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8 Knock Out Direct Mail Ideas to Kick Off a Prosperous 2022

December 9, 2021/0 Comments/in Direct Mail, Direct Mail Marketing

The direct mail industry experienced some big transformations in 2021, proving it is alive and thriving. With the over-saturation of digital tactics, marketing strategists have gained significant momentum from partnering with direct mail companies to fill the need for tangible marketing contact. If you’re unsure of the most effective direct mail ideas for your business, here are some of our best tips to jumpstart the new year, wow your audiences, and build your business in 2022.

1. Personalized Direct Mail

The days of mass mail blasts with the accompanying high postage cost and long delivery estimates are on their way out. Direct mail today has adopted highly complex, data-driven technology allowing for more personalized and customized mail strategies that bring a higher ROI.

Mailing lists have progressed to allow a very specific audience. You can use specific data points to create a specific variable piece that will connect with your audience.

2. B2B Direct Mail Ideas for Small Businesses

After COVID-19 devastated brick-and-mortar retailers, many transitioned from in-person to online. With the oversaturation of the online market, direct mail has allowed many businesses that suffered losses, especially local businesses, to reach recipients in a physical way. They can deliver messages to their audiences with special promotions and offers that will bring customers back through the door.

As the world continues to re-open in 2022, so will the opportunities for B2B direct mail, compensating for the new demand for safe, contact-free ways of achieving tangible connections. A direct mail company can help you strategize the best direct mail ideas to connect you with other businesses.

3. Adopt COVID-19 Messaging

The pandemic has left a lasting impact on humanity and our economy over the past few years. Now that things are opening back up, marketers should emphasize COVID-19 messaging as a critical strategy to inform customers that businesses are safe and conscientious.

The messaging should be welcoming and reassuring. Words like “contactless delivery,” “social distancing,” and “safety first” help audiences feel confident that your business has taken the necessary steps to stay safe.

4. 2022: The Year of the Postcard

Sometimes less is more. Postcards come in various small sizes, for example, six-inch by nine-inch postcards have become a great direct mail solution over the past few years as people are spending less time reading lengthy and wordy advertisements in the mail.

Economical from a printing and production and posting standpoint.

5. Integrate QR Codes

QR Codes have been around for years but have recently become increasingly popular with the boom of online interaction and integration with businesses. Applying QR codes to your direct mail campaign is an efficient way to automate interaction with customers, prompting them to visit a website, view a menu, or visit a social media profile

Adding QR codes also helps with sales funnels, moving customers from physical to digital then back to physical. You can send out a QR code prompting a scan to get a discount, then customers quickly move to the website to redeem, and finally use the discount in-person or online to purchase.

6. Free Samples

Everyone loves a free sample. Incorporating free samples into your direct mail campaign is a highly effective way to familiarize customers with your brand and jumpstart sales. If your recipients are impressed by the sample they tried, they are more likely to purchase more products and recommend you to a friend.

Partnering with a direct mail company can guide you to creative ways to utilize samples into your marketing messaging to reap a higher ROI.

7. Compact Copy

Short and sweet is the trick to direct mail copy. Currently, direct mail copy is nearly half the length it was just a few years ago. In order to grab the recipient’s attention, direct mail demands an effective and easy copy with a clear call to action.

Keep colors lively and fun. Using bright colors with a bold headline can capture attention. Sentences should be short with as few bullet points as possible. Copy should create a response or emotion, sparking curiosity for the customer to want to know more. Direct mail experts can guide you in drafting eye-catching copy for all your marketing needs.

8. Highlight Perks

Direct mail is an exceptional way to let your audience know what deals you are promoting. Instead of promoting your business, promote the deal you are offering. That should be the first thing the customer sees.

For example, Bed Bath & Beyond is well known for its monthly coupon. The largest font on the postcard is the 20% off feature of the coupon. Customers want to immediately know what they will be getting by shopping with you.

Direct Mail Going Strong in 2022

We definitely won’t be seeing direct mail die down any time soon. It has proven itself to be a powerful player in the pandemic marketing industry. With innovative technologies, adaptive marketing strategies, and fresh takes on the traditional formats, businesses can use it to reach financial prosperity in the new year. Work with a direct mail company like One Stop Mail to help you narrow in on which of these direct mail ideas would work best for your business to kick off a goal-shattering 2022. Contact us at (602) 223-3003

Want Help Crushing Your Sales Goals? Get our 25-page Strategy eBook Free! Click the image below.

