 
Direct
Mail - Saving Money
Saving
money
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. The secret of careful targeting is in using the right
mailing list.
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
Data Consultants about this. Their charges to clean
and Mailsort your list will always 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.
If
you need help with any of the following, just click the link.
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.
Fax
us on 01902 491794 (24 hours)
E-mail
us by clicking here or fill in our simple 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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