Top Ten Tips for a successful direct mail campaign

Many promotional gifts will be part of a wider direct mail publicity campaign. Freyja Hanmore of PR consultants, Davies Tanner, gives her top ten tips for getting your message out to the right people.

Know your audience.
Research who they are and where they are. Find out if they are mainly male or female and their age range. All of these factors will help you to better target them with your campaign.

Tease them.
A teaser campaign is a sure fire way of grabbing people's attention and by using a number of direct mail pieces, usually at least three, within a short period of time you are able to build a sense of excitement and ambiguity before revealing the final message.

Create deadlines and stick to them.
Especially relevant during a teaser campaign, timings need to be thought about carefully and direct mail needs to hit the desk at the right moment and in quick succession.

Be original.
So many promotional products exist these days so it is always a good idea to research what's new in terms of incentives. The packaging alone can determine whether or not a piece of direct mail gets opened.

Keep it simple.
Don't bombard people with different messages, know exactly what you want to say and think about how to do so clearly.

Include a call to action.
Drive your audience to act on receipt of the mail. Directing them to the website is a simple way of getting them to look at more information about you.

Be realistic.
Response rates to direct mail are generally no more than about one to two per cent so don't write off a campaign that receives this sort of response as being a failure.

Evaluate.
Always look back to your objectives, the purpose of direct mail is ultimately to drive sales and encourage new business. Evaluate the success of your campaign based on the return on investment.

Manage your database.
Keep your database as up to date as possible, taking out any returns or people who opt out as mail going to the wrong address or to someone who is not interested is a waste of time, money and resources.

It's all in the follow up.

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