Direct Mail Marketing Envelopes

October 26, 2021/0 Comments/in Direct Mail, Direct Mail Marketing

The magical potion that Alice in Wonderland consumes to begin the once-in-a-lifetime adventure said, “Drink me.” As the magical potion, your marketing offer can start a life-changing journey for your customer. That’s why your direct mail marketing envelopes should say, “Open me.”

Arguably, envelopes are the most overlooked direct mail marketing element – yet they play a pivotal role. Your envelope can say, “fun,” “mystery,” ”sophistication,” and can pique a viewer’s interest. Here’s how to leverage their unmistakable allure –

Tactic #1 – Size Matters

When most folks think about envelopes, their minds turn to a plain, white business-size envelope with or without the cellophane window, typically used to send invoices. These types of envelopes DO NOT say, “Open Me!”

In terms of direct mail sizes, use atypical large envelope sizes. Larger envelopes get a better response rate than postcards and standard-sized envelopes. Because they attract attention and sometimes create curiosity, oversized envelopes have the greatest response rate with 6.6, with postcards getting a respectable response rate of 5.7%. The average email click-through rate is about 2.6%.

If you use a large envelope, your mailer must fit the larger size, otherwise, it creates an unfavorable impression of your business. And larger or oddly shaped envelopes cost more to mail. If oversized mailers and envelopes don’t align with your brand or budget, consider using 9X12 envelopes to stand out.

Tactic #2 – Mesmerize with Color

White envelopes are boring. Try using an eye-catching color or a color that matches your brand. Colored envelopes are 20% more likely to be opened than white envelopes.

You can even use color on your envelope marketing to create a mood. Not only does color stand out in the mailbox, but you have the opportunity to influence how your customers and prospects respond to your direct mail marketing envelope:

Red – Conveys excitement – often used for limited-time sales
Green – Calmness, nature, growth – can inspire trust
Blue – Experience, strength – offers a sense of security

Keep in mind that dark colors make logos and printing more difficult to read – stick with lighter colors.

#3 – Ignite Action with Offers

The face and back of an envelope are useful for more than addresses and postmarks. Create an added incentive to open your envelope by adding an intriguing line on the outside of the envelope, like:

Hurry! Limited Time Offer Enclosed
You’re one of a few to get this special offer.
This preview is just for you …

Entice customers and prospects with a few choice words that generate excitement and ignite curiosity to get your envelope opened!

You can also ignite action using envelopes with QR codes. This strategy combines online and offline marketing and helps to drive traffic to your website. An appealing offer paired with a QR code can get customers to engage before they even open the envelope! And don’t forget to include a powerful call to action on your direct mail envelopes.

#4 – Create Curiosity

The examples above definitely create curiosity about what’s in the envelope – but you can also do that with other elements, including:

Clever graphics and images
Make it look like a personally addressed envelope
Tease, tease, tease

The last item is about creating fun, even flirty relationships between your brand and your customer. You could include a short teaser that hints that there’s something fun inside. Here are some of the best direct mail envelope teasers:

You’ll love what’s inside…
Excitement awaits…
Can you stand not knowing what’s inside?
Shhh! It’s a Secret >>

Of course, the tactics have to fit your brand, so if you are an investment firm you may want to be more professional in your approach.

Tactic #5: Engage the Direct Mail Marketing Experts

If you don’t want to spend time and money on costly re-dos, hiring direct mail professionals can save you time and money. Seasoned pros can tell you techniques for direct mail envelopes that work, suggest cost-saving hacks that still get results, and make recommendations for ongoing campaigns that pay off year after year.

Although technology has made direct mail marketing more affordable, who wants to spend more when they don’t have to? When you rely on a direct mail marketing professional, you can spend your time doing what you do best – running your business.

Engage a direct mail marketing firm with more than 20-years of expertise, like One Stop Mail for creative marketing envelopes and profitable direct mail marketing campaigns.

With list experts, graphic designers, writers, printers, and more on staff, the One Stop Mail team can take your campaign from conception to distribution.

Get a quote online or contact us at (602) 223-3003.

Want Help Crushing Your Sales Goals? Get our 25-page Strategy eBook Free! Click the image below.

