the most powerful words in the marketer’s vocabulary
• Free information – consider offering a free white paper, e-book or other free advice as these are well-received – much like editorial content in newspapers is better received by readers than straight advertising.
• Exclusivity – this offer is only available to you exclusively, which makes the prospect feel special and creates a justification to purchase.
• Short time only or inclusion of a similar time-based call-to-action – this offer is only available for a limited time, which creates urgency to act.
• Buy one, get one free – it is proven that this is a more effective offer than other common offers, including ‘50% off’ and ‘two for the price of one’ (which is the same offer, but worded differently).

Objectives

This is your goal – what you want to achieve by when and by how much.  Use the following SMART formula to determine your objective:

• S is for Specific: the objective needs to be explicit, not furry around the edges
• M is for Measurable: you need to be able to quantify your campaign – eg.  a 10% increase in sales
• A is for Attainable: you need to be able to achieve the objective, otherwise it’s not an objective
• R is for Realistic:  it can’t be an outlandish target – it needs to be in the realms of possibility, challenging, but not unattainable.
• T is for Timely: it needs to incorporate a time-based measure when your campaign comes to an end.

An example of an appropriate objective might be – to increase sales in Product A in the SME market by 10% by 30 June 2009

Strategy

Your strategy is a succint overview of how you intend to achieve the objective.  Strategies could include:

• Acquisition of new customers
• Retention of existing customers
• Growth of business with existing customers
• Winning back lapsed customers

A strategy could be: To increase sales in Product A in the SME market by 10% by 30 June 2009 (our objective) through the acquistion of new customers and growth of business with existing customers.

Tactics

Tactics are the things that you do execute your strategy in order to meet your objective.  Each tactic should be quantified individually to determine their overall effectiveness.

In the ‘increase sales’ example above, some possible tactics are:

• A direct mail campaign to all existing customers on the company database offering a 2 for 1 deal
• An email marketing campaign to existing customers offering a 20% discount on a product

The important message here is: it’s not about you or your product, it’s about solving your prospects’ problems.  It’s important to ‘walk in their shoes’ and ask the question:  ‘What’s In It For Me’ (WIIFM).  As a consumer, ask yourself: why would I take time out in my busy day to respond to a marketing message provided by a business that I have not heard about before?  This is the question that your prospects are asking themselves when they make the split second decision to act on your communication or chuck it in the wastepaper bin.

Don’t fall into the trap of producing marketing copy or creatives without considering the target audience, because it’s likely that your campaign will fail.  Do not pay lip service to this step or your money will be wasted.

First, work out the different segments of your target audience and determine how they will be impacted upon by your direct mailing campaign:

• Different demographic groups of suspects and prospects – people with no existing relationship with your business
• Different demographic groups of existing customers, clients and advocates

When considering the target audience, ask yourself these questions:

• Who are we talking to?
• Where do they live?
• Where do they work?
• Where do they shop, socialise?
• What jobs do they do?
• How old are they?
• What are their family circumstances? Married? Kids?
• What is their income?
• What do they spend money on?  How much per month?
• How do they spend their spare time?
• What is their psychographic orientation?  Influencer?  Decision maker?  Team worker?
• What are their attitudes to life?
• Risk takers?  Conservative?  Ambitious?  In search of stability?
• What media do they consume?

These questions will help you to consider the orientation of your target audience and assist you in formulating your marketing message.

Direct mail is a fantastic option for small business and netpreneurs, because it is relatively cheap and,if used correctly, can be highly targeted.  With marketing budgets being rationalised as a result of the global financial crisis, direct marketing is one strategy that can work really well during tough economic times.

I have dabbled in direct marketing with my various business ventures, but not in any coordinated fashion and, accordingly, the results have been mixed.  Hence, my attendance at the seminar – to learn how to get more out of my future direct marketing efforts.

Some stats about direct marketing from the collateral provided by Australia Post:

• 10% of consumers aren’t interested in receiving any type of marketing – direct marketing allows you to advertise directly to the 90% who are
• 1% of consumers only want to hear from advertisers once a year
• 70% of consumers don’t mind who sends them information, as long as it’s relevant
• 62% of consumers open and read direct mail
• 67% of consumers preferred to receive advertising and promo messages by direct mail or catalogues
• The vast majority of consumers prefer to receive direct mail messages rather than email
• Believe it or not, 66% of consumers want to be contacted at least monthly – this stat surprised me.

All of these stats suggest that direct mail is a good way of getting your marketing message out there.  People do read direct mail if they perceive it to be of value to them.  The challenge is get the marketing right.

So what are the four critical success factors for effective direct mail marketing?  Here they are:

• Timing (that which you can control) – when your mail is received.  For example, there are optimum times for sending catalogues for Christmas shopping.
• Offer – The offer is the ‘inertia breaker’ and provides the impetus for the potential customer to take action/respond.  It needs to achieve what they call ‘cut through’ in the advertising industry to compel the recipient to act.
• Creative – the ‘message’ and the look and feel of the physical item, whether it be a flyer, letter or merchandise.
• Database/ Target audience – David’s message in the intro to the seminar was to ‘build your database, build your database, build your database’.  The other message was to segment your database and market to individuals where possible.  For example, if a customer prefers fiction books, then that customer should receive information about new fiction books, rather than non-fiction books.

David went on to speak about the Ladder of Loyalty and Pareto’s 80-20 rule.  The ladder of loyalty consists of five levels of a consumer’s orientation towards your business – the levels are: suspects, prospects, customers, clients and advocates.  Clearly, businesses want to progress their customers up the ladder of loyalty to become clients and advocates (or what Seth Godin calls ’sneezers’).  Pareto’s law suggests that 80% of business activity occurs with 20% of customers.  It’s important that businesses know exactly who those 20% are and all marketing efforts should be focused on repeat business with (and referred business from) these clients and advocates.

So, we’ve established that there is some value in undertaking direct marketing.  What’s the next step? The next step is to create a direct marketing plan, which should contain the following elements:

• Executive Summary – what, how, when, why, where
• SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the campaign – this serves to validate (or invalidate) your campaign
• Market research and analysis – primary (qualitative and quantitative research) and secondary sources (ABS data, online databases)
• Target audience
• Objectives, strategies and tactics
• Campaign measurement
• Timelines
• Evaluation

I suspect that this step gets glossed over by most small businesses, but it’s important to go through the process to validate your campaign.

Time for morning tea – more later…