Strategy #5) Tracking and Reporting for Success
Every sale in your company should be recorded where the sale came from. EVERY SALE!! If you miss this trick you will throw 3/4 of your annual direct mail marketing dollars in the trash.
I know it feels like you drive your own fate and 'shoot from the hip' with your 'gut instincts' but don't be so vain that you don't track the number of sales and value of each from every thing you sell.
This applies to direct mail as well. Every redeemed piece should be recorded in your CRM tools. CRM tools you say? If you don't know what they are or don't have them in place you and your job are at serious risk. It's the year 2010 - get serious.
The strongest businesses around got there by using math, reports and tracking sales. So how are you going to come anywhere near them if you don't know where your wisest marketing dollar was last year.
Here are some things you should be tracking.
What brought the customer in? Did they see your sign or did a friend tell the to check you out? Did they see your ad n the paper or were they just at the store next door and liked your window display. Whatever it is you want to focus some effort there.
How much did they spend? If the people than randomly walk by your store spend an average of $20 per visit, but the people that drive to your store directly spend $100; you'll want to spend more time on your direct mail and print ads since they earn you more money.
Who are your multi-trip customers? If you have customers that return to your business time and time again would you know who they were? Identify loyalty and reward it! Then give them an offer for them to bring a friend. Birds of a feather do what?
Who are your top spenders? If they like your products why do you wait for them to randomly come in? Personally invite them for something they would like. It's really simple if you take action.
Your best Direct Mail Marketing strategies start with you understanding your clients and learning how to market to each type of client. If you are not tracking anything how will you ever do that?
Step up; it's not a game you want to lose.
I'm sitting down with a client the other day and we are discussing the direct mail giveaway offer and the size of the mailing list. One of the people at the table says, "We'll if we're mailing 10,000 people we need to reduce the size of the offer, we cannot afford to give that much away". This is a typical answer from a newbie.
Strategy #4) Don't be stingy with your offer
The entire idea is to make sure you offer everything you can to each individual where you maximize profit and results. This is what personalization is all about. If one guest is worth offering $20 to get them in and another person is worth offering $100 to, you can do that easily with variable data printing. If you only offer $20 to both people you usually eliminate the response from the $100 guest and your company is full of $20 guests.
As far as "Everyone showing up" You have to ask yourself how many people are really even paying attention to your offers. Direct mail is a numbers game and the more you water down your offers the fewer the number of people that really even care.
Let's say for example I was giving away a free car and I mailed 1000 people to give them away. I would only likely have to give away 50-60% of those at most. First off there are a huge percentage of people in your database that don't read direct mail at all. The there would be skeptics, then people that forget to respond, etc. So you might get a 50-60% response with a free new car.
So when you take your $50 offer and decide to lower it to $15 you are likely taking your 3% and cutting it down to 1% or less. You are also drawing in a much cheaper crowd. If $15 is important to someone they are not likely wealthy enough to be a good customer buying all your goods and services, are they?
Make sure you use your customer historical sales to manage to offer everybody the most you can, based on what they average to spend. Then you get sales from all levels of your customers and not just the cheaper ones. Don't guide your business smaller and smaller by catering to your cheapest of customers by getting cheap on your offers.
But then again don't offer the best you have to your cheapest customers either. I hope you are tracking your customer sales and building offers based on their value. I truly hope you are!
I just got off the phone with Network Solutions; they called me about some services I let expire. It seems that even the formidable web domain registrar has decided not to count on email broadcasting. They've instead moved to reduce lost sales through direct marketing like normal brick and mortar businesses. They actually picked up a phone and called me.
Email Sucks for business communication. You are rarely sure if your customers received it and if they did they may have just deleted it. Sure, it works some of the time but with all the filters and trash that ends up in your email box nobody can count on it as their only form of communication. Dot-com businesses are smart enough to finally give in to the real world reality.
It is just as true today as it has been since before the internet existed, direct sales and direct marketing are still the most effective form of sales today.
It doesn't stop with Network Solutions either. Last week (the reason I thought to Blog on this) I received a call from Ebay. I had a bad transaction with a seller and I had to file a Paypal claim. Not only was I able to reach PayPal.com on the phone every single time I called, Ebay also called me after the transaction to see if they could help smooth over the relations with the seller. No, Really... They called me.
