EMAIL MARKETING

This is the basics of planning and executing a successful direct mail / email campaign.

Whether you use an agency or do it yourself, this will save you time and money and increase your marketing objectives.

Should I Use An Agency or To Do It Myself? Choosing an agency.

Who Am I Targeting?

What's My Objective?

Which List Should I Choose?

What Am I Offering? Product, Position, Services

What Mailing Format Should I Use?

Creativivity

Should I Be Testing?

How Do I Put It All Together? Execution.

Should I Use An Agency or To Do It Myself? Choosing an agency.

The benefits of using an agency are enormous. For those who wish to choose an agency look for: their experience in advertising, from carrying out numerous direct mail campaigns from previous clients, this will improve the effectiveness of your campaign. However, if you have a lot of  time to spend on a campaign and the experience you can save a lot of money doing this yourself.

The best way to find an agency is to:

1. Go through direct mail campaigns that you feel work and have researched - if you don't receive a lot of direct mail find a friend who does, and start getting yourself on lists now.
   
2. Find out which agency managed the campaigns; by calling the clients Marketing Director who will be very happy to help.
   
3. Draw up a short list of agencies who you found to be very successful and pleasant to deal with.
   
4. When possible, visit them. Share with them the objectives and goals of your company and the specific campaign that you found to be successful. Ask them what they can do to help you, the more questions you ask the more success on finding the agency best suited to you, especially if you lack the knowledge necessary to market online .
   
5. When you have narrowed the field down to 2 Or 3 agencies, ask them to give you a brief proposal (i.e. what they will do, cost and the lead times); let them know that you will be getting proposals from other agencies.
   
6. Make a choice based on quality, timing and cost.

Who Am I Targeting?

The first step of any successful campaign is to choose who to target. Most companies have already done this, though it's never a wasted exercise to do it again as this will help you to re-focus as well as review any changes that may have taken place in the market place since you chose your target market.

A good way to develop a target market is to:

1. Get all the data you have on your consumers, distribution channel and competitors
   
2. Segment your consumers in as many ways as you can think of. Traditional types of segmentation include age, gender, income, geographic spread, social grouping, type of occupation, etc. (for consumer campaigns); or industry, company size, type of decision maker, etc. (for business to business campaigns).
   
3. Note the size (an estimate will often do) to ease targeting the various groups, as well as how strongly your product proposition (more on this later) would appeal to them (it's best to go out and speak to some of them or if you have the budget do some market research).
   
4. Choose a segment (or segments) that will enable you to maximize your profits based on consumer appeal, size and ease of targeting.
   
5. Get a picture of your typical target customer (male or female, what type of clothes does he wear, how old is he, what clubs does he belong to, what's his profession, how many years education has he had, etc.). Don't just depend on the data, try get a feeling for your customer. A clothing retailer selling high quality imported clothing at discount prices described his target customer as; 29 year old professional, recently moved into his/her first home (mortgage or long lease rental), upwardly mobile, trendy, enjoys wearing designer clothes, likes to try new things, wants to fit in, earns about 60,000 per annum, Lives in North America.
   

Good targeting and understanding your target consumer will enable you to develop an appealing proposition, express it in an attractive way, and select lists that get it to the right people.

What's My Objective?

Developing a clear objective early on in the planning process is crucial to success. You need to decide exactly what you want the campaign to do (orders direct through the mail, leads to follow up with some other medium, additional store traffic, etc.) You also need to quantify your objective and develop a method to measure results. In addition you should develop a budget and time table.

A music company wanted to develop a campaign to sell CD and tapes. It defined its objective as; 'This campaign should sell 5,000 copies of XYZ directly through the mail, the campaign should break-even (based on the cost of delivering the CD and tapes to the consumer, returns, sale price and cost of promotional offer)' - mail order companies often make their profits on repeat purchases. The budget for the project is 15,000, but do not want to commit no more than 3,500 to testing the campaign before investing the full budget. The client and agency were clear on the requirements and expected results.

Which List Do I Choose?

The list has the greatest impact on the success of any direct mail campaign. Direct marketing pro's still have different opinions on exact percentages. But a reasonable estimate would put it at 50% of the effectiveness of a mailing is due to the list (35% on the proposition, 10% on the format and 5% on creativity).

Work with a list broker in selecting a list that will save you money. They know most of the lists on the market, they know their quality, they know (up to an extent) who else has been using them and they don't cost you anything (the list owner pays them).

What Am I Offering? Product, Position, Services

There are three types of people who receive your direct mail. The first type have just been waiting to buy your product. The second type of recipient is not interested in your product and will never respond no matter what you say. The third type has some interest but needs convincing. This group is normally the largest and it is because of this person you are developing a proposition.

A proposition is what your offering the customer (product), the reasons that he or she should buy (what it does for them, how it can improve their lives), what ever is required to overcome objections (guarantee, etc), a reason to act now (an incentive) and a price.

To develop a proposition start by listing all the features and benefits of your product. A benefit is something that your customer gains by using your product. Whilst a feature is what your product does.