How to increase donations man in suit opening a yellow envelope web

Using Direct Mail Campaigns to Increase Donations

April 8, 2021/0 Comments/in Direct Mail, Lists & Data Services, Mail Services

How to Increase Donations with 5 Sure-Fire Direct Mail Tactics

In good and bad economic times, achieving your fundraising goals is essential. Not knowing how to increase donations to hit the numbers you need puts your mission in jeopardy. You know what failure could mean – reprioritizing initiatives, delaying, or abandoning them altogether.

Fortunately, we are sharing 5 proven direct mail services for nonprofit organizations to help fundraising managers hit those all-important goals.

How to Increase Donations with Direct Mail

We’ve shared many statistics about the effectiveness of direct mail – so you know it gets great results. Here’s a variation –

Direct mail is 37 times more effective than email response rates according to the Direct Mail Association.

The smart money says to go with direct mail. According to recent statistics, 42% of recipients read their direct mail and it hangs around the household for an average of 17 days which gives all members of the household time to review it. Explaining sustained giving options may have a better chance to be read and understood in a carefully crafted letter.

Now that you know how direct mail will deliver, what should you do with it?

#1 – How to Increase Donations? Reach Out to Current Donors

You’ve heard the old saying that it’s easier to sell a customer than a prospect. Well, the same is true of your current donors.

Because your donors have shown they are aligned with your mission and want to help your organization achieve it by donating before, they don’t have to be convinced. This group is the most likely mail recipient to give during your next campaign. Yet, it’s easy to overlook them.

If it’s awkward to start the conversation with someone who has already been generous to your organization, just say thank you for their past support and invite them to continue that support.

#2 – How to Increase Donations? – Use Targeted Lists

Your nonprofit probably knows the type of donor who is the most generous and consistent in their donations to your organization. Create a custom list and use the donor segments that have worked best for you – or send variations of your campaign letter to current, lapsed, and long-lapsed donors to increase donations.

Sustainer Giving

Instead of requesting a large contribution, consider sending lapsed donors a sustained giving proposal that’s built from their prior giving history. For instance, if they’ve routinely given $200 a quarter, you can suggest they pledge $70 a month to make donations more manageable.

Major Donors

Send a separate communication to your largest donors, who have a bigger stake in your organization. They may be more interested in special initiatives, the benefits, and how you will use their money. In addition to a special message, the communication may require higher quality stationery.

Want to know how to increase donations from new major donors? Target high-income neighborhoods on customized lists as 93% of these women donate to nonprofits while 87% of men also donate.

#3 – Personalize Your Marketing to Increase Donations

Nearly every business influencer and sales guru, from Dale Carnegie to today’s experts, know the power of using a person’s name. It immediately draws the reader’s attention and provides a personalized feeling to the mailer.

When you’re approaching a donor – current or new – with the reasons why they should donate to your cause, using their name can be influential.

Fortunately, with today’s digital marketing printing solutions, the cost of personalization, sometimes called variable data printing, is much more affordable, making it a must-do!

#4 – Pro Tip: Use Reply Devices

This is simply a way to make it easier for the recipient to act. A mail-back card and a pre-addressed envelope can encourage donors to include a check or complete a form to demonstrate their commitment to donate on a regular schedule.

Why is a pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelope so important? With a marked decrease in mailing (in 2000 there were 103,526,000,000+ mailed; in 2020 it was nearly half the volume, 52,624,000,000) what’s the likelihood that your recipient doesn’t have an envelope or first-class stamp?

Why take the chance that a well-meaning donor wants to give, but they have to get stationery supplies or go to the post office to do it? How many will set aside the letter with the intention of getting back to it, and then forget it? Instead, make it easy for donors to give.

#5 – How to Increase Donations – Keep in Touch with Donors

Even if you’re between donor campaigns, keep in touch with your donors to let them know how their donations have made a difference within your organization. Keeping them connected to the organization can make it easier for donors to say “Yes” to your next campaign.

This step applies to lapsed donors, too. If you’re reluctant to stay in touch, keep in mind that you don’t know why they stopped donating to your nonprofit. It may be that they lost their job – fortunately for many, this is a temporary situation. Put your nonprofit front and center when they’re ready to give again.

These 5 steps can help your nonprofit to have the best chance of increasing donations in good economic times and not-so-good times. Partnering with a direct mail campaign and print experts with nonprofit experience, like One Stop Marketing can make your campaigns easier to execute and your goals easier to achieve.

