Tag Archive for increase response

07 Sep 2010
Advertising • Direct Mail

Tips for Using Direct Mail to Boost Website Traffic

Marketing Profs published a great article about generation more online traffic using direct mail.

Online and offline media work well together. An integrated approach can work wonders.

We told you about how 76 % of internet users were directly influenced to buy an item or service thanks to direct mail Better still, direct mail remains the one medium that gives you direct and reliable access to nearly everyone in your target market.

Tips to drive Web traffic with direct mail

  • Make a compelling offer. Give people a powerful reason to visit your site—a compelling and valuable offer, such as a free trial, seminar, white paper, savings coupons, or sample. It must be something they want, not just something you want them to see.
  • Use an easy-to-type address. Unlike email, where you can include a clickable link to your landing page, in direct mail you can only print a URL. Your prospect must type it into a browser. The shorter and easier it is to spell, then, the easier it will be for people to visit your page. If you create a separate domain for the promotion, try for a short easy URL.
  • Build a special landing page. Generally, it’s not a good idea to drive traffic to your homepage. There are too many choices on those pages and too many ways for prospects to get lost. By creating a unique landing page and driving people to that page, you can control the message, track response, and collect information for follow-up and future direct marketing efforts.
  • Consider a personalized URL (pURL). A pURL gets extra attention and creates curiosity. They are easy to type and allow for tight integration of the direct mail piece and landing page for tracking.
  • Personalized copy. Just as a pURL gets attention, personalized teasers, headlines, subheads, and body copy attract attention and encourage reading. Use personalization with restraint—to avoid the appearance of an over-the-top sweepstakes mailing.
  • Issue a clear call-to-action. People are more likely to respond when you specifically tell them what to do.
  • Push response with a deadline. As in most direct marketing situations, people are more apt to respond immediately when they know they have a limited time for doing so. With whatever offer you make, state a deadline near the call-to-action.
  • Test various formats. Because of printing and postage costs, many people use postcards to drive Web traffic. But you can also test self-mailers, flyers, and envelope packages. The amount of pre-sell required should dictate the format. The simpler and more valuable your offer, the less pre-sell you need. Only testing can show you for sure.
  • Capture contact information. A one-time visit offers limited value. Good direct marketing practice dictates that you use a first visit to begin a dialog. And to do that, you must at least ask for the visitor’s email address and maybe first name (to personalize future communications). Depending on the value of the offer, you might also be able to get full name, mailing address, and other information to build your own database.
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02 Sep 2010
Buying Behavior • Direct Mail

Integrating Campaigns Boosts Response

Marketing Experiments published an article with this headline, “How one company combined offline and online marketing to increase subscriptions by 124%”. The article told of the great success of using the same images and visuals in a mailing campaign and in the associated online content to increase new subscriptions.

The conclusion was that the offline direct mail marketing campaign led recipients to all areas of the online content. The two weeks that the mailing campaign was active drove significant sales activity throughout the company.

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27 Aug 2010
Direct Mail • Saving Money

Political Campaigns

On November 2, 2010 we the people are going to elect 36 U.S. Senators, all 435 House of Representatives and 37 governors. During the coming days, many political candidates and interested parties will use direct mail because it is effective.

The USPS offers special services and some processing differences for political endorsements. Depending on the circumstances, the message may qualify for Standard Mail and/or Nonprofit Standard Mail prices.

The USPS offers this information for those who wish to use a special designation to facilitate processing of political mail.

“Any material mailed as First-Class Mail or Standard Mail for political campaign purposes by a registered political candidate, campaign committee or committee of a political party is classified as a “political campaign mailing.” An individual or organization recognized as such by the appropriate government (national, state, local) election control authority is considered to be a registered political candidate or party.

Political campaign mailings are identified and documented when deposited at Post Office acceptance units prior to entry into processing and distribution. Using a red “Tag 57, Political Campaign Mailing”, aids the Post Office in identifying the political campaign mailings. First-Class Mail and Standard Mail entered by a registered political candidate, campaign committee or committee of a political party can be identified by using “Tag 57” on the mailing containers. Use of “Tag 57” with eligible campaign mailings is optional.

