The aim of a direct mail campaign is to increase brand awareness, send out offers or boost company sales. Each campaign has varying levels of success, depending on the audience they’ve targeted, the mail content, and the business themselves. Some industries have better direct mail response rates than others, but it all comes down to the content. If you haven’t engaged an audience, you won’t have a high response rate, so it’s important to tailor and personalise your direct mail message.
A good direct mail piece can differ from company to company, with changes made for target audiences, location and situation. But there are standard aspects of direct mail that create a good direct mail piece and can lead to a successful campaign.
Message
If you’re not sure what your message is, how can you expect customers to respond? Having a clear and thought out message will help your audience understand what you’re trying to achieve. Keep the content focused on the subject matter and don’t overwhelm the customer with mounts of information. The most successful direct mail pieces have a single message and no unnecessary details.
Creativity
Receiving a wall of text in the post isn’t effective for anyone and will most likely end up in the recycling bin. Creativity is key when designing your direct mail piece, be innovative with the content and don’t be afraid of free space. Fill gaps with colour and visuals rather than text, nicely breaking up the content and making it easier to read. But don’t go overboard, you still want to maintain a professional appearance and reputation.
Interactive
The most effective type of direct mail is interactive and could include anything from a QR code to exciting content. You want to draw your target audience in, rather than have them discarding the direct mail piece after a quick glance. Call-to-actions and coupon codes are especially effective for increasing response rates, encouraging a recipient to visit a website or make a purchase. With interactive direct mail, you can also measure response rates easily by tracking who has used a coupon, QR code or even contacted the business.
Personalisation
When sending direct mail out, it’s important to personalise the content. Whether this is personalising the content or visuals, adding a friendly touch to your direct mail can help increase the response rate. Personalisation is also effective when targeting a specific audience. Tailoring your message to an age group, location, gender, ethnicity or religion, can encourage better response rates and boost awareness. An individual is much more likely to interact with a direct mail piece if it targets them and their situation directly.
Repetition
Repeating a message in direct mail pieces is more memorable for a recipient and encourages them to respond. Repeating certain content makes it easy to remember and can help get your message across to the right audience.
Whilst repetition is great for content, those who receive multiple versions of the same mail-out are less likely to respond. Badgering potential customers with frequent direct mail can be discouraging and potentially harmful to your business. It’s important to differentiate between the two.
Atlas Direct Mail will help you build your ideal direct mail campaign to suit your budget. To start your direct mail campaign, get in touch with Atlas today and boost your business awareness.