Overall we can say that if you follow the general guidelines to direct mailing, most people will be more or less successful with their mailing campaign. However there are many common mistakes associated with direct mailing you can avoid if you’re careful.
If you use a poor copy for your message, be it 100 words or 50 and you do not use the right words, your direct mailing campaign will be a flop.
It is essential your message be attention grabbing and direct, it should entice your potential customers, stimulate their curiosity and lead them to want to know more about you.
Once you’ve got your message down, make sure you send it to the right potential customers. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, send your direct mailing to the wrong target audience. Ask yourself who would be interested in your product or service, get your mailing list right!
You must also clearly specify what your potential customers should do once they have received your message. Leas them into action. Should they e-mail you? Phone you or come to see you directly for a free trail? You must make it clear what you expect them to do, or they simply won’t do anything.
Before you send out your direct mailing to hundreds of potential clients, test the effectiveness of your message. You should really test how effective it is on your market’s audience, it’s no use sending something that will have no effect at all. So before spending money, make sure you spend it with success.
Always proof read the copy before sending it out. Imagine sending out your direct mail to hundreds of potential customers without your contact number or address.
This may seem ridiculous, but it can happen quite often, especially a phone number with the wrong numbers in it. So before printing it check carefully and make sure all the contact information is correct as well as any key information.
Do not waste too much money on interesting and colorful design or graphics to attract attention, if you don’t have interesting content, this will do little to help promote your direct mailing campaign.
Make sure you follow up on your first direct mailing message, do not leave your first mailing unattended, send out additional information in order to keep the memory of the first alive.
Most of the times people will be interested with the follow up to see what you will provide, which can be of further interest.
Most important of all, if you don’t grab your reader with your headline, then you’ve lost his attention from the start. Your headline must be attention-grabbing or your message will be of no use.
It is essential to draw up the best headline possible, or all the effort you spent in editing, researching the market and sending off your direct mail will be useless.