I was fascinated as to why they called me and it turned out that they are trying to protect the reputations of sellers that sell high-ticket items. But I was most impressed by how Ebay worked to smooth out relations AFTER I was already paid back by PayPal.
Now not all dot-comers have "stepped into the light" when it comes to picking up the phone but I have felt a lot of this lately. I have had positive real world conversations with Network Solutions, Ebay, PayPal and facebook. I still have had no luck even finding a phone number for google adwords though.
added: I have also received direct mail from Microsoft, Yahoo, Ebay and more..
In Direct Mail Marketing we usually have a product we want to sell and we try to find the best way to sell it. We then work every trick and angle we can think of to develop the best response possible. Have you ever thought that maybe this is backwards?
Strategy #3) Sell what your database tells you to! 
Do not tailor your database to your offers, tailor your offers to your database. You need to send things your customers want, not just what you want to sell.
This is where direct mail tracking pays huge dividends. On every mailing and every promotion you ever do you need to find ways to track and record sales and all sales details on each person. This is the only way to develop what each individual likes about your products or services. Information is King!
An example is trying to sell coats to people that buy shoes. Sure you can likely sell some of them coats but for best results sell them more shoes. Then, if they like black shoes; quit trying to sell them blue ones. If they don't like laces, promote shoes without laces to this particular person.
Variable data printing makes this easy!
Why are you pushing coats on your shoe people, anyway?
Sure, maybe you have an inventory of coats to sell too. But you should make those a secondary offer that follows directly behind what you know your customers like first. "Buy 2 pairs of [insert favorite shoes here] and be entered to win this fabulous coat." Then when they are buying all these shoes, you get them to try coats on and tell them about the coat sale this weekend too.
If you do not have the data to know what your customers have bought and how to personalize with variable data printing, you are at the right place here at CSG Direct, Inc.
There is a huge separation in businesses that track sales and those that do not.
If you do not track your customers preferences you are going to lose in your competitive marketplace. You will lose! Your competitors will win more sales with less money. You will win fewer sales and spend much more marketing dollars to do it.
I don't care how clever you think you are there is no intelligent way to send 1 broad message to appeal to everyone in your database marketing equally.
Sure, people have been broadcasting single messages through all forms of media since the beginning of time but that doesn't make it right. If you're going to be lazy you will get lazy results.
Strategy #2) Segment Your Mailing List into groups
You would be surprised how you change your offers and promotions just based on what you see in your database. I highly recommend that every marketing manager look into your database personally so you know what you're working with. As you are digging through your database ask yourself these questions:
- How many are female?
- How many are male?
- What are the age groups in our data?
- How many of these are "locals"?
- How many are from out of town?
- Which groups spend the most?
- Which groups visit us the most?
- What are the 5 most popular purchases?
- What are the 5 most profitable purchases?
- Who is making these purchases?
This should be the consideration you make before you do any form of direct marketing. Why? Because you can do this with direct mail and you cannot do with the rest of your marketing budget. Because it will get you better results!
Once you have your database segmented into 3-5 different groups you need to create offers that directly appeal to each group. Spend time talking to people in those groups about what they really want and what would get them to buy again. Then plan your marketing to that group accordingly. Do this with each group you plan to market too.
I know this sounds obvious, pretty logical and a no-brainer but I cannot tell you how many people just swing from the hip. When you are busy and short handed it is easy to just blast something generic out and hope for the best. In this case it would be best to just identify 1 group and design your campaign around that group directly instead of sending the same offer to 5 groups.
If you do not have enough data in your database to break it into segments we can append data from other consumer databases to yours for you. This dynamically changes what you know about your customers and helps you target your direct marketing correctly.
When you have been in direct mail for 20 years you get to see a lot of direct marketing success and failure. Both are valuable lessons! Avoiding the common mistakes is often still considered a great success. Unfortunately that is the ceiling for most people.
When the most you get out of your campaign is "no-failure" then you really aren't going to see the great success direct mail is known for. So, if I am going to share the best 5 direct mail marketing tips I must start out with the most important one.
Strategy #1) Use a Direct Mail Marketing Company.
Use a direct mail marketing company not just the cheapest printing bid you can find. You can find some real great deep values in real direct marketing companies! In the history of getting what you pay for; the cheapest direct mail project is usually the least effective too.
