To cut postage costs, many marketers reduce the size and weight of their direct mail piece or simply cut down the amount of direct mail activities. But that strategy can backfire, explains Pat McGrew with InfoTrends:
“Marketers everywhere have been under pressure to deliver faster, more impressive results to justify their marketing spend. For the last decade that trend drove many marketers to adopt more online and mobile solutions in the belief that electronic marketing cost less. As a result, these marketers often reduced spending on print and mail to save money. What these marketers learned was that they often paid for that decision with poorer results.”
The smart way to cut costs is to not waste money on sending direct mail to people who won’t be interested. Why not send a high-quality direct mail to just those recipients in your address data that are most likely to react on it? ‘That’s easier said than done,’ you think?
Approaching the right target group with a message that’s relevant to them increases the chance of them reacting to it – which in turn saves you budget, increases response rates and improves ROI.
Remember: The response rate of your direct mail campaign is linked to who you are sending to.
Data Hygiene – Targeting the Right Audience with the Right Message
So, let’s give your address list a detox: In the first step you should get rid of the invalid and incorrect addresses and keep the correct and relevant ones for your campaign.
Location-based services like locr’s GEOservices provide another way to clean up your list. GEOservices enable you to circle your best prospects and business opportunities for your offer, based on distances and travel times.
Refining your address list helps you to more precisely define your target audience in the right geographic area. This will not only save you money and postage costs, but also increase response rates and improve ROI.
“GEOservices that define clear target areas for marketing campaigns optimize marketing spend and create tighter connections between the marketing campaign manager and the service provider,” explains Pat McGrew in a recently published White Paper on Geomarketing.
At First Sight – Creating Unique Direct Mail Designs that Stand Out
It’s the first impression that decides about whether the direct mail piece gets read or goes to the trash bin directly. Research found that 85% of consumers will open a piece of mail if it looks interesting and 55% are more likely to pick up a piece of mail if it’s full-color, which has the greatest household return on investment over other mediums if it comes in an oversized envelope.
Color, Envelope Size, Card Stock, Texture, Varnish, Font and Personalized Visuals are just some of the features you can use to make your design stand out at first sight.
Bonus Tip: For your direct mail to achieve results, make sure to personalize it. locr’s personalized maps, for example, can be created even if the only thing you know about your customers is their address. This type of personalized map immediately creates a connection with the customer.