Direct mail is still one of the most popular, affordable, and effective forms of marketing available… but you need to catch people’s attention quickly. Forty four percent is never opened, and most of that boils down to a failure of presentation and not using well-known direct mail tips.
When consumers are time-pressed, your direct mail needs to immediately grab their attention and become the first thing they open.
If you have ever had to send correspondence to someone or mail billing, then you are familiar with the #10 size envelope. To many, when someone says envelope, that is the first image that comes to mind. However, envelopes come in many different shapes and sizes. Each one has a specific purpose, allowing its shape and size to suggest its purpose. In this article, we will cover different envelope styles and how they can be put to use.
So we already know everything about #10 envelopes, which is the most commonly used size of commercial envelopes. Businesses typically use these envelopes, and they range in size from #5, smallest, to #14, the largest. They are open-sided, and may or may not contain a window on the front.
There are 5 envelope options that can make you stand out. They are:
Here is what makes these specialty envelopes…well…special!
A Style: Have you heard of A-Style? There is an easy way to remember it. The “A” stands for “announcement.” They can come in two forms: either with a deep pointed flap or a shorter flat flap. They are usually used for special announcements, whether that be business related or more personal. They can also be used for photographs, small booklets, and greeting cards.
Catalog: Another familiar envelope style is the catalog. It is the standard mailing envelope for important documents such as reports, folders, and contracts. If you are like me, when I hear Manila envelope, these are the kind of envelopes I think of. They are typically open on the short side of the envelope and may have a flexible piece of metal to hold the flap in place or a mount to tie it shut.
Booklet: Similar to catalog but different in its own respects, the booklet style. These kinds of envelopes are typically used for magazines, catalogs, booklets, media kits, and other multi-page documents. They are open ended on the long side of the envelope and have some sort of sealant to close the flap.
Remittance and Donation: The final two envelope styles we will cover are remittance and donation. Remittance envelopes have large flats and are used to hold private information like credit card numbers or other private documents. Donation envelopes also referred to as offering, pew, or tithe envelopes, are a cheap way to collect donations. These are most prominently used by religious organizations and nonprofits and cannot be mailed.
Marketers should carefully consider the envelope that will contain their marketing materials. After pouring over every detail of that document, you should not put it in something that is not equal in quality. As you can see, there are a lot of different options. Whether you want to attract attention by using a different style than the standard commercial envelope, or you want to spruce up a commercial envelope to stand out, One Stop Mail can put to use its own in-house envelope printer to fit your marketing needs.
Perhaps you are in real estate and need to send an important property notice that is time-sensitive?
Or perhaps you own an auto care shop and want to make car drop offs more convenient for your customers.
Envelopes have many other use cases outside of mail. With the ability to fully customize them to your needs, consider them as a solution to improve customer service, or increase the efficiency of how you handle day-to-day business.
Remember, we’re here to help you – check out what else we can do to help or give us a call 602-233-3003!
You may think the advantages of direct mail might seem like last century’s marketing, but it’s not!
Despite all the advances in digital advertising in the previous decades, good old direct mail is still one of the single most effective and cost-effective marketing options available for local outreach. Physical mail never went away, and it’s still one of the most-used communications methods in the country.
If you haven’t thought about direct mail lately, here are a few things you might want to know about just how effective it still is!
One common mistake we see when an organization embraces direct mail is creating only one piece of mail for a given campaign. Sure, a little mail marketing is better than none, but it’s not the most effective method to develop successful direct mail campaigns.
Mailbox marketing can be a rewarding way of building brand awareness and engaging your leads via multiple types of messaging. Since virtually everyone checks their mailbox once a day, it gives you ample opportunity to put your brand in front of people… and in a format that’s separate from the distractions of nonstop electronic advertisements.
Sifting through all of the companies as you search for the best direct mail company can be time-consuming. How do you determine if one is better than the other? What characteristics offer you the best opportunity for success?
Before we get into finding the best direct mail company for you, let’s erase any doubt you may have about whether direct mail belongs in a modern marketing mix. When you review these impressive results, you will know that it’s among the most effective marketing methods today.