If you have a $2000 budget don't spend your time trying to get it cut to $1700, spend your time trying to get $3000 in value from it. You can do that with direct marketers, not from printers.
You must keep in mind that Direct Mail Marketing is the only form of marketing that has proven to create perpetual income. Companies for decades have turned $3000 into $5000 or $50,000 or more in sales and income. Are you choosing vendors that know how to help you get to those results or just price shopping print?
You may or may not have experienced these kinds of results.
Many of our customers achieve this every single month.
I know what you're thinking. This all sounds so very self-serving and maybe we're just trying to justify you spending more. This is far from the truth. I can easily demonstrate for you that 90% of the vendors you can get bids from are not worth spending a dime with. I've got 5 tips to show this to you with but the next tips will likely have much more math in them. Let's start with the obvious.
Direct Mail Companies are primarily a labor force with labor as their #1 expense. As you get your 3 bids what you are primarily getting bids on is labor and equipment usage. Our Rent, Electricity, labor and equipment leases are our industries costs. When you get a lower bid you are almost always first and foremost using the least experienced labor to get that price.
For example, here at CSG Direct we have 25 individual 
employees that have been certified by the US Postal Service for mail-piece quality and mailing standards. This means that your service representative, our graphic artists, our quality control department and even our folder, inkjet and press operators are all US Postal Certified employees.
What is the cost and benefits of that? MANY!
First off the most expensive part of direct mail is mistakes. When we have staff in every single department experienced and trained to help you avoid those mistakes - they don't happen!
So how is the lowest bid company managing all that for you? Sure they might reprint it for you free if they make a mistake but that ruins timelines, wastes huge sums of postage money and makes you look bad in front of your boss for choosing them.
Pit our experienced, trained and certified employees versus the industry average of temp labor and basement-kept half-capable $8.50 employees. We Win! ..and You Win!
Plus our staff has decades of
database marketing experience,
seeing direct mail successes and failures. We will be showing you how
to tier mailings, test offers, personalize your mailings and more.
All most printers can do is reduce their bid, they cannot add value or increase your responses. Which is really why you're doing direct mail in the first place ~ to get sales and response.
Keep your head in the game - it's not broadcast-print, IT'S DIRECT MARKETING !
Let's talk about the value of experience with Direct Marketing. The Direct Mail and printing industries are broken up into many niches. You have tabloids, newspapers, invoices, fulfillment, brochure printing, foil or die cutting and of course marketing to name a few.
What is your vendors' primary service? Ours is direct mail marketing but so often we are forced to bid against a brochure printing house or cheapashellpostcards.net. These vendors have absolutely no concern or experience in direct mail marketing and you want to give them the job because, as their only tool to get the job; they low bid the project.
You will not become the hero of your firm by showing them how you saved $200 but the phone isn't ringing. Too often this is why people say, "We tried direct mail, but it didn't seem to work". If you can get a direct mail marketing company for a price anywhere near that of a mostly print oriented company - jump on it !!
So, the first rule of thumb and our #1 tip is to make sure you are using a direct mail marketing company. The good ones are actually a lot harder to find than you might think. You found some pros right here at CSG Direct so get a direct mail quote and get to know us. If you get the chance to sit down with us the difference will be crystal clear.
Remember! You're Marketing Right?
At least with CSG Direct is it !!
Even as new forms of direct marketing emerge in this new era, direct mailing is still setting the bar in response, results and accountability in marketing. Most every other media cannot get you out of the most expensive parts of marketing - prospecting. In Fact, most advertising dollars wasted on broad shotgun prospecting.
Direct Mail is very focused on sales and generating revenue.
Experience will tell you that there are 2 levels of marketing.
The first level is the most expensive and that is to find out who is interested in your product or services. Prospecting or acquisition marketing is where you spend money to broadcast who you are to the public and see who responds with interest in your product or service. This is commonly done with Television, Radio, Newspaper, Billboards, Websites, Yellow pages, Magazine ads, Telemarketing and sure Direct Mail of course too (however it is more direct, personal and accountable in prospecting).
The second level of marketing is what you do with all the customers and prospects that contacted you with any level of interest. This is where all your long-term income is made. You see, once you have a list of people who like what you do you can build long-term relationships with a direct sales approach. This includes direct in-person sales, tele-sales, direct mail and email. (I will save social networking for a later topic - it follows email)
That is the proper order for results too:
1) In-Person sales cost the most and sell the most.
