7 Key Elements to Consider when Planning a Direct Mail Campaign

Executing a successful direct mail marketing campaign takes a lot of knowledge, experience, and above all, planning. You put a lot of effort into acquiring new customers and retaining old ones. While it’s impossible to achieve the same level of success every single time, there are certain takeaways that you should keep in mind when developing new and exciting direct mail marketing strategies. Successful marketing campaigns are a culmination of hard work, tenacity, creativity, and a string of trials and errors. To get the formula just right, you have to expertly apply and adhere to the following direct mail marketing key elements.

Know Your Target or Niche Audience

The first step to achieving certain direct mail marketing success is to identify and get to know your target or niche audience. Once you’ve done that, you can come up with appropriate and creative methods of reaching out to them directly and ensuring that you yield positive results.

The 40/40/20 rule is a well-known direct mail marketing theory that dictates that 40% of your advertising success depends on your target audience (the recipients of your mailers). Another 40% depends on the offer itself (how enticing it is and how it’s communicated). Lastly, 20% depends on the design, imagery, and formatting of your ad.

Putting all of these elements together should create an effective advertising medium that delivers exactly what your target audience wants (even if they don’t know it yet) and shows how well you know them.

Fine-Tune the Mailing List

Your mailing list should be divided into multiple factions—customers you want to retain and customers you want to acquire. From there, you can categorize each customer based on demographics and other factors.

Each set should contain slightly or entirely different targeted direct mail advertisements that offer special promotions based on which category each person falls into. Offer discounts to prospective customers to encourage them to try your business. At the same time, you should also show your existing customers some appreciation by incentivizing them to refer people they know to your business or offering them exclusive insider deals simply for supporting your business.

Use Appropriate Brand Messaging

Key brand messaging is extremely important when it comes to getting the word out about your business, product launches, grand openings, services, branch extensions, and any other business news. The right messaging tells your prospective and existing customers everything they need to know about your business. Therefore, it should represent what you stand for and your core company values.

Some brands may choose to take certain social or political stances that run the risk of alienating certain demographics. Tread lightly if you choose to take this route, however, because you never know who you might offend or upset. Of course, there are certain causes that are definitely worth fighting for if they’re near and dear to your heart, just make sure you choose them carefully and stick to your guns. Branding choices should be bold, attention-grabbing, outside-the-box ideas that you truly believe in. People appreciate authenticity, so be transparent about what your business does and doesn’t stand for at all times. This will ultimately determine the types of people that are attracted to your business.

Keep Your Budget in Mind

It’s easy to get carried away on your spending when designing and printing out the perfect direct mail marketing materials to send out to your mailing lists. In order to keep your head above water, however, you have to create a strict budget and stick to it. Prioritize the most important elements of your advertising design (logo, colors, layout/formatting, mailer dimensions, etc.) and ensure that those are front and center. Once you’ve done that, you can see how much of your budget you have left over to allocate to other design aspects.

The key is to refrain from overextending your budget on a single mail-out and plan for future direct mail marketing campaigns.

Create a Unique Design

One of the main goals of every brand—whether they’re in the beginning stages or are well established—is to stand out from their competitors and grab the attention of prospective and existing customers. With countless social media and digital marketing thrown in our faces every single day, accomplishing this goal can be challenging and even downright impossible in some cases.

The best way to effectively reach out to these consumers without infringing on their space and trying their patience is through creative, understated, and completely unique direct mail marketing that speaks to their sentimentalities and interests.

Write a Clear Call-to-Action

The whole point of advertising, particularly direct mail marketing campaigns, is to attract more customers to your business and raise brand awareness as much as possible. A clear and concise call-to-action that briefly describes what your business does and the best way to reach you can help you accomplish this goal. All of your marketing materials—digital and print—should include a clear call to action.

Tracking and Analysis

The only way to determine the success of your direct mail marketing campaign strategies is to track and analyze the various responses you receive. The best way to do this is to simply ask people for feedback and disclose how they heard about your business. This is especially effective if you have an omni-channel marketing strategy with multiple campaigns on the go. Asking for constructive feedback will help you determine which campaigns are the most successful, which ones need a little fine-tuning, and which ones should be scrapped altogether.

Are you planning on launching a new direct mail marketing campaign? Do you need help coming up with innovative, effective, and budget-friendly design options? North American Media is here to help. We’re currently on the cusp of becoming one of the fastest-growing B2B direct mail marketing companies in North America. Contact us today to learn how we can help you refine your direct mail marketing strategies for greater success.