Mailings made by organizations other than those listed above, even if promoting or endorsing political candidates, referendums and so forth, are not classified as political campaign mailings and cannot use “Tag 57.”

We strive to offer our experience and expertise to our customers to help them take advantage of every possible discount the USPS offers.

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06 Aug 2010
Buying Behavior • Direct Mail

Bombardment Can Hurt Consumer Loyalty Too

DMNews posted an article about how customer loyalty practices can build brands. American businesses that have the strongest bottom lines right now are those that enjoy the strongest brand loyalty. More and more organizations are searching ways to gain visibility for and engagement with their brands. Marketers have always known the value of brand building. Once consumers begin to trust a brand, their loyalty to it grows – and loyal customers have far higher long-term value than opportunistic customers.

Consumers have shown that they will defect from brands that bombard them with impersonal and irrelevant information. However, they are more likely to make a purchase after a personalized interaction with a brand.

First impressions can’t be taken back, so it’s important to interact with interested consumers effectively – not damage your brand for future customers.

Direct mail has been shown to be a great brand building tool. The piece can be touched and felt and it is not considered to be an intrusive interruption – it is desired communication.

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07 Jul 2010
Design • Direct Mail

Use Envelopes To Drive Response

The DMNews told a story of how several companies have had success with envelope customization. Marketers are making use of recent developments in printing and production technology to enhance the outer envelope with customized messages, four-color printing and other embellishments.

“The more information we can put on the outside of the envelope without it looking funky, the more apt recipients are to open it,” says Kelli Adkins, VP of integrated services at Prime, a commercial printer.

The printer found in its own mailings that the second-best response mechanism is a No. 10 envelope printed “with enough pertinent information on it,” Adkins notes. Some of that information includes a general URL address that enables Prime to track how many people responded.

A telecommunications company decided it wanted its mailing “to stand out.” It asked for a coated stock, closed-faced envelope with a six-word tagline and the customer’s first name printed in black on the front. More than 2 million pieces were dropped and the effort produced “a high lift” in response. The additional cost for printing the tagline “was minimal”.

For many marketers the primary concern is keeping costs to a minimum, which is why more aren’t currently taking advantage of the prime real estate on the outside of the envelope, industry sources say.

Four-color printing, which has come down in price, is another strategy mailers can use to create an envelope with impact. “With all of us trying to make our dollars work harder for us, the envelope is a good place to start your dialogue with your target audience”.

Talk to us about how we can help you lift your response with the right hot spots.

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06 Jul 2010
Buying Behavior • List • Marketing Strategy

Business to Business Data Management

The Wellesley Hills Group published a study about trends in Lead Generation. They found leads generated by companies fall into one of three categories, 25% were ready to be contacted by a salesperson, 50% of the leads need more “nurturing”, and 25% were not really qualified to be leads.

We want to help you with nurturing your sales leads. Before you can sell your service or product to an organization you will need to educate your customers about what problems you solve, provide some specific information, solidify your reputation, give some specific answers and perhaps tell about a case study.

Direct mail is a great way to communicate some or all of this information because not only will you be guiding your prospects through a stepped process to get them ready for your sales staff, you are also putting something that can be touched and felt into their hands.

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21 Jun 2010
Buying Behavior

Empathy Improves Response

The Boston Globe reported that 62% of patients receiving intentionally fake treatment from friendly, empathetic doctors reported relief from their irritable bowel syndrome. This high number compared with 44% of a group that got the same fake treatment from impersonal, businesslike doctors.

Science is confirming that people respond much better to friendliness that demonstrates an understanding of their needs.

How can we help you translate this to your marketing? Do you want to append your customer list to get a better understanding of who they are? Can we help translate what you already know about your customers into new messages?

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11 Jun 2010
Design

The Power of Mail

In a column for Deliver Magazine titled “Power in the Mailbox” author Steve Cuno, told about a friend who received a personal note from the president of her bank, just to check up and make sure the bank was treating her well. Thanks (perhaps ironically) to e-mail and the Internet, direct mail may now be much more powerful than ever.

