Each answer is a solution to a problem many businesses have with direct mail. Learn these ten solutions. Put them to work for you. And watch as your mailings increase your sales and profits -- fast!
1. How to write a great letter that grabs the interest of the reader you've never met and create enough response to make the letter worth writing and mailing.
Wouldn't it be nice if a genie came out of a bottle and offered to put your best sales presentation in the bottle -- and give you as many bottles as you wanted to send to prospective customers and clients ?
That's what guerrilla direct mail is.
When you are doing guerrilla direct mail, stop thinking about writing a letter. Start thinking instead about writing a complete sales presentation in print.
Guerrilla direct marketers start writing with their customers in mind. Focusing on your customers is the key to making your customers feel like you wrote the letter just for them. And the key to capturing more sales and making more money.
Think about who your current customers are. Realize that you're going to write to other people who are just like the best customers you already have.
What are their
- greatest fears?
- biggest worries?
- most pressing problems?
- fondest dreams?
- most important goals?
For example, if you are an accountant and your specialty is reducing taxes--and if you're a guerrilla, it should be -- then, you might want to start your letter, "You're probably paying too much in taxes and you don't even know it."
If you're a florist, and you've determined that when they come to your shop, the most important thing in your customers' life is enhancing romance, you might start your letter, "Here's a way to put more romance in your life... and we can help you."
When non-guerrillas start their letters, they try to tell their prospect everything about their business all at once in the first paragraph, like it's a report. This is a mistake.
But guerrilla direct mail is never a report. It's always a sales presentation on paper.
After you've written your letter, read it out loud. Ask yourself, "Does this sound like me when I'm talking?" If the answer is yes, then ask: "Does this sound like me when I'm selling successfully?"
The funny thing about writing direct mail sometimes is that when you're reading it silently, it looks fine. But you want it to read like a conversation when you read it out loud.
When you're writing, get as passionate as you can. Here's one way. Think of loved ones whose lives are in danger, or who are about to lose their home.
Pretend you had the solution to their problem. Think of how passionately, thoroughly and carefully you would try to convince them to do something you know that could save them from the danger that they're about to encounter!
Use that same level of passion when you write.
2. How to structure your offer.
An offer is the way you present what you are selling in your letter. It takes some doing to get your offer exactly right, because what you're selling is not necessarily what your buyer is buying.
People have their own perception of what they buy. And it may not match your perception.
One of the best ways to figure out how to structure your offer is to talk to some of the people who've already bought from you. Call them on the phone and say, "What was it about this product that you like? Why did you buy in the first place? What was appealing about it to you? What are some of the best benefits you've gotten?"
Ask those four questions. What you will hear may surprise you.
You may find, for example, that people bought your service because of the reputation of your company, what they've heard from friends. Then, of course, you want to find out what is it that your friends said. And with that information you'll be able to weave together an offer. Remember, the great grass seed magnate O.M. Scott knew his customers were saying (or thinking): "Don't tell me about your grass seed, tell me about my lawn."
So... in your business, what is "grass seed" you are selling... and what is the "lawn" that your customers are buying?
3. How to increase the response to your mailings.
The best way to increase your response is by testing three different elements, one at a time.
The first is your headline or opening sentence.
The second is your offer.
The third is your pricing.
1. Headlines have to have an immediate emotional impact and reach your readers where they live. One of the greatest headlines in the history of direct response advertising was "Do You Make These Mistakes in English?"
This headline was very appealing to a great group of immigrants. And people who didn't feel they were educated or polished enough to succeed in society. So they read about a course that they could get to improve their grammar and the way they used language -- their syntax.
That might not work so well today, because most people seem more concerned about other things than grammar and syntax. Yet the principle remains the same: a good headline speaks to readers' most important and urgent concerns and desires.
2. In terms of improving your offer, again, research will tell you why your customers bought. Frame your offer in the most appealing way possible by testing different offers in controlled, trackable groups of mailings. You'll find out which ones work best.
3. Finally, pricing. Certain prices work better than others. If you reduce your price, this may increase response. Sometimes it helps to increase your price, actually. Because if something that you're selling is perceived as too cheap, people may think it's no good.
Mail out a letter with one price. Then mail out a letter with a different price or a different payment plan. Compare the response.
Testing is a little tedious and laborious. But it really works. You just have to keep track of each different variable you test. Only test one variable at a time.
That means you can test one headline against another. Or one offer against another. Or one price against another. But only one at a time. Otherwise, you won't know with any certainty which one worked better.
4. How to minimize your initial risk and investment.
People make the mistake of going for "home runs" when they first start to direct mail. They send out hundreds or thousands of letters all at once, without having any idea whether or not the letter will work. They spend money on a list. They go to a printer. And sometimes they end up spending thousands of dollars. They lose it all. And they get soured on direct mail forever.
The best thing you can do is to start small. Mail out only 10, or 20, or 100 letters.