Businesses with customer acquisition goals should utilize direct mail. With an average return on investment of 29%, mail campaigns are profitable. In addition, direct mail recipients tend to buy 28% more items and spend 28% times more than other buyers.
The reason for this high rate of return may have something to do with how individuals interact with their mail. About 77% of people report sorting and scanning their mail immediately after receiving it. With statistics like this, marketers can be sure they touch their audience.
An informative postcard can also be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship with new clients because more than 50% say that they find postcards useful, and 90% say that marketers who contact them through the mail are trustworthy.
Now that you know direct mail can be hugely beneficial, here are the five key criteria to use to find the best direct mail company.
1. They Have a Track Record of Success
This is a key indicator if a company is even worth pursuing. You can usually see the type of clients they’ve worked with in past on their website.
Review the testimonials on their site. You’ll be able to see whether their clients like their responsiveness, whether they deliver their services as promised, and whether they have great customer service.
Whether they have testimonials or not, it’s a smart move to talk with a project manager or owner to determine whether you want to consider them further. One of your first questions should be about their track record. Here’s a shortlist of questions that can help you uncover whether a direct mail company has delivered success:
2. They are Reasonably Priced
Budgets can be a tricky area. That’s why price should be one of the key things you ask upfront so you won’t be surprised after the working relationship has begun.
Keep in mind that there is not a simple, static template for direct mail. There are ways to adjust things – the size of a postcard, lower or raise the print run, or adjust the printing requirements – that can help keep direct mail costs under control while still offering outstanding returns.
If mailer personalization is on your mind, today’s printing advances put variable data printing within reach. It’s now a much more cost-effective strategy to connect with customers. (P.S. As a marketer, you want to personalize your mail because 99% of marketers say that it advances customer relationships).
No matter what the size of your budget, you want to make sure every dollar is adding to the end result.
3. They Understand Your Needs
One of the simplest, yet most important things the best direct mail company for you can do is to grasp your unique circumstance and support that understanding with a solution that’s tailored to fit you.
They must be willing to work with you to develop strategies, test tactics, measure outcomes, and make changes to optimize results so that they can gain bigger, better sales for your business. Your own situation requires unique strategies, as you’re interviewing candidates, make sure that you are being understood.
4. They Know the Complexities of the “Game”
While it sounds simple on the surface, maximizing direct mail results takes a lot of experience and insider knowledge. Look for years of success across a diversity of industries. This demonstrates an ability to navigate and assess the needs in a range of markets and provide guidance for reaching a specific audience.
5. They are Customer Acquisition Experts
Persuasion isn’t a given, even with the best product or service. Because there are so many distractions that compete for your customers’ attention, it’s easy to overlook product announcements.
The best direct mail company has experts who can advise clients on the best lead generation tactics. They can recommend specific things, including the use of coupons and new customer discounts.
In addition, they understand how to create memorable impressions with your mailers, so they stand out from competitors in a crowded mailbox.
If after doing your research and asking questions, you’ve found the best direct mail company for the job, you’ll rightfully expect a bit of marketing magic. Understand that it may take a bit of research, trial and error, and practice to learn how to collaborate with outside experts.
Your experts may ask questions about your business, industry, and goals to determine the best course of action. They may recommend cleaning up your house list if you’ve had lukewarm results from recent mail campaigns, even suggesting a customized list to better target your audience.
Postcard images, specific phrases, and mailer colors may all be analyzed and considered, along with previous campaigns before a specific course of action is set.
An exploratory phase early in the relationship isn’t unusual. It’s all about finding the right path to maximize your results – and profits. And, after each mailing and campaign, the results will be analyzed and elements of mailers and campaigns may be tweaked, to get even more value from the next mailing.
During the entire process, the company you choose should make you feel that you are in charge and driving your own results. The course must be transparent and your organizational expertise included to ensure that your mailer achieves incredible success.