2) Tele-Sales still utilizes personality and relationship but you are easily pushed into voicemail hell.
3) Direct Mail is something they have to see and touch and they can save it and share it with others in the home or office. They can keep it for later too. Direct mail costs much less than in-person or tele-sales but you can sell a proportionally less amount too.
4) E-mail, currently the lowest form of marketing. Sure, if you have a relationship and are working on projects with a client it is great. But for sales and marketing it is the easiest to avoid, delete and annoy.
So the main point is that long-term SALES happen in a DIRECT approach not in broadcast prospecting or print ads. So decades of experience say you build a comprehensive database (or many) with as much detail as you can. Then you send very specific offers to very specific people. You then follow that up in-person, via telephone and personal emails too. IN THAT ORDER FOR BEST SUCCESS!!
Only go back to prospecting when you have maximized your current list of interested customers and prospects. Why would you go talk to 1000 people that are not interested when you have 100 that are and you haven't sold them anything yet?
We can help you build a business plan for successful marketing too! Your first step is to contact us or let us give you a direct mail quote to start.
As someone that has been in database marketing for over 2 decades I have had my share of deep experience in both direct mail and email variable data driven forms of direct marketing.
Email is a dying service and is going to go away in it's current form.
We started by building our own email broadcast and link tracking tools back in the late 90's. We were in email marketing from 1995 to 2005 as an add-on to our direct mail services. Back then it was HOT and NEW and everyone wanted in, but so few people knew what they were doing so we enjoyed a decade of great prosperity.
But then in 2005 we got out all together just as a swarm of vendors and competitors were getting in. There was still a lot of money to be made in email after we got out but we recognized the fight those vendors were entering into.
There is a real ugly truth about email marketing that the companys buying the service do not know that definitely hurts them. When you send even 1 message it has to go through multiple firewalls, mutliple virus scans, multiple email processing rules and multiple spam filters.
If it makes it past all those gatekeepers and lands in your prospects in-box they can tag you as SPAM that very second. That action affects all those same gateways and spam filters for each message that follows it.
Then, 10 minutes later you send an email to your customer to ask them about an order you are working on and your email message gets blocked by their spam filters. All because now you have been recorded as a spamming company. I guess the rule of thumb is if you don't want to be treated like garbage marketing, don't put your message next to the garbage in someones inbox.
We saw this coming, it was getting bad years ago and the writing was clearly on the wall. Email results are also at historical record lows too. Low responses and a technical nightmare are not a recipe for success.
I have been talking about this for months with my peers but I guess I decided to blog about it today because I spent 3 hours removing an email virus from someones computer. What a pain in the ass and an uneccessary use of everyones time. There are so many other ways to communicate that don't risk your entire it investments.
As someone who manages a firewall, one of the biggest security breaches we deal with on any given day is EMAIL. Email my friends, will not be around in it's current form and I would not invest any current dollars moving in that direction. For real electronic success you should chase SEO combined with social media like facebook marketing as well as others growing in popularity.
Then, really get to know your direct mail program. Direct mail is the most courteous of all forms of non-electronic marketing. It is still also the most focused, trackable, adjustable, shareable, savable, copyable, calcuable form of marketing.
But beware, there are spammers in direct mail too. There are more spam marketers in direct mail than there are true direct mail marketing companys. These vendors will make you look bad and get your message thrown away just like email can be.
Nothing makes me sadder for a company then when I lose a bid by $100 to a printer and that company loses thousand$ in response and the direct mail information that comes with it. Lowering their prices is the only tool in a printers bag compared to a real direct mail company that offers full service and full results.
Find out where your vendors core focus is. If they are primarily a printer or a print broker, forget about it. Find database junkies, variable data printing and response pros. That is our niche, that's where real direct mail lives and breathes. Experienced direct mail people know it and their businesses thrive off their direct mail results.
Real direct mail marketing isn't broadcast print, it is made up of multiple data sources, multiple data-relevant messages, calls to action, results tracking and offer adjusting based on results.
You don't get that from a printer, that's direct mail baby.
If you haven’t already heard, the US Postal service will be implementing new postal rates and standards for folded self-mailers and letter sized booklets – also known as “slim-jims”.
