In our tech obsessed world of email, social media and instant messaging, our phones, tablets and computers are bombarded with ads and pop ups. Suddenly direct mail seems awfully quaint and something rather refreshing. 

• Know Your Target Audience

Ok, pretty basic but without knowing who you are targeting how will you know how to entice them with your offer? Knowing who your audience is will give you invaluable clues about how to influence them.

• Keep Your Data Up to Date

Data is useless unless it tells you something. It’s equally useless if the data you have is old. Successful direct mailing demands up to date data. 

• Your Call to Action

The most read part of a direct mail is the headline, first sentence and the PS – not the ‘love you’ kind but a Post Script with a clincher – something free, or for a limited time. Your call to action is vital – after all – it’s the whole point isn’t it? But make your point easy to find, so your reader doesn't miss it.

• Your Content

The average UK household receives about 650 direct mailers a year. That’s a lot of direct mail and a lot of competition. So you need your content to work hard – that doesn’t mean boring people with information overload but it does mean giving them all the relevant facts so they can do whatever it is you want them to do.

• Be Imaginative

Think outside the box. Your mail campaign needs to excite an increasingly apathetic consumer audience.

• Make It Part of the Bigger Picture

There’s a greater story to be told en masse and reiterating your campaign in different mediums will just drum your message in all the more effectively. 

• Personalisation

Everybody likes to be loved. But if you want to show someone you love them, you have to at least know their name. Personalising mail is an instant way of making it special plus you can quantify it during evaluation - because you want to know how successful your direct mail campaign is don’t you?

• The Envelope

The envelope is hypothetical, it might not exist but it’s the barrier between your content and the customer. First impressions count - it’s the difference between ‘ditch me’ and ‘open me’. Make your package stand out – it could be a finishing technique, the type of paper, or an offer. 

• Multiple Methods of Response

It’s not always good to talk. Some people would prefer to mail back their response to your campaign; others may prefer to text, others might like a URL to go to. The point is - more methods of response equal a better result. 

• Testing, Testing, 1,2,3

Your campaign is successfully spreading your word out there – isn’t it? Well one of the great things about direct mail is that it gives you quantifiable evidence of success. You can mark off responses, test variations in content, offer, visuals and see what works. It’s invaluable in actually gaining some ‘lessons learnt’ insights.

So you see direct mail can be win-win for everyone. Unlike a lot of above the line marketing where ‘opportunities to see’ and ‘opportunities to hear’ can’t truly be measured (they just look pretty and sound good) direct mail offers a quantifiable medium where the only limits are your marketing department’s imagination.