by Experian
Direct Mail Marketing
As a small business owner, you need to acquire new customers but may not know how to find them. Here are some basic direct mail marketing tips and strategies to simplify the process of generating leads and converting them into new customers.
What is Direct Mail Marketing?
Direct marketing is a perfect opportunity to get your company's name in the hands of customers who want to hear about your latest products, services, and coupons.
4 Easy Direct Mail Marketing Tips
1. Understanding Your Target Customers
Knowing about your best customers is a key factor in targeted direct marketing. Knowing the customers' basic demographics, such as males 18 to 34 or females with children, is a start.
However, a more complete understanding of your customer's profile like their shopping and purchasing behavior in other categories; their attitudes toward trends, products, marketing and media; or their lifestyle habits can help you become even more effective in both your lead selection and the messages you'll use in communicating with the leads.
2. Target Your Ideal Customer
Once you understand your customers you can use this information to build a targeted list of potential new leads. Targeted direct mailing lists can be expensive, but they're likely to result in the best response rate and generate future loyal customers.
The old formula for direct marketing success was mass marketing: "Mail to as many people as you can; someone has to be interested." However, paper and postage costs are always increasing, and with so much mail ending up in the trash, businesses have changed their way of thinking.
Why waste money mailing to everyone when everyone is not a potential customer? You need to target the leads who will buy. That is the difference between mass marketing and target marketing. Targeted mailing lists pinpoint your best leads. There is less waste and a higher percentage of prospects responding to your mailing.
3. Pick a Mailing List Type
It's practically impossible to overstate the importance of direct mailing lists to the success of your direct mail program. The correct mailing list will contain your most valuable prospects. The more careful you are in analyzing and selecting direct mailing lists, the better your chances for success. There are several different categories of mailing lists available on the market today ranging in cost and appropriateness for your market. When you are considering what type of mailing list to buy consider the following three types:
• Specialty List - allows you to identify your target audience• Custom Mailing List - allows you to select the customer criteria that meets your needs• Cloned List - allows you to find customers similar to your best current customers
4. Create a Mailing
Once you have a mailing list it is time to create your direct mail message. The direct mail piece you create delivers your message. The piece represents who and what you are. Make it consistent with what you're selling. If you are offering a high-quality professional service, your direct mail piece needs to reflect that quality.
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