On your search for the best direct mail company, we are confident that One Stop Mail’s 40-years of experience and success will make your final list. In addition to unmatched direct mail experience, our customer service and gentle guidance will build your confidence in our partnership.
Get started by calling Marty Morales at (602) 223-3003 or send us a note.
Updated 10.12.2021
Often we judge an advertising campaign’s success by the amount of conversions, new customer acquisitions, or revenue. Without a definitive incentive or variety of direct mail tracking methods, it can be nearly impossible to tally the actual success of a campaign. Try to think of the last time a customer came into your business and without being asked gleefully said, “Hi! I just wanted to let you know I found you on Google or I came in because of ‘X’ marketing you did.” More than likely the experience is extremely rare if it has occurred. When tracking methods are implemented properly, the guesswork is eliminated and campaigns become more transparent through analytics.
The best use tracking methods will allow a company to understand the progress and success of an advertising campaign without reliance on the customer to take additional action.
A tracking phone number can help understand conversion from cold prospect to a warm lead. With a dedicated tracking number, you can isolate the number of phone calls from one specific campaign. For example, Nick’s Pizza may use the tracking phone number (949) 555-5555 for his Direct Mail Marketing campaign only. The phone number (949) 777-7777 is used on a landing page tied to a Google AdWords campaign. Both phone numbers get forwarded to (949) 123-4567, the mainline for Nick’s Pizza. Nick can use the dashboard provided by his tracking service, Call Rail, to see how many calls are coming into each line. Nick is able to identify that in a 30 day period his pizza shop derived 327 orders as a result of sending out 2,000 Direct Mail Postcards.
Cut out coupons are a great way to manually track offer redemptions. Tom’s Automotive is offering $10 off an oil change and $20 off a synthetic oil change to new customers. In addition, there are many great offers like a coupon for a completely free electronic diagnostic, a $60 value. In order to redeem the offers, the customer must cut out and present the coupon at Tom’s Automotive. At the end of the promotion, Tom is able to tally how many redemptions were made in addition to the total revenue spent by those customers and average customer spend. Tom is able to determine that offering a significant discount on an oil change allowed him to bring in 41 new customers and those customers spent $193 on average.
Companies trying to generate leads with Direct Mail Postcards or Mailer Letters can find great success and lead handling efficiency when using reference codes. Student Solutions, a student loan debt relief agency, has purchased a database of 100,000 individuals who have graduated college and are delinquent on their student loans. Their IT team has uploaded all prospect information into their CRM and attached a unique reference code to each prospect. Student Solutions utilizes Variable Data Printing to print letters that have the first and last name of each recipient alongside their unique reference code. Having a personally addressed letter created a higher conversion rate. The reference codes provide the Student Solutions employees a simple and non-intrusive method to bring up the prospects information when they call in for assistance. New sales can be filtered by all reference codes with the prefix PJ36. The company determines that mailing out 100,000 postcards created 3,000 new customers and generated $700,000 in gross profit.
Managing a successful direct marketing campaign requires knowing specific steps, including the most effective direct mail tracking methods. When it comes time to rely on a direct mail company with experience, contact One Stop Marketing for your printing, mailing list and delivery needs – call 602.962.5104 today.
This article is part 3 of a 3 part series covering:
The Advantages of Direct Marketing versus Branding
See These Irresistible Offer Examples to Help Entice Customers
Direct Mail Tracking Methods
Crafting a Successful Direct Mail Campaign
Anytime you’re creating a new marketing campaign, you may find yourself asking a slew of questions about the advantages of direct marketing and whether it matches your campaign goals. Will the objective of your campaign be to increase brand’s reach, acquire new customers, monetize your existing customer base or if you’re like most– are you unsure of what to expect? Understanding the difference and setting the correct expectations will infinitely improve mediocre advertising tactics and allow you to make the most of any campaign.
If your marketing department functions like most, you’ve got an annual budget and department expectations that were established by upper management during the latter end of the previous year. We’re past the halfway mark and now the pressure is on, we need results. One of the most frequent questions we get is, what’s the difference between branding and are there specific advantages to direct marketing?
