Five Key Direct Mail Attributes

Effective direct mail is simple, but it is not easy. It takes planning and strategy to get results. Here we will discuss five key attributes necessary to make direct mail achieve your marketing objectives.

1. Relevancy

The axiom of successful direct mail is “getting the right message to the right person at the right time”. Think about your own consumption of mail you receive at home. If a mailer offers you a special on lawn service, but you live in an apartment or condo, you won’t bother reading or responding. But if you have a large lawn and find you don’t have the time to take care of it, you are more likely to read the information and possibly respond. In planning direct mail strategy, it is critical to define the target audiences in great detail, to understand the problem they want to solve and to know when they might be the most receptive to an offer.

2. Data

In direct mail marketing, there is a commonly held belief that 40% of a direct mail campaign’s success lies with the quality of the data. Therefore, it is critical that the “list” be highly targeted, clean and accurate. Data can either come from list rental services or from in-house sources. If lists come from rental sources, be sure to check out the data cards, which will give you important information about the age and sources of the data. Generally, “compiled” data is not as accurate as “response” data. In other words, lists produced from people placing orders or responding to other offers are better than lists which are generated by merging multiple public lists. Also, since data does age, the more recent the data, the more accurate it tends to be. All lists, whether rented or pulled from in-house sources, should be subjected to hygiene protocols such as NCOA and deliverability software to make sure the data is as accurate as possible.

3. Integration

Stand-alone direct mail generally does not work as well as direct mail used in conjunction with other support media. By integrating direct mail with other media, awareness of the brand and offer generally lifts the response rates of the direct mail. Which media work best with direct mail? The ones that are the most effective in reaching your target audience! In other words, all of the media used in a targeted direct mail campaign need to also be very strategic and targeted to generate the results you want.

4. Testing

Even with the best strategy and data, direct mail often involves tactical execution using a “best guess”. Therefore, it is always important to track and test many of the variables used in a direct mail campaign. For example, you may want to test various messages, offers, formats or lists. Whatever variables you test, be sure the database is coded to account for each test variable. As responses come in, you can use the data to assess which variables were responsible for the best responses. If you have the benefit of time, it is best to test one variable at a time to avoid misinterpretation.

5. Personalization

Personalization of a direct mail piece can involve more that simply adding the recipient’s name in a greeting. With the technology of digital printing, it is possible to create highly personalized direct mail pieces that significantly increase the piece’s relevancy. For example, if you received a mailer that provided you with specific driving directions and a map from your home to a specific retail store, you are more likely to review the information than a static mailer with simply the retail address. With today’s technology, whatever you can include in a database or attach digitally, it can be printed to make a very personalized message and improve response rates.

DMC Advertising specializes in highly targeted and measurable marketing programs. For more information on direct mail or other successful marketing tactics, contact us at (262) 523-2000.