“Mailshots don’t work” – is a phrase I have become accustomed to hearing when discussing marketing tactics with businesses.  Indeed, when I enquire further, I am offered tales of how hundreds and sometimes, thousands of letters, invitations, newsletters and all matter of communications – have been sent out using up significant resource (both time and money) and yet yielding not a single response. 

Even in the age where ‘emarketing’ has seen rapid growth, direct mail is still a serious tactic – with direct mail increasing by 130% over the past 12 years – it is estimated that Consumer Direct Mail now generates £26.283 billion worth of business every year.  

To get the most out of direct mail requires a combination of skills: 1) a clear understanding of the purpose of the mailing; 2) accurate and relevant targeting; and 3) an interesting execution that involves the reader and creates a response.  To put it simply, the most successful campaigns are those that put the right message in front of the right person at the right time.

So let’s take a look at the winning combination: Right message, right person and the right time.

Right Person

Targeting is the first step in any direct mail campaign.  Question your motives: who are you trying to attract?  Who do you want your mailer to reach?  Targeting is not easy – ideally you have to have some knowledge of your audience, in order to be able to target effectively.

A great start to targeting is utilising existing customer information.  Such information should enable you to identify the potential to sell more services to them, or to generate profiles of who the best prospects will be.

Of course, when approaching the cold market, there is also the option to purchase marketing lists – where you have the ability to drill down to specific information – such as turnover, size of business, number of years in business, number of employees, demo and geographics etc – however, you still have to establish the ‘profile’ of who you are looking for – based from your own knowledge, which is likely to be gleaned from experiences with your own customers. 

Right Message

There are many tactics and ideas for making your direct mail piece ‘stand out’.   And indeed some businesses spend enormous amounts of money on their direct mail – and go to extreme lengths to ‘make an impact’ – sending chocolates, lollies, cakes and all matter of goodies as part of their direct mail campaigns. 

It’s worth remembering that what customers are really looking for is relevance – they are far more likely to respond to a mailing which has an offer they are interested in, than to one which has a great design or gimmick, but is of no relevance to them.

Indeed, it’s easy to get carried away with the ‘attention catching gimmicks’ – this is the fun stuff.   And whilst the ‘whacky’ designs may catch attention – what all direct mail experts agree on is the importance of ‘the sales letter’.

Experts agree that in writing the sales letter the key is to ‘plan ahead’.  And 90% of the thinking should happen before those eager fingers start tapping at the keypad.

The focus of the letter is to win new business.  Some key tips to follow when crafting your letter:

• Be yourself – personalise the letter as much as you can and demonstrate a sound knowledge of your audience’s business dynamics and a clear understanding of the obstacles they face.  If the reader believes you have empathy with their situation – they are far more likely to continue reading.
• Don’t talk too much about yourself – readers are interested in what you can do for them – not what you do.  Focus on the opportunities your products and services present for them.
• Use the words ‘you’ and ‘your’ as much as possible and minimise the ‘we’s’.  This will warm up your letter considerably.
• Use sub-heads, bullet points and highlighted or bold text to convey key points.
• Be very direct about your offer – and get the value proposition or the offer in quick.  If you can save them £500 immediately – then tell them this in the headline.  And of course, repeat the offer again, half way through the letter – don’t let them miss the opportunity.
• Make it easy for people to buy – have clear instruction of how to take advantage of the offer; ‘simply phone Jack on ….’, ‘simply send back the enclosed prepaid response card’.
• Be sure to keep your response mechanisms simple and provide a few response options.  Don’t stipulate that orders must be done ‘online’ – as that may present an obstruction to buy. 

Right Time

A key aspect to Direct Mail is ‘timing’.  It’s very difficult to know exactly when your target customer is ‘ready to buy’.  Of course, there may be some seasonal opportunities which determine an opportune ‘direct mail’ time – and so consider this when planning.  But that still doesn’t provide any guarantees.

Timing is exactly why ‘one hit wonders’ are extremely rare – if evident at all.  More often than not – deciding ‘when to mail’ is more of a case of what you can internally manage and resource.