Brand Awareness – Think billboards. You’re driving on the freeway and see a catchy ad with cows telling you to eat more chicken. Some drivers familiar with the brand will get a laugh out of the billboard while others unfamiliar with the brand may connect the logo with a restaurant they see occasionally. The goal of this marketing method is to increase awareness and be visible to as many people as possible. Strictly defined sales goals are not to be expected of this method and more often than not, you won’t see strict tracking methods implemented with brand awareness campaigns.
Marketing – If the name doesn’t say it loud enough, direct-action result-based campaigns strive to provide a measurable increase in conversions. Whether the conversion metric is more newsletter signups or an X increase in new customers that translates into a Y increase in revenue, your campaign has set expectations and goals. Examples of these campaigns include coupons, limited time offers and opt-in campaigns.
Increasing brand awareness may nearly impossible to correlate with monetization. For branding, reaching new, existing and potential customers is the objective. An example of an awareness through conversion cycle for a brand awareness campaign can look start with a direct mail postcard or billboard ad designed to peak your interest.
Fictitious pizza chain Chewy’s Pizza has been experiencing a slump in sales for nearly a decade. A focus group has revealed the brand’s image is struggling due to its low-quality pizza’s and sub-par taste. The pizza chain has decided to revamp its entire operation and will now use high-quality ingredients and focus on an artisan pizza rather than provide a bottom dollar product. The general perception of the brand needs to improve. Chewy’s Pizza runs radio ads, tv commercials and send postcard mailers to all homes within a 4-mile radius of a franchise in each market.
The advertisements emphasize a brand revitalization and commitment to top quality ingredients and taste. The messaging directs people to pizzamatters.com, a website the Chewy’s Pizza created to build value and modify existing perception of the brand. The company is monitoring campaign impact by keeping a close tab on the amount of unique and return visitors to the website. A conversion will be counted anytime an individual watches a video about the company’s new image or signs up for the mailing list.
For many SMB’s it is crucial to understand if a marketing effort is profitable, has the potential to become profitable or perhaps it’s a complete wash. Direct-action result-based campaigns strive to provide a short customer monetization cycle with a measurable value tied to each conversion. The ideal way to track campaign effectiveness is to use a variety of calls-to-action and tracking methods that will simplify how the results can be segmented.
Fictitious company Lazer manufactures computers and computer peripherals. The company has 50,000 addresses of previous customers but is having a difficult time engaging its fan base through emails and social media. Robert, Lazers sales director, has been tasked with spearheading a sale in an effort move stagnant inventory and make room for upcoming new products. The company decides to mail a scratch to win postcard to all previous customers. The direct mail marketing postcard offers vary with incentives ranging from 5%-50% discounts and a select few postcards have online-store gift cards or free item redemption codes.
The offer codes needed to redeem the incentives will allow Lazer to track how many customers redeemed offers, the campaign participants’ average spend if individuals purchased additional products and additional data to determine lifetime customer value and the potential for future monetization. Data shows Lazer that the campaign was able to provide a significant increase in revenue and was able to re-engage previous customers who had not made purchases in a long period of time.
Check out our helpful article for more information about building a great direct marketing mail campaign.
Although branding and marketing can function in tandem, it is important to understand the difference in order to craft a successful advertising campaign. If your goal is to spread the word far and wide, branding could be the best solution to your advertising woes. Marketing campaigns have the benefit of being incentive based and allow time constraints to increase urgency. Next week we will discuss the difference between good offer and a fantastic one.
In the meantime, if you’re looking to get results on a direct mail marketing campaign, turn to experts with many years of direct mail experience. One Stop Mail can help you achieve your objectives — give us a call at 602.962.5104 or reach out to us here.
This article is part 2 of a 4 part series covering:
The Advantages of Direct Marketing Versus Branding?
