Direct Mail Rules of Thumb

First and foremost - You should identify your target market. Target your direct marketing lists. Identify who you are selling to, and why they should buy from you instead of your competition. Keep in mind that placing your offer in front of 100 targeted response leads that have shown an interest or have a history of using your product or service can be much more effective than marketing to 1000 non pre-qualified leads.

Find an angle: Attract attention with your mail piece, grab your prospects interest, and hook them in with your offer. The goal is to offer the sales prospects something so irresistible that he or she will immediately want it. Some companies will hook new clients in with an offer close to cost with hopes of retaining the clients in the future.

Your message: Choose a benefit with enough appeal to play on impulse buyers emotions. Know why people buy and identify their want or need. What problem are you going to solve? What "want" will you fulfill? Make sure that your direct mail creative is appealing, start at the stamp and go from there.

Prove it to them: Explain how your service, or your product will perform, and fulfill the prospects wants or needs.

Make it easy to buy: If you want them to place an order make it as easy to make a purchase or gather more information as possible. If you want folks to call you, get a Toll-Free number, if you want to generate a lead, create an easy to fill out form on your website. You may want to include a business reply card with your direct mail piece.

Motivate your prospects take action: Use coupons and other time sensitive limited-term sale offers to create a feel of urgency, promotional techniques like coupons with expiration in bold will highly increase your response rate.

Best Regards,

Brian E. Knapp
Capital Media Services Inc
http://www.ResponseMaker.com
PH: 919-329-2504 ext 102

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