If your letter doesn't work, call the people you mailed on the phone and say "Did you get my letter? Did you read it? Did you find yourself interested? What kept you from sending it in and ordering?" or, "What kept you from calling me? What did you need to see in order to move forward?"
Again, research is critical to not losing money in direct mail.
5. How to target the right market at the right price.
Another mistake people make with direct mail is thinking they can sell something in the mail that they've never sold in person. Here's the reality. You need to know how to sell something one-on-one before you can sell it in the mail.
There's nothing magic about direct mail in this regard. Direct mail is a great way to multiply the sales of something that you can sell one-on-one. But if you can't sell it in person, why in the world do you think you can sell it in the mail?
So, once you know that you can sell it, do some research and find out what other people sell similar products or services for.
Look at the mail you get. Look at ads. Call companies on the phone. Look at catalogs. You don't want to go more than 20% higher or lower than that number.
One exception to this rule is that if you have something that's very desirable, and is available to your prospects only through you and through the mail. Then you can ask for, and get, a premium price when you mail your letter.
6. How to use other marketing tools to increase direct response.
You can increase your closing rate when you use other media in combination with direct mail. Telemarketing follow-up to a letter is the single best way to increase response.
Sending a postcard beforehand can work. As can sending a fax to the person to say "Watch for our letter." You have to be careful with faxes, of course, because of the laws against "junk fax" or unsolicited fax messages in business in many states.
Finally, if your operation is big enough, you can use radio or TV advertising. But generally speaking, that's not an effective use of your marketing dollars.
Because direct mail is focused on a very narrow group of people and those media go out to a broader group of people. However, you can buy cable in some cases to target a neighborhood where you're mailing much more precisely.
7. How to get new business... or customers in the store... or make the phone ring.
The best way to generate new prospects with direct mail is to make an outstanding offer. Think of the concept of the loss-leader. You know how grocery stores will often offer something below their cost to get someone in the store?
Mail to a list of people who are likely to become your customers. If you have the kind of business where people will come back again and again, then it's a good idea to give them something free or low-cost to get them to know you.
If you're a consultant, you may want to offer a free session. Again, knowing that some of the people who come to see you now will become paying clients later on.
8. How to stay on a consistent mailing schedule to your customers.
One of the biggest problems people have when they start doing direct mail is that the mailing seems to take over their business. This is because your direct mail operation can become like a business in itself. Sure, it's not that big a deal to send out one letter, or two letters, but multiply that by 50, or 100, or 500, and all of a sudden you've got a whole new operation within your business.
The mistake people make is to think, "Oh, a computer will take care of that."
This is not necessarily true. Yes, a computer can reduce the time in some of the steps but computers won't stuff the envelopes, won't lick the stamps, won't take your mail to the post office. And, most importantly, computers won't write the copy for you.
Plan and set aside some time in advance for your mailings. Also, if your mailing is generating enough profit, you can out-source some of this work by hiring a mail-house or copywriter. Or by bringing in some extra staff help to get the mailing out.
Or, don't mail as frequently as you've been mailing. Or order pre-packaged materials.
For some industries, such as insurance and the medical/dental profession, you can buy pre-produced newsletters and put your own name on it. However, these newsletters may not be as customized or as personalized as you would like for your business.
When you recognize the enormous increase in profits that you get from consistently mailing to your customers, you'll find that it's worth it to devote extra resources or set aside a specific period of time to do this. Just realize what it's going to take in advance before you commit to a major program.
9. How to take a proven mailing piece and expand it to a larger audience.
Let's say you have something that works very well that you've mailed to:
- people you know
- people who have made inquiries from a referral
- people you meet at a trade show
What do you do?
You need to find out about who your customers are from two points of view.
Number one is demographics. This includes objective statistics: the age, income, types of jobs, gender, and where they live.
Number two is psychographics. This is more subjective information -- people's values, their lifestyle preferences, how they see themselves, their identity.
Then, seek out other groups who have the same qualities, such as people living in the same zip-code or people in the same profession. Or, go to a mailing-list broker and say, "Here are the demographics and here are the psychographics. How can you help me find a list that's close to that?"
10. How to keep your direct mail focused from your customer's point of view.
You can do two key things to insure customer-focused copy.
The first is to list benefits rather than features. Benefits are what your product or service will do for your customer, rather than descriptive characteristics of your product or service. For example, "you will have a lovely smile" is the benefit of a cosmetic dentist. But "we do structural and cosmetic work on your teeth" is a feature.
The second is to look at the number of times "I", "my", "we", "our", or your company name occurs in the letter. Then look at how often you use the words "you", "your", and the phrases "you get", "you will find", "you will learn", "you will have", or "you will be able to."
You should have a ratio of at least 2 to 1 with the "you" focused language as opposed to the "we" focused language. The more you have "you" statements, the more it is customer focused and the more likely your direct mail is to succeed.
Now that you know what to do, you can definitely use these ideas to improve your direct mail.