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Are you planning to launch your direct mail campaign? Or do you want to improve the one that you already have in place? Depending on your strategy, direct mail is either the most rewarding or frustrating marketing technique. To make your campaign work for you and raise your chances of increasing your profits, here are four things that you must try your best to avoid:
1. Too much focus on grandstanding. You are in for a surprise (or disappointment) if you think that your customers care that your company has been operating since 10 or so years ago. Or that it matters to them that you've been acknowledged by dozens of award-giving institutions. What customers care about the most are the things that you are able to do for them. That's it. No matter how impressive your background is or how many pages of mails you allot to cover your company's history, if it couldn't solve your customers' problems, then there's no use flaunting it. Concentrate more on providing solutions to your customer's needs and, you'll eventually earn their trust and support.
2. Expecting immediate results and then giving up when there isn't any. If you intend to sit back and wait for your grand postcard campaign to bear fruit any moment now, then you have the wrong idea about direct mail marketing. Even if you hire the most reliable several mailing services, you can't expect your prospects to rise up and purchase something from you right away. Your purpose is to create awareness of your products or services among your prospective customers, generate enough interest and establish communications. You can't hurry success. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.
3. Failing to include a call to action. You send direct mailings in order to get a response, one way or another. What do you expect from your recipients after they are done reading your message? State your desired response clearly. Do you want them to send back a reply? Do you want them to take advantage of your offer? You can't expect your direct mailings to succeed if it isn't clear to your readers what response they have to make. To make it easier, consider adding phrases that convey a call to action, such as "Buy Now!" or "Claim Your Prices!"
4. There's no means of tracking the campaign's progress. If you are expecting your prospects to heed a call to action, then you must know if they already did it and how. Do you have any idea where most of your customers come from? Do you keep a record of the return rate? How about your gross and net profits? Is there any sale coming in? Create a system of tracking so you'd know if your campaign is delivering success.
If your direct mail efforts are costing you a lot of your marketing dollars, then you might be doing something wrong somewhere. Evaluate your strategy and find out how to improve your campaign and avoid the mistakes mentioned above. Ask the help of mailing services in making your mailings more effective and focused to your desired audience.
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