And that’s fine – provided that you don’t plan on doing mailers in ‘isolation’.  By this I mean – that you do not attempt to attain the elusive ‘one hit wonder’ – but instead plan a Direct Mail Campaign – or an integrated marketing campaign of which direct mail is one component.

Regular communication is the only solution to the ‘right time’ problem.  Even with sophisticated consumer behaviourial profiling, knowing just ‘when’ a customer is ready to buy – requires skills beyond the realms of our 5 senses.  

Even if your offer is amazingly compelling – for many of the people you mail, it may simply be a case that now is just not the right time for them.  However, 6 months down the line – it may be the perfect time for them.  And so – regular communication allows you to build ‘share of mind’, loyalty, and eventually ‘hit the mark’.

Let’s think about it this way.  Research in ‘sales activity’ tells us that the optimum number of times you need to ask the customer to buy in order to gain a positive result is 7.   And of course, your direct mail piece is effectively a ‘remote sales man’ trying to win over your chosen target.  This tells us that regular communication is necessary to achieve the end objective.  It’s a bit of a numbers game (which Capital One by the level of the direct mail activity must know all about!).
Learn from your activity

The bottom line exists – and so you need to measure success.  Did the campaign fulfill its objectives; achieve the desired results, all within the set budget?   

The key to ongoing successful campaigns is that of monitoring responses.  Like many things in life – the more you do it – the better you get at it.  The same applies to Direct Mail. 

Over time you’ll learn which targets respond to which messages and of course, you’ll be able to monitor any particular ‘response’ patterns too – giving you a valuable insight into the ‘Right Time’.

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The Marketing Mix is a term used to describe the combination of tactics used by businesses to achieve its objectives by marketing its services or products effectively to a specific target audience.

For many years, in marketing jargon, this was referred to as ‘the 4 Ps’ – namely; product, price, promotion and place.

The logic behind the ‘4 Ps’ is to apply a tactic that focuses on marketing the ‘right product’ to the ‘right person’ at the ‘right price’ in the ‘right place’ and at the ‘right time’.

Once you’ve identified your target audience – then the ‘4 Ps’ provide you with a simple process to follow to ensure that you’ve got your marketing proposition right. For example, let’s say we want to market umbrellas – and have decided to target schoolchildren. Given our audience it would therefore be appropriate to market:

• Coloured, cartoon character covered, small size umbrellas (product)
• At a low price (price)
• Selling them through school uniform outlets (place)
• Promoting them through point of sale / school book bags (promotion)

Let’s now say that our target audience is gentleman’s smart umbrellas

• Black, high quality, business like, oversized umbrellas (product)
• Premium price reflecting the quality (price)
• Selling them through gentleman’s clothes outlets, tailors (place)
• Promoting them through point of sale, possibly relevant trade press (promotion)

The above examples clearly show that identifying your target audience, determines how you apply the ‘4 Ps’ tactic.

So let’s look at the ‘4 Ps’ a little more closely – and then I’ll introduce some more ‘Ps’ for you to consider.

Product

Marketing is about many things – but in its simplest explanation, it’s about identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs. Therefore, you need to be sure that your products and services continue to meet your customers’ needs – and perhaps even ‘delight’ them!

To keep on top of how your products and services are performing, it’s good practice to periodically carry out customer research asking your customers:

• What they think of your product/service
• How satisfied they are with the quality
• What they think of your support services (if appropriate)
• Are you meeting their needs
• What else could you be doing

Be sure to ask these questions for each service or product you provide – and have a system for collecting and analysing feedback.

I have worked with a number of businesses that do extensive customer research, find out some great product and service enhancements – but then don’t actually ‘implement’ anything in line with what the customers are saying they want.

If you are going to go to the trouble of undertaking research – be sure it has a purpose. And be sure that you are going to use the information to further enhance your products and services. It’s also really good practice to provide your customers with an update of ‘why’ you are updating, enhancing your products or services.

“Thank you to all customers that kindly participated in telling us what they thought of our A Product”. We received excellent ideas and really constructive feedback. In light of which we have developed Product A so that it now includes XYZ.”

A statement such as the above provides your customers with the open knowledge that you are ‘listening’ to their needs and ‘responding’ respectively – the mark of a truly marketing focused organisation.

