July 2015

While direct mail may no longer be the dominant direct marketing channel, it still remains a power player alongside mobile, search, email, social and many other online options. The name of the game today is “integrated channel” marketing.

Businesses are now using multiple channels to reach customers, prospects and generate leads. What’s true for any channel, however, are three simple marketing basics:

- Do we know our prospect and have the right list? (List)
- Does the deal or offer we present tempt the prospect to take action? (Offer)
- Does the marketing copy and design catch attention, set an impression and prompt action? (Creative/Design)

Have you ever prepared a brilliant postcard design, spent days writing the perfect marketing message, and taken every step to ensure your targeting is as relevant as possible, only to have the campaign fail to make an impact? 

It’s time for some hard truth, marketing style. Your prospects primarily care about themselves. They care about their wants, needs, and interests. They do not, however, care about you, your company, or your objectives.

When a prospect pulls your direct mail postcard or flyer out from their mailbox, he or she will ask a series of questions: 

• What is being advertised?
• Is it something I need?
• If it’s something I need, who is offering it? 

The last question – who is offering it? – brings your credibility into the spotlight and makes your reputation essential. It’s also a double edged sword – you need to reveal just the right amount of information, all without wasting valuable space. 

If you’ve studied copywriting or marketing in any respect, you’ve heard the phrase “focus on the benefits, not the features.” 

While the benefits of your product or service can have a huge positive effect on the success of any marketing campaign, it’s important not to forget about the immense effects that a product or service’s features can also have. 

Benefits are crucial – no doubt about it. Your prospects will only sign on the dotted line once they’ve understood how your products or services can benefit them. But the details and features of your product or service are important, too. 

Ask a successful Business to Consumer (B2C) marketer for their favorite marketing channels and it’s likely you’ll hear direct mail mentioned. From cost to effectiveness, direct mail’s benefits make it a natural fit for B2C businesses like retailers, cafés, and restaurants. 

While the huge value of direct mail is very well known among B2C marketers, many Business to Business (B2B) marketers and salespeople are unaware of the immense amount of value that a successful direct mail postcards campaign can generate. 

With the right combination of messaging, targeting, and a great offer, postcards can be an extremely powerful tool for B2B businesses interested in generating new sales leads and increasing interest in their products or services. 

Has your B2B business considered using direct mail postcards to generate leads and fuel growth? Read on to learn three ways your business can use direct mail to create new opportunities, find new customers, and build new client relationships.

From failing to double-check your copy before printing your postcards (and sending out thousands of cards with misspelled headings as a result) to ineffective targeting, every direct mail marketer makes a mistake at some point in their career.

While some direct mail mistakes can seriously affect your campaign, others are easy to avoid with the right preparation. Read on to learn about five common postcard marketing mistakes and how you can avoid making them.

From the fast food industry’s addiction to red and yellow to the finance industry’s obsession with blue, different industries – and different brands – often use similar colors in their marketing.

This isn’t a coincidence. Extensive psychological research reveals that people feel different emotions from each color, and that these emotions affect the action that people take after coming into contact with an advertisement or logo. 

Just like McDonald’s and KFC use colors like red and yellow to stand out during the daytime and encourage fast, immediate action, you can use specific colors as part of your small business’s direct mail campaign to increase your response rate. 

Do you know which colors best match your business? Read on to learn how eight of the most frequently used colors in marketing affect your audience and can inspire your direct mail campaign’s recipients to take action.

Today’s small businesses have a huge amount of choice when it comes to marketing channels. There’s online, print, radio, television and a huge range of other options to choose from, even for the smallest or newest of businesses.

While other marketing methods may be more glamorous or trendy, one of the most effective ways to raise awareness for your business, create action, and generate real results is by delivering direct mail postcards to your target audience.

From prompt delivery and an immediate impact to value for money, read on to learn how direct mail – and in particular, direct mail postcards – can give your business a steady flow of leads, sales, and loyal customers.

If your direct mail piece fails to capture the reader’s attention, it will fail in all other regards, too. No matter how great your copy might be, it will have no effect if readers don’t make it far enough into your postcard to read it.

So how do you make readers pay attention?