Check Your Mailing Lists – Please!
For those of you trying to make a positive impression on perspective customers there’s one really good starting place – your mailing lists. People who send me mail often fail to impress me right off the bat because they’re often sending the same piece to the General Manager who left here eight years ago. Ouch. That’s a lot of money to make an impression that was probably worse than what I thought of you before!
And then there are the companies that send me two or three of the same piece – at the same time! Again, I’m sharp enough realize it is caused more by your lack of ability to execute efficiently than by my enormous importance to your company. So again – I’m underwhelmed.
I don’t get a huge amount of snail mail these days. So much comes through e-mail it’s not all that surprising. And the shear expense of snail mail when executed inefficiently is mind boggling. But I can say with some authority that conservatively 50% of what I see is going to the wrong person or is inaccurate in some other way. It’s your money guys!
Getting it right is not all that difficult. It’s all in how you manage your database. My advice to those of you who haven’t cleaned your list for 10 years and counting is don’t waste your money. You’re hurting your brand with every batch of mail that you drop.
This is a good strategic direct mail tip. To be successful in direct mail, like any business skill, you need to know what tools are available and how to use these tools in your personal situation correctly.
Another common mistake for many direct mailers is not knowing what the Long Term Value of a new customer is, and what is an acceptable cost to acquire these new customers.
Some people new to direct marketing use direct mail one time and say it didn’t work for them because the amount of initial sales from new customers didn’t pay for the mailing. Yet if they figured in how much a new customer would spend over the next year or years, they may find out that the effort was hugely successful.
If you are looking for direct mail marketing statistics to plan a successful marketing campaign, two studies are available from the National Mail Order Association, NMOA. They are, the DMA Statistical Fact Book, http://www.nmoa.org/catalog/dma/dma_stats.htm and Inside Direct Mail http://www.nmoa.org/catalog/insidedirectmail.htm
Comment by John Schulte — February 6, 2010 @ 3:25 pm