Saving money on direct mail mailshots
 

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About Centreprint Print & Mail West Midlands Wolverhampton mailing house

 

Saving money on direct mail mailshots - useful infomation Click to see video on direct mail mailing processes

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 to clean and Mailsort your list will be less than the savings you make on postage. See our advice section on Mailsort.

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.


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