The 6 Benefits of Direct Mail

Mass advertising like TVCs, print ads, radio commercials, etc, are expensive. Many start-up as well as small businesses may not be able to afford the high media cost. By analyzing your own product profile and decide what problems you are solving and who you are helping, you might want to focus on a niche group of individuals who are more prone to respond to your offer. Mass advertising talks to everyone. Direct mail talks only to the people you are targeting. In short, direct mail is targeted and you have a personalized message specifically for your niche only.

Direct mail also benefits from a flexible format. From sales letters to flyers to brochures to postcards, there are numerous ways to create a direct mail. Such versatility empowers you to customize your marketing literature in a low cost manner. You can sizzle your message further by offering a special incentive (in the form of a physical coupon or coupon code) or free sample . These special offers are only available for the recipients’ of direct mail.

You can track the success (or failure) of your direct marketing effort by counting the number of inquiries or coupons you have received.

Another benefit of direct mail is that it is tangible.  Announcement and special offer in the direct mail encourage interaction because they have the coupons, stickers or coupon codes in hand, literally. With the particulars of your customers in hand will enable you to start a customer database. This will help you tremendously in starting a customer-care program or even a loyalty program for repeat customers.

Direct mail advertising can be very cost-effective. If you are good with DTP, you can create your own marketing material in a jiffy. Plus, postal rate for bulk mail usually cost a faction of the normal rate. If you don’t have the time or the expertise to create your own marketing materials, hire the professionals – ad agency or design film (like us) to assist you.

If you have a small marketing budget, you can always count on direct mail as one of the effective but relatively low cost advertising tool. Just make sure your message solves the problems of others. You do not want to be seen as thrusting your products in people’s face.

1. Overall Impression

The overall look and feel is important. A strong and positive first impression counts a lot. Words, pictures, Colors, fonts, tones, etc will determine how well, and how long, your brochure will captivate the target audience’s attention. This doesn’t mean inviting (loud, bright, trend-of-the-month) colors and showy picture, in fact, they can back lashed if used wrongly. A simple black and white job might do the trick too. You don’t have to resort to using words that scare or threaten people to take action.  The scarcity approach may actually alienate you to your niche. Ask yourself: Who are you? What does your company represent? What benefits did your product/service offers? It’s all about giving a face to the body. It’s about building a brand that is uniquely you and no one else.

If you have an elevator speech to sell yourself, just imagine what you can do on your brochure will be a good start.

2. Headline and Copy

You need attention-grabbing headline to grab attention. 80% of the people read the headline and only decide thereafter if to read the fine print. So provide a promise or a solution in a headline is paramount important. Keep your body copy easy to read and understand. Reveal just enough to whet their appetite to want to know more. Give your target audience a reason to contact you for more information.

Also, write the way your target audience can appreciate. If you sell kids’ products and your target audience are the mamas. Well, remember to tug the heart strings of the mamas. If you use man talk, the mummies will stare at you with blank looks. This is something that many marketers (and even copywriters) missed.

Of course, stay with the facts and the truth. If you cry wolves, you will be in deep trouble. Once your credibility is shattered, it will takes lots of effort to re-establish … if at all.

3. Demonstrate trust and credibility

You don’t know your buyers and your buyers don’t know you personally. Yet you want them to buy from you. People don’t buy from stranger. So begin by introducing yourself and how you can better their life with your product/service. In short, establish a relationship using words and pictures. Never sell features, always convince with benefits. Be careful with your tone of voice as you don’t want your sales copy to be seen as too good to be true. Where appropriate, put one or a few testimonials from satisfied clients. Alls these would makes more credibility. People often want what other people want, people would also trust whom other people trust.

Sell yourself in a positive manner but don’t lie. Your customers are often smarter than you give them credit for.

4. Omnipresence

You are always available. Whether your clients prefer to contact you via phone, email, fax or even snail mail, the salient informations are all there. You must be seen with an open door, ready to welcome all prospects and clients. Give them all the options needed to contact you. I have been surprise too often when I picked up a direct mailer with web and email contacts but not a phone number. Sometimes, I prefer to talk to humans and not machines.

That’s all for now, folks. Let me know if you got other tips to share.

Read Related Post

4 Tips to Create A Powerful Newsletter

4 Tips to Create a Powerful Business Card
4 Tips to a Powerful Brochure

Technorati Tags: tips to creating brochure

Just how do you make your business card special, unique and memorable? How do you create a high-impact business card?

1. Contact Information
First and foremost, your card must clearly show your contact details. Even if your card is poorly designed, it must allow people to contact you. This seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many cards placed such information in small 6pt or 7 pt font size or a conspicuous location. Small font size can make the card look spaciously hip but you will also alienate clients who have problems reading (long-sighted). And mind you, these are usually the decision makers.

