Direct Mail

The Number 1 Direct Mail Marketing Mistake

Subject Line Mistakes

The Number 1 Direct Mail Marketing Mistake

Over the past 30 years we have seen a lot of direct mail, from great to horrible. We often get asked what the number one direct mail marketing mistake is. There can be a wide variety of mistakes that not only give you a low response rate but can cost you a lot of money. Rather than highlight a bunch of different issues and provide a short solution, we are going to go in depth on the number one issue we see over and over again.

Direct Mail Marketing Mistake:

Creating a direct mail piece that does not have a clear call to action with messaging to support it.

Without a clear call to action, your direct mail is just trash. Your prospects and customers need to know what it is they are supposed to do as well as understand what you are selling. You can avoid this mistake by creating your direct mail with them in mind.

What to do:

  • Create a simple call to action and state exactly what you want them to do to respond to your offer.
  • Provide multiple ways to respond by phone, email, website, PURL, QR code and so on.
  • Focus on what benefits them. Why they have to have what you are offering and how they can easily get it from you.
  • Don’t tell them how great and shiny it is, tell them that they will never experience anything else like it and with real relevant examples.
  • Use bullet points to highlight key takeaways. Do not get too wordy.
  • Don’t try to sell them everything you offer, focus on one thing per mailing.
  • Use testimonials from happy customers.
  • Find images that help you convey your message, but do not over take your mailing.

If you have a clear and focused call to action, with a message sent to the correct targeted group of people, your direct mail will be successful. Direct mail can be a very powerful marketing tool when used correctly. Be creative, focused and targeted to drive your response rates up with your next direct mail campaign. Don’t make this direct mail marketing mistake ever again.

As always, the most expensive part of direct mail is postage, so you need to design your mail pieces with postal regulations in mind. You don’t want to waste extra money on postage when you could have made changes before printing. Send us a PDF of your design and we can make sure that it is good to go.

If you have any questions contact us today. We are glad to help!