Make Mine a Mailshot!
2
According to Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman of Ogilvy Group UK, “no medium can match mail for translating soft opinions into hard action.” Direct mail remains a powerful cost-effective medium. But success with direct mail no longer entails mailing hundreds of thousands of businesses in the hope that by throwing enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick. Today it’s about being relevant, targeted and meaningful; it’s about bringing care and attention to your messages and about aligning the look, feel and content of your mailshot with your brand values and the needs of your audience.
If you want to move mountains with your next business to business mailshot, but are unsure where to start, these tips should help you.
Be brilliant at the basics. Direct mail is a touchy-feely medium. From the moment the envelope is in your prospect or client’s hands, they are evaluating it albeit on a subconscious level. If your letter has been printed with a crude laser signature onto a flimsy piece of paper its impact has already diminished. Ensure your letter is at least 120 gsm so that it feels good in the recipient’s hands and it looks the part too. Attach your business card by a paperclip. When mailing cold prospects this may be the one element held back for future reference. Read our previous blog on envelopes whilst you’re at it too. Should you hand sign each letter? Ideally yes. Nothing beats a proper signature but if you’re going down the route of mass-produced signatures, check the first batch to ensure they look authentic and clean (no dots of ink surrounding a fuzzy name). Small details count.
Be relevant. The beauty of direct-mail when you’re trying to woo business to business contacts is that it is high attention processing – business folk still pay attention to the post. There’s no denying that many business to business mailshots are consigned to the waste bin for many reasons some of which were addressed in our previous blog. However if your message is relevant and of genuine interest to the recipient, there’s every likelihood they will give some of their precious undivided time to your mailshot. Spend time crafting those relevant messages before moving to the production stage.
Build a strong case to buy or to contact you. You can have a striking looking mailshot but if the contents do not convey clearly why you are the business to do business with it won’t work. In the business to business sector in particular, when decision makers are looking to buy, they need sufficient information to persuade them to move from the early stages of awareness and interest through to evaluation, desire and action. So, when you have developed your relevant messages reinforce them with more of the good stuff such as…the outcomes of your latest market research survey; recent case studies; 10 reasons why businesses bought from you last month; your customer care charter; a list of current clients; how many customers recommend you now; your client retention rate; your awards, accreditations, insurances and memberships; what’s on your website and blog that will interest them even more. It’s down to you to lavish the recipients of your mailshot with so many genuine compelling reasons to buy or to contact you that one by one you remove their barriers to a sale.
To test or not to test? The days when you would test creative tweaks have made way for quantitative offer testing. You may want to consider a ‘money off ‘incentive but are you confident this will encourage the highest levels of responses compared to say an offer of more services for less? Why not test both so the recipient can choose their preferred offer. With your next mailshot you can roll out with the strongest contender and another offer or, if it was a close call and both offers worked equally well why not repeat them. A word of warning. Offering too many options confuses and can reduce responses. Keep it simple, limited to two.
In part two of our direct mail mini series we get to grips with the secrets of writing successful sales letters.
Another excellent blog post! There is something to be said for a fantastic looking mailshot coupled with the correct targeted data, people will be pleased with the response.
Some of the best mailshots we have seen have been a combination of clean data and fantastic eye catching copy. Opera Glasses, A Team figures – there is something to be said for smaller more targetted campaigns with a more expensive mailing piece particular for the big ticket option.