 |
Vol 6, No 4
Repeat mailings frequentlyFrequency works in direct mail too! Can you imagine McDonald’s placing one 30-second TV spot and then waiting for people to drive up and order Big Macs? No way! They place hundreds of ads on TV and radio and in magazines and newspapers. Frequency creates top of mind awareness, and eventually gets a response from a targeted consumer with a Big Mac craving. Direct mail works the same way. Think about some of the catalogs you receive. Lands’ End, Crate and Barrel and Dell Computer have learned that the more often they mail, the higher the response rate. Many catalogers send the exact same catalog to the same customer list. Tests have shown that repeating with an identical mailpiece to the same list within two weeks of the original mailing will boost response. People are busy. They need reminders.
The rule of thumb in marketing and sales is that it takes six to seven impressions before you show up on a prospect’s radar screen. You can’t expect miracles after one or two contact attempts. Consistent repetition will help lift ROI. A Milwaukee area direct marketing agency tested this theory recently for their marketing campaign. They developed a targeted list of about 900 decision makers. A series of six letters and one selfmailer were created. The letters were sent every two weeks. The sixth letter reminded the recipient that it takes six to seven contacts to make an impression. "Don’t make me send you a seventh letter," it warned. "Get in touch today!" The campaign generated over 35 appointments and five sales to date. It paid for itself four fold. What’s really interesting though, is that nobody called until after they received the fourth letter. Don’t give up too soon. |
DM News & TipsNo postage increase until 2006 Recent legislation passed by Congress will save the postal service $3 billion this year. The USPS discovered they had over funded a pension plan by $70 billion. It needed congressional approval to recoup the money. According to the Postmaster General this will postpone any postage rate increase until 2006 – three years from now. Responsive Canadian market Almost 80% of Canadians live within 60 miles of the U.S. border. They are hungry for American brands and their response rates are 25% higher than in the United States. How do you capture some of that market? Include duties and taxes with the price of goods. Convert prices into Canadian dollars. Adopt Canadian spellings, like catalogue. Use a Canadian P.O. Box for a return address. Merlin now testing postal barcodes The Mail Evaluation Readability Lookup Instrument (MERLIN) is now operational in post offices. There is no tolerance for barcode errors due to bar thickness, bars per inch and placement. A standard #10 window will not pass if the address has five or six lines. The barcode will be too low. A postcard with the rightmost bar of the barcode exactly half an inch from the right side of the card will fail. It is recommended that the address area be 4 inches wide by 2 inches deep. That clear zone should be a 1/2 inch from the right and 5/8 inch from the bottom of a letter size piece. Test new designs at a USPS MERLIN test center. Don’t ignore data quality The more an in-house database ages, the less effective it becomes. Over 3.5 million of us move every month! It’s safe to say that if you haven’t updated the addresses in your database in the last 6 months, you’re probably wasting a lot of money on postage, printing, production and time. It’s reducing your ROI. The list needs to have NCOA and address verification services performed on it. You can also append valuable marketing data to your customer and prospect records, which will help you target with better marketing offers. Non-profits have used DM for 300 years Benjamin Franklin was the first Postmaster General of the United States. He used direct mail to raise funds for the Pennsylvania Hospital. Today, there are roughly 12 billion pieces of bulk mail sent by U.S. non-profits every year. |
• FREE Newsletter • Indicia • Map & Directions
• FTP File Transfer • Calendar • Request A Quote • Request Information
• Shipping/Receiving • Helpful Hints • LetterLink Newsletter