People buy benefits (not features) such as a faster telephone service that cuts your telephone bill in half (benefit) or new facial cream that keeps you looking young and attractive (benefit). Features are still important, but only as support for benefit. Customers often don't believe that you really give a benefit unless you give some support for it. XYZ shampoo keeps your hair looking radiantly healthy (benefit) because it contains a patented protein that combines with your hairs natural oils to resist stress and pollution (feature).

When using direct mail its important to remember to list all the benefits and features of your product (the medium uniquely gives you the space to do this). Put in all the benefits that you can think of. Each extra benefit will get you extra customers.

How will your product meet the needs of your target consumer? For example a company selling a new computer system to a small business might position it as 'A means to save time by making it easy to do the accounting and business plans and inventory'. In addition to a basic proven tested proposition, direct mail gives you the opportunity to make the sale. Once you have grabbed their attention with a strong proposition you can deepen the sale by giving all the benefits of the product, each additional benefit is more likely to convince more people to buy (people who might not have been that strongly impressed by the other benefits).

Your direct mail should also call the prospect to action. It is a waste if you've attracted the prospects attention, gained their interest, and built their desire with all the things that it can do to improve their lives or their companies and you don't ask them to do something specific, such as buy your product, come to your store, send back a form so your sales rep can call, etc.

To be complete a call to action must tell the prospect what to do, how to do it (making it as easy as possible), remind them why they should do it (restate a key benefit), and give them an incentive to do it now (the offer).

The right promotional offer or incentive has the potential to lift your response by more than 100%. Without an offer that spurs a prospect into action the prospect may simply put your package away, deciding to reply later (they normally forget, or their level of desire will drop and they'll later decide not to go ahead). A free trial is usually a very effective offer.

What Mailing Format Should I Use?

The format ties in very closely to the objective of the campaign. Most direct mail asks for a response and the format of the mailing should make this easy to do. The format that works most effectively, most consistently is;

a) letter,

b) leaflet,

c) reply paid response card, all enclosed inside) an envelope.

The envelope is usually the first to be read to incites consumers to look inside, communicate the key benefit in a thought provoking manner. A good example is; 'Mental Alertness: Test Your Knowledge - Can you?' a line on a mailing for a psychology product aimed at mental health issues.

The letter is the most read part of the direct mail program (after the envelope). In this age of glossy photographs, it comes as a surprise to most people who are new to direct mail that the letter remains the most important part. For an example send just a letter (no leaflet) and reply card which have had very attractive response rates, a leaflet mailed on its own will get anything but a successful response. In fact the original American Express letter (to some the most successful direct mail campaign ever) consisted only of a letter and response device.

The letter does the selling job. It should communicate the benefits in a logical way, answer objections and close the sale (by asking the prospect to take the intended action). A well written letter should grab the reader from the first line and then take them effortlessly all the way to the end.

The Brochure does the same job as the letter, gain interest, communicate the benefits, explain how it works, and close the sale. The brochure gives you the opportunity to visualize the product and an important benefit (unfortunately a trick that even experienced professionals don't often use). With the wrong picture of an end benefit it will not only not increase response but expands your marketing cost. It is often difficult to come up with an end result picture, but its well worth putting the effort to find one. A picture really is worth a thousand words, but only if its a picture of a benefit. If well executed it may increase response by 25% for an educational company selling training courses by introducing a benefit picture. For a good example: a student being congratulated on his graduation; a strong reason to take any course made stronger by helping the prospect to visualize it.

People are lazy! The easier you make it for them to do something the more likely you'll get them to do it. The response device should reinforce the benefit (remind them why they are buying), be easy to fill in (better still, fill it in for them, you have their names and addresses, just ask them to sign), and easy to send (FREEPOST is essential, you won't believe how many letters don't get posted for want of a stamp!).

Creativity

The most debated part of a direct mail package, yet the least important. If you've got the list right, you've got the proposition right, and you've got a format that works then you're ninety percent there.

Focus the creative work on developing arresting headlines, strong body copy, and end benefit visualizations. Unfortunately every person has an opinion on the color of the border, etc. As long as it isn't totally intrusive it doesn't matter.

Once your direct mail package is ready you should assess it by asking yourself:

1. Does it stop the reader in his or her tracks (if you don't think that it is absorbing, it will probably end up in the bin without having been read - some say in 4 seconds flat).
   
2. Is it interesting? To most people things are interesting if it is directed at and about them.
   
3. Does it build a desire in the reader to own it?
   
4. Does the package and copy flow logically and effortlessly (what some people call an easy read)?
   
5. Does it call the reader to action?

Should I Be Testing?

Yes! Changing an element that gives you a half percent increase in response could make you millions! Direct Mail is a medium that makes testing easy. If you use this feature of direct mail each campaign will be more effective than the last.

Test (in this order), the list, the product proposition (price, key benefits, promotional offer), and headlines. These are the things that will have the largest effect on response.

Try to test at least one leg in every campaign, I recommend three (going over four can become difficult to manage).

How Do I Put It All Together? Execution.

Direct mail involves lots of different organizations you (the client), creatives, lithographic printers, laser printers, list brokers, letter shop, post office as well as the people involved in the fulfillment activities. If you are to have any chance of communicating with all these organizations and keeping things running smoothly there must be a written document that contains all the elements of the campaign.

Go BACK