The last few months we have been talking about getting more return on your marketing budget by using a series of mailings or more than one type of media.
Now let’s talk about how to format your direct mail. There are two basic categories…plainly put, those that come in envelopes and those that do not.
Those that don’t come in envelopes are typically called self-mailers and they include postcards, tabbed tri-folded flyers and catalogues. Self-mailers are generally cheaper but also more likely to be thrown out as junk mail.
So how do we utilize this much cheaper form of mailing while avoiding the hazard of having 90% of it thrown out as junk mail, by the recipient, without even a glance at it?
You have to make your direct mail offer jump out of the junk mail pile and into the curiosity pile. You have to prevent them from throwing it in the garbage without first looking at it. How do you do that?
There are a few ways to make inexpensive mail jump out at your prospects:
- Handwritten note—No one can throw away a handwritten note without finding out what it is about. They just can’t! But keep in mind, don’t use some fake looking font but either an actual handwritten note or use a technology that is very authentic looking (beware…there are beginning to be a lot of fake looking, handwritten fonts out there now.)
- An unusually interesting or beautiful picture on the front—People simply love pictures!
- An unusual size or shape—Using an over size card or a card cut into an unusual shape will make it feel and look different from the other junk mail so it doesn’t get lost.
You can still get an unbelievable return on investment with the less expensive postcard type mailings if you do them right.
Doing them right means that you write a great headline, you know exactly what your goal is with the mailing and you keep it out of the junk pile.
In future updates I’ll spend a little more time talking about what you should actually put in the copy to get your prospect to act.