Learn to Entice Customers with these Irresistible Offer Examples
Crafting a Successful Direct Mail Campaign
Even though your direct mail marketing campaign may be offline, you can still benefit from the personalization of online marketing! After all, online shoppers and those who see most of their ads online are becoming spoiled. Nearly all the ads they see are custom-tailored for them, either in terms of the product offered, or openly using elements of their personal information to craft a pitch designed for them specifically. While some buyers still find this approach “creepy,” on the whole most consumers seem to appreciate the customization. You can achieve the same level of customization in direct mail marketing with variable data printing VDP.
Is your graphic design style with the times?
Trends in advertising and design are changing even more quickly than ever before, “thanks” to the digital revolution and the rapid spread of new design paradigms across the world. Everyone is fighting to stand out on store shelves and in mailboxes, which means there’s a near-constant evolution of design ideas.
If you’re still using marketing materials from a couple years ago, you will almost certainly see a major boost in interest if you update them to more modern styles. And if your competition hasn’t updated theirs, your materials will definitely stand out among all the rest.
So, we wanted to highlight some of the major design trends that became prominent in 2015. These are the directions you should be looking with your art design in the months to come.
When it comes to direct marketing tips, writing plays a big part. In virtually any direct marketing materials, the written copy is the base upon which everything else rests. While it’s nice to have eye-catching graphics, charts, and photographs, the copy is what’s going to sell your product/service and truly determine whether your marketing materials are effective.
So today, let’s get back to the basics: How to write effective marketing materials. Some of this may sound too basic, but remember that many decades-old copywriting techniques are still relevant today.
It’s no secret that different groups of people speak or write in different ways, and those differences have only widened in recent decades. Buyers (especially home consumers) are more influenced by materials that have direct relevance to their lifestyle, interests, hobbies, etc. Use this tool to design your buyer persona. This will help you narrow down the people you’re trying to reach and then work through the language that will connect best with that audience.
These days, most consumers can quickly spot generic marketing materials that didn’t utilize proven direct marketing tips and were written for the widest possible audience. Narrow targeting and a deliberate attempt to engage specific groups on a personal level will work better because it avoids the trap of seeming generic.
This is Marketing 101 stuff, but it bears repeating: Virtually all successful marketing is based on presenting a problem and demonstrating how your product is a solution to it. This means you need to do your research! The best marketing copy comes straight from your audience’s mouth. This is the copy that keeps people reading, nodding along, and hopefully converting.
Backing up your solution with solid evidence has become even more important in our digital era of online reviews and comparisons. 95% of shoppers read reviews before making a purchase. 98% of consumers use reviews to search for local services. Make sure your marketing writing matches up with the data and validates what your audience is already thinking.
Purchases aren’t necessarily driven by logic. They hinge on emotion, whether it’s good or bad. Well-written copy won’t work if it doesn’t push readers to action. Describe the benefits of your product or service in a way that gets people excited! What stories can you tell about your product? What challenges did you have to overcome? And how can it benefit your intended user?
This blog post has eight psychological hooks you can use in your writing to invoke positive emotions in people. These are all great direct marketing tips to think about, even if you’re not writing an entire campaign or website.
Focus your copy on the reader. Use the word you more often than your brand and product names. When speaking directly to the reader, active and energetic verbs are more likely to lead to connection. Words and phrases like Imagine, Improve, Discover, Explore, Take Hold, Protect, Compete, Dominate are among the most compelling words you can put in your copy.
A viewer won’t read your copy if you haven’t grabbed their attention, and that’s exactly what the headline is for. A well-written headline creates the interest needed to get them excited for the rest of the copy. As a few basic guidelines:
Every word in every piece of direct marketing you produce should be written with the intent to sell. The more attention you pay to your copy, the more likely it is to pay off!
Not sure how to find your target audience? We can offer mailing list services to get your campaign out to the right people.
Learn more by calling (602) 223-3003 or send a request for more information. We’re on-call for any of your marketing needs!
Updated 10.12.2021
“One Stop Mail has been our absolute go to for large scale mailings. We love how professional and quickly they respond to our business needs along with top quality printing and reproduction. Highly recommend!”