Place

Place relates to your means of distribution. Depending on whether you provide products directly to the consumer (B2C) or directly to other businesses (B2B) is likely to impact your pricing and promotion decisions.

You may be selling through wholesalers, direct to retail outlets, or direct to the consumer. If selling to wholesalers, then there are likely to be ‘mark up’ costs to cover their overheads, similarly with retail outlets. And from a promotional perspective, wholesalers and retailers will have to be persuaded to stock your products and services. It may be that you have an online presence, and may be selling directly to consumers ‘online’ – so you may be advertising with search engines and on related websites.

Price

Price determines your profit and is therefore, a very important element of the mix. And probably the most influenced by the other elements of the mix. Place impacts price, promotion impacts price as does product.

When determining ‘price’ you need to consider:

a) Your target audience. What will they be prepared to pay for your product or service. Going back to the umbrella example above, children’s umbrellas say, £4.99 Gent’s umbrellas £9.99. There’s a clear difference between the ‘price positioning’ of these two offerings.

b) Costs. What does it cost you to produce this product or service? This is key – you don’t want to be selling a product and making a loss. Consider the margins you want to make – how many you have to sell to break-even. Map out all the costs associated with production. There are a number of hidden costs that come out of the woodwork – and if you don’t calculate what it costs you to produce your product correctly, the more you sell, the more you will lose!

c) Competitors. Look at what your competitors are charging. Go online and run a quick ‘Google’ search on the type of product or service you provide – and see the costs. Even call competitors for a price if costs are not readily displayed.

Promotion

Traditionally, the promotional mix was made up as follows:

• Advertising
• Sales promotion
• Public relations
• Direct marketing
• Personal selling

And how you used these elements depends on your message, your reach (target audience) and of course, your budget.

Of course, there are a whole new tranche of ‘promotional’ elements to consider now too. I refer to these as ‘Social Media’ – and whilst one could argue that these fall into the ‘Advertising’ or ‘PR’ categories, I prefer to outline some of the popular ‘online’ angles for you to consider:

• Blogs / forums
• Email marketing
• E-Newsletters
• Websites
• Social Networks
• Search Advertising

3 More Ps

The ‘4 Ps’ have provided a tried and tested tactic for marketers over the years. However, in the late 70s – came the rise of the ‘service’ organisation. Marketers then developed the ‘4 Ps’ further to create ‘7 Ps’ – including, People, Process and Physical Evidence.

People

You can clearly understand that in a service organisation – people determine the quality of service your customers receive. Where people are the front line communicators, it’s important that they are happy, skilled and motivated. A happy team makes for happy customers.

Indeed, in a saturated and competitive market place, service is usually the only means for an organisation to differentiate itself. Think of Apple. Their service level is amazing. Ok, they have good products too – but so indeed do Dell. However, from my experience of being both a MAC user and a PC user – from my perspective, Dell doesn’t come close to Apple’s service levels.

And of course, the level of service you provide can often mean that you can charge a more premium price. Customers are likely to pay more for excellent service levels.

So here are some tips for creating a happy, skilled and motivated team:

• Recruit wisely. Be transparent with the level of service you expect from your team at the interview process. Recruit those that are enthusiastic, motivated and that you can see have a clear understanding of how important their role in keeping customers happy is.
• Train your team. Provide a good induction to your products and services – ensure that your team member understands what it is you do, what you offer and who does what within the organisation.
• Look after your team. Nurture them, get them involved. In fact, get them to set some service standards; key measurements that they want to be assessed against. These Key Performance Indicators – are then something that you can measure and monitor and discuss with your team on a regular basis.

Process

The processes involved in delivering your products and services to the customer have an impact on the way in which your customers perceive you.

Be sure that you map out these processes to ensure they are logical and not causing unnecessary delay or inconvenience for the customer.

Consider how you communicate with your customers and how easy it is for them to communicate with you. I recently worked with a business (and they are not alone in this practice) that sent post transaction confirmation emails from the customer support team from a ‘no reply’ email address. The email was asking the customer to contact them if they had any challenges etc – yet had no contact details within it – and the customer couldn’t just simply reply to the email.

