Direct Mail Advertising - How Effective Is It?

Direct mailing is an effective way to help your business succeed. This business solution can significantly boost sales and widen your customer base. Read on to know how it works.

Direct mail advertising is a type of marketing strategy that works by sending print materials to the consumers' mailbox. This method aims to promote different types of products or services, or an upcoming event like a fund raising activity. This is one of the oldest forms of marketing, but it proves to be a cost-effective solution for many businesses. Even non-profit organizations and government entities can use this type of advertising.

Direct mailing has certain advantages. For one, it is lower-priced than most types of advertising, as you can use bulk mail rates to reach many customers. All you need for a direct mail campaign is a mailing list, the mail piece itself, and money for the postage fee.

You can buy a mailing list of postal addresses so you can target particular neighborhoods or other demographics. This is cost effective in the long run as you can send the mails on the same addresses repeatedly. The mailing piece, on the other hand, has to be designed and written well. Like other printed promotional materials, the piece must be interesting and creates a good impression of the business. You must think of the printing and packaging costs as well. For example, more colors could mean bigger printing costs, while multi-page mails like brochures and catalogues could require higher packaging costs. In most cases, the postage accounts for one-third of the entire expense.

It is also easy to determine if the campaign is doing well. For instance, you can track the number of coupons used. This also makes it easier to see how much the sales increased after the campaign.

Those who are just starting up their businesses can also find direct mail marketing a good way to get their names out there. Introducing a new product or service through broadcast or newspaper ads can be costly.

While direct mail marketing has many benefits, some possible drawbacks come with it. There are cases where response turned out to be overwhelming. If a book publishing company sends mails to 10,000 addresses and their stock for the specific book they are advertising is only 5,000, it can lead to customer disappointment. Given that the company can print more copies, would there be enough time to comply with the number of orders? Many people are interested with such mails. This is especially true when you don't have a well-targeted mailing list.

With proper research and planning though, this can be the key to improve sales dramatically. Many companies can offer direct mail services. Professional direct mailers know how to work with your specific business needs. Consult with them when starting such marketing campaign. The Internet is a nice place to search for your service providers.

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