Direct Mail

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Direct Mail advertising can be very effective, and there are a variety of ways in which it can be approached. However, right off, it must be understood that direct mail is a not an inexpensive undertaking and it again requires the kind of forethought that any other potential advertising vehicle demands. I can say this from experience however; if you have the budget and the right kind of product or service, direct mail can be an incredibly effective way to develop leads and sales.

In 1980, barely out of school, I was director of marketing and operations for a small oil & gas company headquartered in New York City. These boys had decided, even before they hired me, that direct mail was the way to go. It was a given, they knew they were right, and in the long run it was true; they were right. They told me later that it was only because they saw direct mail being used so successfully with their competitors that they felt it had to work for them too.

Although I was well read up on the subject, I had about as much hands on expertise in direct mail as I did in astrophysics (zero, I was a fine art major in college). And I admitted this right off, although I also felt I had a lot of good ideas about implementing a campaign for them. They thought the fact that I hadn't been "contaminated" by my prior experience was a plus. After they hired me, my jaw hit the floor when they told me I had $100,000 a month to play with and six months to give them solid results. Looking back, I don't know what it was that gave them such faith in me, but we were all rewarded well for that faith. But don't get me wrong, it was not easy.

Basically I had to do two things. First I had to identify ways to acquire current names and addresses of qualified prospective customers and clients for my employer's services, and to acquire as many as I could (within the parameters of my budget) with a minimum of duplication. Secondly, and more challenging, was to design a direct mail piece that would be compelling enough to get people to fill out their contact information and return the business-reply card to us.

I tested several mail pieces. Three by five four color single cards, cut aways, break aways, card decks, two color cards , three color cards , cards with photo vs. illustration and the like. Some pieces gave the prospect a lot of information, others more or less hit the key benefits with a teaser, I tried a lot of interesting approaches and I achieved a wide range of results, which were all tracked very, very carefully.

What ended up working best however, was really quite a surprise to me. It ended up being a basic two-pieces break away, two color card on a light blue or blue-green card stock. There was one or two simple graphical elements, punchy Swiss type and the half of the card that would be separated and returned was pre-printed with the prospects name and address, leaving just the contact telephone number and "best time to call" slots blank. The card stated on the bottom that inquiries without a valid phone number would not be processed. It offered respondents "free information" about high risk investments in the oil and gas market. And the response rate was consistently 2% to 6% with each mailing, resulting in millions of dollars in annual revenues for the corporation. It took about four months of very intense work to get these results, and nearly half a million dollars. But once I found the combination of lead sources and the piece that really attracted respondents, it was smooth sailing.

To this day, I never let myself remember that my first thought, when I saw the printed piece that did eventually provide the best response rate was, "this is shit, it will never work." By then I already knew not to allow such a pre-judgment preclude valid testing, and the testing proved that I was wrong by a long shot.

Perhaps this lesson I learned will help you arrive at similar results just a little bit quicker, or maybe you'll test that piece that you at first glance felt was a looser. And this scenario does not apply just to direct-mail, but it does go to the point that direct mail, once the best formula is figured out, is a multi-million dollar revenue generator that is consistent and scalable to the extreme.

This free resource is owned and operated by Bill Frazzetto, president & CEO of Web Target Marketing Group, Inc., and Creative Director and Managing Partner of OuterMedia USA. If you would like to contact Mr. Frazzetto directly, you can click on either link and the contact information on either site will assist you, or you can use the email doorway provided on this site under the left border menu.