My question to them was ‘how does that look to the customer’? You’re communicating with them, yet giving them no means to respond. Getting your customers to communicate with you should be simple and easy.

My advice is to review your business processes on a regular basis. Review how things are working and look at ways to ‘tighten up’ any gaps.

Re-engineer your processes to keep a pace with the business environment. Be sure to check that the way you deliver your products and services is the most efficient, cost effective and customer centric way possible.

Physical Evidence

Physical evidence is the term used to describe the image that your business portrays to the external environment in a physical way. Namely; premises, team appearance, car park, vehicles, reception area etc, effectively, how you position your business.

When customers do not have anything that they can touch, see or try before they buy, they are more likely to assess you by the image and associations you portray.

I personally explain ‘physical evidence’ as part of an organisations ‘brand values’. What is communicated physically, says everything about the brand – and therefore, your business. Customers are building a mental picture which they will retain from the moment they are introduced to your business. So it’s important that your physical evidence is consistent with the type of product or service you provide.

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Once you’ve agreed the type of information that you are going to collect, and created the relevant fields for your database.  The next stage is to input or import the data.

Until your database is well established, it is wise to give responsibility to one individual for overall Database Management.  This Database Manager will set up a ‘protocol’ for how data should be entered, which fields have to be filled, and is responsible for the deletion or addition of entries.

It is also important to regularly ‘clean’ your database.  If a mailing is returned marked ‘gone away’ be sure that your database is ‘up-dated’ accordingly.  Aim for your database to be 99% accurate at all times.

The platform for your Marketing activities

Once your database is established it becomes the focal point for all your marketing activities.

All too often businesses embark on marketing activities without having an efficient means of delivery.  With a sturdy and accurate database in place, marketing activities are far more successful, as the method of communication is easy. 

Also – email marketing had rapidly grown and is now a key marketing tool. In fact for many businesses it’s the preferred communication medium. It’s an efficient and inexpensive way to communicate with customers. 

Further, why not add a fun element to your database – which also lets your customer think that you are thinking of them.  It is likely you will hold dates of birth – why not schedule a simple ‘Happy Birthday’ email.

Your database is the nerve centre for all your marketing activities, providing you with a means to apply tactics to nurture your customers and capture prospective ones.

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If you were set the task of mailing all of your customers to advise them of, let’s say, a seminar you were running – how simple a task would that be?

Ideally, it shouldn’t be a problem at all – because you would hold your entire customer’s contact information and their preference as to how they want you to communicate with them (email or mail).  The pulling of the distribution list together should be simple – put the mailer together, merge with your customer base and press print or send.  The real effort should be focused on getting the seminar together and creating the marketing campaign. 

However, for many businesses, communicating with customers just isn’t that simple. 

In many businesses there are a number of ‘databases’ relating to different products or services.  Therefore, the total customer base is spread across different platforms and often fragmented – and it then becomes a considerable task to  pull together the entire customer base onto one centralised electronic database – the core marketing hub.

However, that’s what’s needed for efficient and effective customer management and effective marketing.
Building your marketing database

To build your marketing database, start with the basics and then add on the information that is of particular interest to your business.  Be sure to keep your database simple though – you need to be able to retrieve data quickly.

1. Customer Identity and Characteristics
* All names, addresses and telephone numbers
* Business: Type of business, number of employees, key personnel, current customer or  prospective customer.
* Consumer: Sex, date of birth, family members, hobbies.
2. Service Requested/Special Requests/Interests
* Services purchased
* Complaints
* Enquiries, Instructions, Agreements
3. Recency /Frequency / Monetary Factors
* Recency = when customer last bought your service
* Frequency = how often they buy
* Monetary = how much they spend on what
4. Media that influenced Transaction
* Advertising, Direct Mail, Tele Sales, Publicity
5. A History of Customer Relationship
* The information gathered will give you a complete history of your customer  relationship.
* You will be in a position to contact customers on a personal basis, through the most  appropriate medium.
6. Your Return on Advertising and Sales Budgets
* By recording all transactions in your database, including the medium that stimulated it,  you can break down the return you get from all advertising and marketing activity.

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