Saving
money on direct mail mailshots - useful infomation
Saving
money on
direct mail mailshots A pound saved is a pound earned. Very few mailings
make such a vast amount of money that the cost of the mailing is
unimportant. Every penny spent on a direct mail campaign should
be carefully planned for maximum effect. Direct mail, if handled
carefully, is an extremely efficient form of marketing. Most people
who send successful mailings have remembered the following points.
1.
Careful targeting. It is critical
that your mailing lands on the right doormat. Your job is to minimise
the number of mailings that go straight in the bin. Your mailing
should only go to people who will be potentially interested in your
product or service. If you are offering credit cards or loans, that
may be almost anyone. If you sell cake decorating supplies, very
few men (or younger women) would be interested in your products.
So do not mail to them. You can target even closer. Readers of a
magazine called "Sugarcraft" would almost all be interested
in your products.
2.
Use the correct method of posting.
Mailings of 4000 or over (1000 for larger packets) can utilise the
Mailsort 700 service. With clean
data, postage discounts of up to 27% are available. You need to
talk to a professional mailing house such as us about this. Our
charges toclean and Mailsortyour list will be less than the savings you make
on postage. See our advice section onMailsort.
3.
Plan your mailing well in advance.
Jobs done in a rush tend to cost more. You will need to plan each
aspect and component of your mailing well ahead. You will need:
a. Sales letters.
Most mailings contain a personalised sales letter or personalised
order form. See our advice page on writing
sales letters.
b.
Envelopes. Most mailings are sent
in C5 or DL envelopes. For small mailings, you can buy from Viking
Direct or your local stationer. For larger mailings or for the
keenest price, Data Consultants also sell, plain and printed business
envelopes. For even larger mailings,
you will need pre-printed mailing wallets, rather than envelopes.
Mailing wallets are designed to work in the automated machinery
that mailing houses use. These must be printed with a Printed
Postage Impression for the service that you intend to use and
with a return address, so that you can remove "gone-aways"
from your mailing list. A good mailing house can handle this for
you and will also have their own rented PO Box reply address that
you can use for the "gone-aways" if you wish. One little
tip. Print "Urgent" or "Urgent Order" on the
reply envelope. This gives the impression that you will deal with
the contents immediately.
c.
A mailing list of suitable recipients.
You may already already have this list, in the form of existing
customers, members or enquiries. If not, choose a mailing
list with care, from a reputable supplier. See our advice
sheet on mailing lists.
d.
Sales literature. Most mailings
enclose some kind of sales literature. This may be a simple single
sided leaflet or a complex catalogue or brochure. make sure that
you leave yourself enough time to order this. Most printers will
need around one week to produce a simple leaflet from finished
artwork supplied on disk, or longer of they are doing the design
work as well. Catalogues and price lists will take longer. Data
Consultants supply printing as part of the package, at very
keen prices. Our A5 mailers are just
the thing for an ecomomy mailing as the price seven includes the
postage!
e.
The reply element. This should be
a reply paid envelope or a reply paid card. Again, allow about
a week for print production - more if design work is needed. See
our advice page on reply elements.
The
advantage of direct mail over other, more traditional, forms of
marketing, such as newspaper and magazine advertising, is that you
have total control. You can easily calculate just how much each
mailing is costing you. This means that you can then easily work
how much each sale is costing you. This then means that you can
then decide just how much to spend each year on acquiring new business,
growing your business at exactly the speed that you and your staff
feel you can handle. Few other businesses (such as retail) have
that luxury. They have to invest huge amounts of money in premises
and staff before they know how much they will make out of it.
Whatever
your direct mail, mailing list or posting requirements, please contact
Centreprint now for a quotation or helpful advice without any
obligation.
Telephone
us on 01902 402693 9 am to 5 pm UK time. Answering machine outside
these hours.
Fill
in our enquiry form
to ask for help, advice or a quotation.
We
really do look forward to hearing from you. Please get in touch
and help us to help you.
Start
saving money and increasing your mailing response today.