These new standards were scheduled to go into effect with the postal rate increase on May 11, but then delayed after review until Sept. 8th of this year. These new standards pose a “double-whammy” on the industry, as new size templates will need to be implemented for designs and creative for mail-pieces. The new standards will also incur much deeper penalties for mailers who are not compliant.
Instead of getting non-automation rates for non-automation compliant pieces, mailers will likely be getting hit with non-machineable rates for virtually all mailpieces that do not comply with automation standards.
The only exception to this, as I am told, will be non-barcoded mailpieces that otherwise would be automation compliant in regards to size, tabs, folds, paper stock, etc.
The new maximum size for letter sized booklets and folded self- mailers is 6” x 10.5” x .25” thick. The post office will also be enforcing new tab and paper weight standards. Please review the information to avoid problems.
It’s important to stay ahead of the changes that the US Postal Service is continually making. This is why working with mail professionals helps to ensure that your direct marketing projects are prepared and presented without costly or problematic delays.
Your projects deserve the attention that only a true direct mail marketer can provide. Putting addresses on mail pieces as a side business, as many print shops do to enhance revenue, does not qualify them as professional direct marketers.
Give us call to discuss your next mail project – In these times of extreme budget monitoring and cuts…it is crucial that you get the absolute best value for your company’s marketing dollar. We invite you to compare us to your current mail shop, you will find that we are "The Greatest Value in Direct Mail”.
I often have people ask "What is the best Casino Marketing Direct Mail Campaign?".
There really is no easy secret formula or special tricks for getting the most impact out of a mailing. The best direct mail campaign is simply the one that gets maximum results for the lowest cost. In determining what will work best for each customer, the marketing professional must ascertain what the customer wishes to accomplish, whom the customer wants to communicate with, what the incentive is for the recipient to respond, determining a strong call to action, and producing the project in a cost-effective and efficient manner. It is crucial that the mailer takes advantage of the lowest postage rates available - as postage is often the most expensive aspect of the project.
The next question is: "How do I know I am maximizing my direct marketing efforts?"
This is where the experience pays off. Seasoned marketing professionals will seek out the mail marketers who are innovative, versed on postal rules and regulations, and focused on getting maximum results for their customers. Companies such as CSG Direct are in high demand due to the experience and innovation that they bring to the direct marketing industry.
While many printers and small mail shops may have the ability to put an address on a mail-piece, they do not have the ability to track delivery. They cannot ascertain the "in-home" timelines, analyze the market penetration, or track results in a comprehensive manner. Less experienced mailers do not have strong quality control systems in place, MQC Certified employees, expert data programmers on staff or the systems to expedite the projects efficiently.
This is nearly always followed by: "What type of direct mail piece is most effective?"
Once again: This is determined by the type of results that the customer expects, the type of offer that is being presented, and the demographic that is being pursued. One wouldn't send a postcard as a high-end wedding invitation….however, they might send a "save-the-date" card prior to sending out the formal invitations.
This is the type of strategy that often increases results. Sometimes a postcard with coupons is the most effective, low cost medium for specific campaigns. Sometimes a personalized letter makes more sense, and can easily be tailored to the individual's interests or purchasing traits. Self-mailers are often a great alternative, especially if one desires a lot of "real-estate" to get their message across. The type of mail-piece will vary with each project, and should be determined by demographic, content and end strategy.
Marketers should realize that a direct mail campaign is exactly as it sounds: a campaign. A single mailing is not a true campaign. In most cases, it makes more sense to mail to one-third of your top prospects three times than to mail to all of your prospects a single time. Repetition is the key to any campaign. With proper planning and implementation, the cost for a multi-tiered mailing campaign is very reasonable. With a strong offer, proper incentive and an effective call to action…your customers and prospects will react in a positive and timely manner.
In summation: Too often individuals plan, ponder, partially develop and ponder some more about their marketing campaigns. It is a "ready - set - wait" scenario. As the event or promotion draws closer, they are forced to react. At this point the campaign is pushed out late and valuable time is lost. Early planning and implementation will make for a smoother campaign. It is no coincidence that in most cases, the well planned campaigns are the most effective campaigns.
By approaching the objective ahead of time and applying a plan - develop - implement" strategy, your mailings will be received by your potential customers in a much more timely and effective manner. By working with an experienced, competent mail shop - you will have the proper tools to analyze your campaign (and you will sleep better at night).
Effective direct mail marketing….it's as easy as C-S-G!