2. Size
Size deserves a mention. The usual card stays within the 90×60 mm dimensions. I once received a card that could not fit into my card holder. I had to trim off at least 3mm to have it fit. I’m sure you wouldn’t want your card (company) to be trimmed off. It’s very a very “un-auspicious” beginning to your business relationship, don’t you think? I would imagine feng shui practitioners will likely faint.

3. Product Details
Should your business card double up as an advertisement to promote your products and services? It all depends on your preference, but why not? The front of the card will list your organisation as a translation service company. So, you can list down the language proficiencies you have such as Chinese, Spanish, Malay, Indonesian, Latin, etc, on the reverse side. You can also list your by-product or services. For example, you can state you also provide copy writing, copy editing and proof reading services if you offer them.

4. Look and Feel
Unless you have a creative flare, hiring professionals to work on the design will minimize design and printing errors. Choice of fonts, graphics, colors will have an impact on the overall impression. More importantly, you’ll need a concept and design that is in harmony with your business and industry type. For example, if you provide financial consultative service, you can forget about using flamboyant designs and colors that are more usually associated with lifestyle products/services.

If you don’t know what you like. Go through your card holder and separate the cards into 2 categories – Like it and Dislike it. Scrutinize them and try to figure out what you like and dislike. When you have some idea, you are ready to talk to people like us to help you expand your idea further.

Read Related Post

4 Tips to Create a Powerful Newsletter
4 Tips to Create a Powerful Business Card
4 Tips to a Powerful Brochure

Technorati Tags: business card, name card, tips to create business card

If you are a designer, I’d suggest you hop over there right now to see if you have made some of the “mistakes”. Here is a short list of sample:

• He queried if Helvetica is over used with an “Argh”.
• He pointed out that leaving 2 space after a full stop is simply bad practice.
• He said automatically centralized text looked uninspiring.
• He was adamant that underlining is never to be used as it is “the most redundant thing you can do in life.”
• He highlighted that hypen is a typewriter habit.

Well, one’s meat is another’s poison, you might not agree with Cass’ opinions totally. I’m sure that’s perfectly all right with him; graphic designers can choose to take it with a pint of salt or a spoonful of honey. After all, the guy is entitled to his views. Personally, I agreed with Cass on point 11 and 14. Embossing text with drop shadow and all upper-case text made reading difficult and unpleasant, and so dated.

Whether you are a designer or a copywriter, whether if you are from the agency’s side or the client’s side, it’s great to check out a seasoned designer’s opinion and read the excellent feedback and comments his post had generated. You might learn something new.

Technorati Tags: signs of lousy designer

If your answer is “My competitors are doing so” or “It seems that it is the cheapest form” or “I don’t know but that was the first thing that I could think of”, I would suggest that you sit down and think. Think what? Think of the results you want for the amount of money you intend to spend.

When you advertise, you want results. If you don’t even have an inkling what kind of result you want to achieve, you won’t know answers to simple questions like “how much should I spend”, “what medium should I use”, ” should I do both TVC and flyer distribution or just one of them”. You must have an objective in mind. Is it to increase brand awareness? Is it to convince folks that your product is much more superior than Joe Smith Pte Ltd? Or is it to increase sale by 20% within the next quarter. Have a well-defined and specific objective. After which, work backward to understand the process you have to go through to reach your goals. This is how you can develop a plan very quickly.

When you know the “why”, you can start to think of “how”. Before doing that, one of the most important question you have to ask is what value are you providing to your target audience. They are NOT interested in what you are selling, they are only interested in what they are getting. They are not interested in your features, they are going keen to know the benefits they are reaping. As Anthony Robbins aptly put it, people will do anything to avoid pain and gain pleasure. So you must be able to tell your target audience that your product/services take care of a specific problem that caused them real pain (in terms of time, money, effort, pride, etc). When they use your product/service, not only the problem is eliminated, they gain lots of pleasure. Make yourself seen as the viable solution to their problem. You are the problem solver.

So if your concept of advertising is to stick some photographs, add in the price list and have your logo and company particulars printed big, bold and in a prominent position, well, save your money. Most of the time, such advertisement will not yield much return. The results are at best mediocre. When someone is doing a roaring sale, go get their marketing material to study and scrutinize every details to learn from it. Find out what are the compelling factors that make people rush to the store.

Always remember that your audience has only one question: “What’s in it for me?” If you got a compelling answer and you can present that in an extremely attractive offer, no one will turn you down without serious thinking. In fact, most shoppers will buy without much thoughts. People buy with emotions and then justify with reasons.