Contact us or give us a call at 602.962.9243 to find out just how committed we are to helping you hit your big goals.

Accountants Get Hefty Returns from Tax Postcards

February 5, 2021/0 Comments/in Digital Print Postcards, Direct Mail, Direct Mail Flyers, Direct Mail Marketing, Direct Mail Postcards, Offset & Digital Printing

It’s the start of another tax season! Although most humans find the first quarter of every year cringe-worthy, accountants well-versed in taxes, like you know it can be a highly lucrative time. How do you make it even more profitable and maximize the need for your expertise? Two words: tax postcards.

Consider what happens if you don’t reach out to prospective clients – lost revenue. Today there are online accounting services that charge minimal fees along with budget tax-preparers that provide basic, production-line service and are happy to collect fees that could be coming to you.

Uninformed taxpayers could be attracted to the price, not knowing that you offer added benefits, like tax savings for the current tax period and strategies to reduce taxes in the coming year. What happens when you don’t secure new clients? As attrition naturally eats away at your customer base, your thriving practice could slowly die.

Let’s explore how you could get a larger share and attract more clients with an affordable strategy that allows you to advertise your accounting practice to a legion of individuals who need your expertise.

Direct Mail Is Still Popular & Profitable

These days, everything is online – that doesn’t mean that everyone likes it. The novelty of receiving something colorful, fun, and informative in the mail can help small businesses be more memorable.

Tax postcards create lasting impressions

According to a number of sources, direct mail has an average lifespan of 17-days while an email will only stay on your prospects’ minds for a few seconds.

Not only will you stay top-of-mind with your targeted audience, but you can touch their friends and family, too. An attractive offer may end up under a refrigerator magnet. When a friend says they need tax help, all the recipient needs to do is share your name and phone number on the mailer or pass along the tax postcard!

Millennials like mail

This generation has grown up using digital resources, banking, going to school, and work online. It’s logical to assume that they prefer to get all of their information online.

Quite the contrary, surveys show that 76% of Millennials say they feel special when they receive personalized mail. With the personalization costs plummeting, thanks to digital printing, it’s worth the cost to make future clients feel special by sending a personalized postcard.

Take the stress out of tax time with tax postcards

Busy clients have a lot on their mind and often have competing priorities vying for their attention. By sending reminder postcards, you’re easing their stress by letting them know that you’re ready to offer expert advice and take a stressful task off their hands.

Turnkey Tax Postcard Solutions

Attract more revenue by targeting your best clients with a postcard that’s 4.25”X6” in size. According to Accounting Today, this accounting postcard size that gets the best results.

Next, how to position your accounting and tax service practice to reach your ideal customer? Choose an experienced direct mail marketing service and commercial printer, like One Stop Mail (OSM) to drive the right leads to your business.

List services that target new clients and movers

Mail lists are critical for successful direct mail campaigns. If you don’t get the results that you want from each mailing, experts in list building and direct mail can suggest how to improve results, from changing your demographics or reach new movers in your neighborhood.

You can also customize a list that’s specific to your practice to optimize your budget and return on investment.

Eye-catching graphic services for your tax postcards

Reaching your targeted client-base requires standing out among all of the “noise” in the mailbox. If you want to create a one-of-a-kind look for your accounting postcards, OSM’s professional graphic designers can create a design that aligns with your quality, trusted brand.

Affordable printing options

As mentioned, personalized messages are more memorable and appreciated. OSM’s digital printing services allow you to greet every prospect by name without costing you an arm and a leg. Ask our printing pros the cost of a printed message, and you may be pleasantly surprised.

EDDM

“Every Door Direct Mail” may be the answer if you want every household on a specific mail route to receive your tax prep postcards. OSM will make sure that all of your neighbors receive your message, and it saves you the cost of a mail list, too.

Consider More Than Tax Postcards…

Client giveaways pack a punch. When you provide clients with pens, magnets, and other promotional products with your name, logo, and contact information, you’re reminding them of your service and providing them a way to contact you.

If clients are presented with copies of returns in a folder that’s personalized with your name and number, they’ll remember you when it’s time for next year’s taxes.

In today’s competitive business environment, savvy business professionals leverage every advantage they can. When you have direct mail marketing and printing experts like One Stop Mail in your corner, you can create a unique campaign tailored to your practice.

Don’t delay getting your tax prep postcards on the press – contact us or call 602.962.9243 and start maximizing your tax time revenue today!