A lot of Internet marketers focus all their efforts on online advertising and they totally overlook the potential of off-line direct mail marketing strategies.
That is a pity because there is a lot of money to be made with a conventional direct mail shot. While a direct mail shot can be done without any reference to your website, providing your prospects the chance to buy the product via your site is a great way to introduce your online business to a new range of people. If you invite the readers of your mail shot to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter as it gives you the opportunity to turn prospects that you have harvested off-line into repeat customers who respond to your newsletter campaigns at no extra expense to yourself.
So let’s consider a few of the fundamentals of running a direct mail campaign.
No matter how beautifully designed the promotional campaign material is, if you don’t have a good mailing list the results will fall short of your expectations and you will have wasted your money. You should work to improve the results you get from the promotional material that you post out. You also need to do some research to track down the most effective direct mail list. Basically, your aim should be to deliver the most appropriate message to the most suitable audience.
So what’s the easiest approach to finding an effective list? With thousands of lists available in umpteen different niches, the most effective method of acquiring the most suitable one for you is to get a reputable list broker and explain what you want to do. Be sure to know what the difference is between a list broker and a list manager or owner. A list manager is a person with a list that he wants to sell to you. A list broker is someone who acts as an agent between the list purchaser and the list manager. A good list broker will provide you with a choice of several different lists and let you see some statistics about the list and how responsive it is.
Your list broker will be able to provide you with both “response” lists and “compiled” lists in a wide range of categories. it’s important to appreciate the difference between these two types of list.
A “compiled list” consists of people that have been harvested from public databases, or lists of individuals who live in certain postal areas and so forth.
A “response list” is made up of people who have purchased or shown an interest in a particular range of products and are therefore quite likely to purchase that sort of product again.
Response lists cost more than compiled lists because they are more “responsive” – as you’d suppose.
How old a list is is another fundamental factor that you need to think about when deciding which list to go for. As a rule, the responsiveness of a list will inevitably decline over time.
The more closely defined the list is, the better it will perform. You can help your broker get the most appropriate list for you by outlining the type of person you are aiming your mail shot at and what you want to achieve from your campaign.
Now that you have eliminated unsuitable lists, you’ll want to test the lists that conform to your criteria to determine which one will perform the best for you. Ask if you can buy 500 or 1000 names from the list. Post out a test mail shot and track the results so you can assess how well the list responds.
You’ll need to work out what’s an acceptable response rate for your promotion and find a list that yields a higher response.
As soon as you have got a responsive test list you’ll be able to buy the full list and roll out your mail shot to everybody on it with a reasonable degree of confidence.
Direct mail marketing can be very profitable, but if you are to be successful you must be prepared to test every aspect of the campaign from copywriting and the design of your mailing package to obtaining the best list for your mail shot. Get all those factors right and you will be in the money.
Keywords: direct mail list brokers
Summary: One way to advertise your online business is to go offline and send out a traditional mail shot.
This article discusses how to locate the best possible target list for your direct mail shot.
