Here’s a news flash for marketers: Direct mail readership is rising year after year – from 72% of adults surveyed in 2002 to 76% today, according to research by Baltimore-based Vertis. That’s good news for marketers, who can package relevant and useful information in high impact formats that will make targets want to open their mail.
HOW DO YOU GET THEM TO OPEN DIRECT MAIL?
More than 2000 consumers revealed what it takes to get them to open a company’s direct mail piece in Vertis’ 2005 customerfocus® Direct Mail Survey:
- Timing (piece arrives when service is needed): 69%
- Package looks interesting: 63%
- Special offer or discount: 51%
- Package looks important (for instance, it looks like it contains pertinent financial or insurance information): 49%
- Feel something in the package: 48%
- Free gift or token inside: 37%
- Dated material enclosed: 33%
“When you already have a relationship with a customer, especially one with a high lifetime value, it’s very effective to send a toy or gift that calls attention to your offer,” says Janice Mayo, Vertis senior vice president of marketing. “People do pick up those ‘lumpy’ packages and, in the business-to-business area, response rates tend to be higher.”
MAKE IT PERSONAL
To increase the value of your mail pieces, take what they’re already reading and make it more pertinent. Here’s how:
- Personalize the content: Zero in on people’s lifestyles, interests, or a specific moment in time: where they are in their career or family. Time delivery of your mail piece to arrive when they have a need for the service. “For example, you have a unique opportunity to deliver the right messages to automotive customers,” says Mayo. “Target effectively by sending different messages to people who are at different points in the purchase cycle. Give information on trading and upgrading to someone who purchased a vehicle four years ago rather than to a person who just bought a car and doesn’t need that kind of information.”
- Include special offers and personalized messages: financial planning advice, a customer service message, an upgrade or a better way for customers to utilize services.
