Examples of Great Direct Mail

You may wish to call me crazy, but I look forward to getting my mail. Since I work with direct mail all the time, I like to see what others are doing. Of course, I am super critical of what I receive; looking at the condition it is in, if there is personalization, if there are errors and if it captures my attention. Every year I expect the mail people send to get better, however I am often disappointed. As marketers we need to do better! Have you been keeping an eye on your mailbox? What worked on you? I keep a stash of the ones that worked on me for reference on client projects. Let’s look at a couple of great ones.

The first example is a retention piece. It has been a while since I bought from them so they are sending me a special offer. (Always a good idea.)

Direct Mail piece #1: 6 x 9 envelope, tri-folded card with attached coupon card

The envelope was white with just my address, a return address and a tagline in red of “Very Special Offer For Summer”. The card was setup like a standard greeting card, once you open the first panel there is a personalized short greeting on the inside panel and a half size final panel on the right. To the left of the greeting was the attached coupon card with my name on it and the offer was for a free Christmas figurine when I buy one. (Buy one get one free is great!) The short panel was perfed to allow me to tear it off and share an offer with a friend. The friend offer was 50% off a Christmas figurine when they bought one. (This is a great way to extend your direct mail reach and quickly gain new customers. People decide to buy based on recommendations, who better than a friend to provide that recommendation?) Of course, I bought the figurine and I gave the other coupon to a friend who also bought one.

Retention mailings work very well. You know the purchase history and the value that customer has to you so you can make an appropriate compelling offer to get them to buy again. Have you considered doing a share with a friend offer? They work great! We highly recommend them.

Now for the second mail piece that caught my eye was a prospecting mail piece. These are harder to get people to respond to, but if you target them correctly and provide a good offer you can expect a good response rate.

Direct Mail piece #2: 6 x 11 Postcard

Now if you are like me you do not normally get excited about a postcard, but this one was different. The first thing I noticed was my name on a tackle box next to a woman fishing. (Yes I love to fish.) Normally when I get postcards selling fishing things there is always a man on the card. Not that appealing to me. This card was so much better. There was no other copy on this side of the card. When I turned it over I realized it was fully personalized with not just my name and address, but with tackle that was of interest to me. I am not a lure fisherwoman, but I get mailers all the time trying to sell me lures. This card had various bait and hooks. So the discount offer was for 25% off any of the items on the card. (Wow an offer I can use for tackle I want!)  Did I use it? Of course I did! The true advantage to personalization is that the mailer will appeal directly to the needs or wants of the recipient. This becomes a valuable piece of mail to them.

So why am I sharing my mail? Because I want to give you real life examples of mail pieces that work! They work best when they stand out and are relevant to the recipient. Are you creating your direct mail this way? When you do your ROI will show it. Are you ready to be creative and make the best direct mail piece yet? Do you have any pieces that you received that were great?