A number of unique factors work in direct mail’s favor. One is called “willing suspension of disbelief,” our ability to set aside reality and lose ourselves in a story. When a direct mail letter shows up in a personally addressed, stamped envelope, part of us wants to believe that someone took a moment to compose, print, address and post it, just for us. All the better if the letter calls us by name and bears a signature in fountain pen–evoking blue. A good writer can make an e-mail blast sound personal, but there is no electronic substitute for the look and feel of a signed letter in a stamped, addressed envelope.

Willing suspension of disbelief knows no demographic limitations. Had the friend mentioned above paused to analyze, she would easily have seen that the letter in her hand was direct mail. But — and this is the point — she chose not to pause and analyze.

Whether or not your direct mail includes an envelope or sales letter, it appears that the public would rather receive advertising mail in a mailbox than on a computer. Higher response rates provide one indicator. The near-overnight appearance of spam laws and filters provides another. No sooner had e-mail blasts arrived than the public demanded laws restricting them, servers blocking them, and junk filters dispatching them.

By contrast, laws governing physical mail are far less restrictive, despite more than 200 years of opportunity to enact them — and for good reason. While it remains disturbingly fashionable for legislators to tilt against direct mail windmills, Congress was quick to recognize spam as a problem and take immediate action.

Besides indicating a market preference, the absence of such controls offers a practical advantage. Everyone must look through their physical mail in order to decide what to read and what to chuck. Not so with e-mail. There, one click and your beautiful offer is gone forever.

People have always looked forward to getting their mail, and still do. Most people can tell you what time their mail arrives. Most bring it in daily and eagerly dig through it. They’re not looking for bills. They’re looking for letters — and, increasingly, relevant advertising mail.

This is why we and others find that intelligent, well-targeted direct mail continues to perform as well as, and often better than, ever. Your offer can be the one that people willingly open, read — and act upon.

E-mail and other online media are useful and powerful in their own right. We appreciate that you are reading this post online. But when planning a direct response media mix, it’s important to remember that there are some things that a mailbox can deliver that a monitor just can’t.

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07 Jun 2010
Advertising • Direct Mail

Direct Mail Works

Smart Money Magazine published an article in the June issue with the title “Why Your Mailbox Runneth Over”. The article stated that charities still rely heavily on direct mail as a fund-raising tool. Nonprofits spent $1.8 billion on direct-mail solicitations in 2009.

Pasadena, Calif., marketing consultancy Russ Reid Co. found that fund-raising campaigns with 12 to 18 mailings a year were twice as profitable as those based on just three to six mailings. Donors are surprised when they receive a rapid request for another gift after making a first time donation. The tactic is effective because donors feel the strongest connection with a nonprofit immediately after their first donation.

We can help you put these findings to work for you in your profit or non-profit organization. Even if people say they only want to hear from you a few times a year, they may respond much more when you triple or quadruple the number of times your customers hear from you. What about a plan to send something to your customers very soon after their first purchase? Can we help you with a multichannel communication plan, integrating direct mail and email?

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01 Jun 2010
Direct Mail

88% Response Rates

The U.S. Census is still advertising, urging people to complete and mail back census forms. The Harvard Business Review’s Daily Stat forwarded some information from the Pew Research Center anticipating that 12% of Americans would not fill out the form.

What does that mean? A form mailed to Americans generated an 88% response rate. 88% is a very big number! The information published by the Pew Center goes into more depth with characteristics and found that the likely non-respondents were younger and had less education.

Many so called gurus and experts are not suggesting that businesses use mail right now, they aren’t promoting mail as a fabulous tool to let people know that you and your products are great. The problem is that most of what businesses are doing to market themselves and create revenue right now, search optimization, pay per click, e-mail and many other of the “latest, greatest marketing methods” are not working.

The Internet is a great and wonderful universe. It has taken the place of phone books, reference books, and perhaps some newspapers in our lives and businesses. What do you do as you decide how to market your products and services? You need to be found. If people are looking for solutions to problems and you can solve them, be there at the top of the search results with your solution. If you are trying to stimulate curiosity, interest, excitement, demand and revenue, you might need to look at other ways to create that for your products, services and brand.

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