5 Ways You Might Be Sabotaging Your Direct Mail Campaign
Are you sabotaging your direct mail campaign without realizing it? If your business isn’t getting the results you expected to from direct mail, it could be due to a simple mistake that’s preventing your campaign from becoming profitable.
From the images you use in your creative to the specific choice of words that make up your call to action, seemingly small mistakes can sabotage even the best direct mail campaigns.
Luckily, most of these mistakes are easy to fix. Read on to discover five surprisingly common ways you could be sabotaging your direct mail campaign, along with easy ways to fix these common issues.
Your creative isn’t engaging your audience
How engaging are your direct mail postcards? No matter how good your copy might be, few people will spend enough time looking at your direct mail postcards to read it if your creative isn’t visually engaging.
Do your postcards use interesting, relevant images to make readers interested? Are your postcards designed to be easy to read? When a recipient reads your postcard, is it immediately obvious that it’s offering something of value?
A bad creative can sink even the best of campaigns, making it vital that your creative is polished and perfect.
You’re targeting the wrong audience
Even with the right design and the right message, your campaign will fail to produce any results if it targets the wrong audience. If your response rate is below what you expected, your targeting could be to blame.
Are the people you’re targeting truly interested in your offer? Do they need or want your offer? Can they afford your product or service? Before you write any campaign off as a failure, make sure it’s being delivered to the right audience.
Your offer just isn’t compelling
A direct mail campaign is only as strong as its offer. Even a poorly designed direct mail postcard will have produce some level of positive response if it has a fantastic offer that recipients just can’t ignore.
How strong is your offer? You can strengthen your offer and improve your results by offering recipients a better deal on your product or service, as well as by giving your offer a time constraint to encourage recipients to respond quickly.
You’re using an old mailing list
How old is your mailing list? Mailing lists don’t remain current forever, and using a list that’s several years out of date could result in most of your direct mail postcards being delivered to the wrong addresses.
The older your list, the lower your deliverability rate. Before you launch any direct mail campaign, make sure your list is up to date to ensure you don’t mail the bulk of your postcards to addresses that are no longer current.
You aren’t mailing frequently enough
How frequently do you connect with your target audience? Direct marketing is all about trust, and trust is built over time. The more frequently you mail your target audience – within reason, of course – the stronger their trust in you will become.
Most people won’t respond to your marketing message until they’ve seen it more than once. Keep up the frequency so that your audience receives your direct mail postcards on a steady basis and you’ll notice an increase in your response rate.
