Hints and Tips Archives | Page 3 of 3

Four basic direct mail tips

One of the deciding factors to why your business should use direct mail as part of your communication strategy is the customer is going to look at it, even if it is to dismiss it. In that 5-10 second glimpse you have the opportunity to grab their attention and connect with them.

The type of direct mail you use, letters, postcards, brochures, invitations, leaflets etc. will determine the layout and content of the mail piece. However there four common features they should all include:

An attention grabbing headline

This needs to entice them to read more. Make it relevant to their needs, there is no point sending them a flyer on your latest offer of dog food if they don’t own a dog.

Tell them a bit about what you’re promoting

The content and offer will depend on your objectives, it may be an opportunity to reconnect with lapsed customers, promoting a new product or providing interesting content. Remember to make the offer inviting and again relevant to that customer.

Shout about your call to action

Your customer is still interested at this point so your call to action needs to be clear on what you want them to do next. Do you want them to contact you, are you going to call them, do they need to sign up online? Make it as easy as possible for them.

Don’t forget your details

If this is a reconnecting campaign then your companies contact details need to be prominent, it can be frustrating if you’re interested in a particular offer but don’t know how to contact the company!

If you design your mail piece with these four features in mind then you should be on to a winner, although remember the key point (mentioned a few times above) the message and offer needs to be relevant to your audience. This has a lot to do with your marketing list, whether it is your own customer database or a prospect list. Segmenting and targeting your campaign to an appropriate audience will help deliver a better ROI.

To find out how to cleanse your customer database and purchase similar prospect data get in touch with our team on 0845 345 7755 for an instant free no obligation quote.

Email marketing simplified

New to email marketing? Not sure where to start or how to make your email stand out in the crowd? With an average of 80 emails being received per person per day (Radicati) creating an engaging email for your reader to not only open but read and act on with either make or break your email campaign.

At MarketingFile we wanted to help with your next email marketing campaign, so have compiled 6 easy to follow steps on how to create a great email:

Targeting– send the right message, to the right person at the right time. Irrelevant messages will only hurt your brand making you look like someone who cannot plan properly. Also, add in personalisation for them and use their name – although make sure your data is up to date and correct!

Offering – tell your readers in as few words as possible what you are offering and how it can benefit them. Stay clear of telling them the features, readers will want to know how it can improve their daily lives. This should be clear and precise, don’t give them mixed or confusing messages.

Personalise – tell your reader who the email is from, test against using a company name a personal name to see which works better with your audience. This will depend on whether you’re targeting business or consumers.

Subject lines – clear and accurate letting the reader know what they will find once they open the email. Do not deceive your readers, you will only lead them to disappointment and get your email deleted

Call to action – use obvious, clear and focused call to actions. Keeping them above the fold, where the reader has to scroll down the page, and keep them next to your offering to identify what the reader will receive for clicking your CTA. Ensure the process behind the call to action is just as simple as long forms or difficult to navigate pages can put off your reader very quickly.

Unsubscribe – you might not want them to, but as a legal requirement you need to include the option for them to unsubscribe. However, turn this into a positive and ask why they are unsubscribing – you might find you are sending too many irrelevant emails (we hope not with the above points) so get them to change their preferences before unsubscribing. But remember you can’t stop them, and once they are off do not email them again!

If you have any more questions about email marketing or want to set up your own email marketing campaign please get in touch with us on 0845 345 7755 today.

How to get your content just right

As a direct marketing agency we receive the latest magazines with news and updates on today’s marketing environment. Recently we came across an article in The Marketer magazine from the CIM which included 6 really useful tips on content marketing from Richard Fitzmaurice, CMO at the TMF Group.

Content writing is still a very hot topic and probably will be while companies figure out how to make it work for their own products and services. The below tips should help you work out how to create engaging and useful content for your own readers to make the most of.

Producing relevant and read worthy content for your businesses products and services will in turn lead to unified messages for your marketing material and activities. Once you have your basic content written this can be applied (with tweaking) across a multitude of platforms such as websites, advertisements, PR, promotional material and direct marketing activity.

These are the 6 tips from Richard, with our own take on each one;

Where possible, have a narrative

As the tip suggests, telling your readers a story will keep them engaged in what you have to say. Take it to the next level and write content which elicits a response, make it a two way conversation.

Have purpose

Don’t produce content which doesn’t provide a purpose, which ever platform you decide to publish your content on there will always be competition. Give your readers something they need and will remember.

The best content does not need a sales pitch

If you are writing content for purely knowledge and advice then don’t tie in a sales pitch, it can just dilute the message and take away the prominence of what you’re trying to say.

If you can, ensure your content has an author

People like to know who has written the piece they are reading, for example this was written by our marketing manager. It can build a relationship up between the company and reader.

Do not assume there is a correlation between volume and effectiveness

Keep a count of how much content you are publishing, too much and it could start to look like spam.

Ensure the content is engaging

As mentioned above, your readers need to gain something from reading your content – otherwise what was the point in writing it?

Return to Sender

Although a very well-known Elvis Presley song, anyone sending out direct mail does not want to see the words “Return to Sender” on their mail items. If this is something you are seeing on your returned mail items then you need to find out about our 100% Delivery Guarantee – keep reading!

It is inevitable with any marketing list, even your own, there will be occasions where your mail item or email cannot be delivered, also known as a gone away. This process is a waste of resources, time and money, so ideally no business wants to have to pay for their undelivered items.

The reason behind undelivered mail or email items is down to old or poorly collected data. At MarketingFile we understand the importance of clean data, which should play a big part in everyone’s direct marketing activity. To help you ensure your mail or email pieces reach their intended audiences we’ve listed a few pointers on how to limit your undeliverables:

Choose your audience

Before using your own database or purchasing a list, decide who your marketing is meant for. Accurately segmenting your data and identifying a target market for your product or service is half the battle when sending direct marketing. This will also help you choose the data you need, if you don’t have it in-house then look at a mailing list provider or list broker.

Select your channel

With all direct marketing you have a range of channels to select from, the two which can provide you the highest ROI are direct mail and email marketing. Both channels have been around for decades, and there’s a reason they’re still used today – they work. Depending on your channel will help decide whether you need a mailing list or email list.

Purchasing data

Select a company who regularly updates their marketing list, are regulated by the DMA, and verifies their lists in order to guarantee a certain amount of deliverability. You will also want to know how often their data is updated and how they do this.

Clean up your data

Apart from purchasing a marketing list you may also have your own customer data, take into consideration this will also need to be cleaned on a regular basis. Ensuring your own customer data is accurate will cut down the volume of undelivered items so therefore saving time and money!

Don’t sit around

As soon as you have either purchased a list or cleaned your own use it. Data can age and people’s information can change very quickly so get your campaign out to your audience as soon as possible. The longer the data sits around more records will be going out of date, and you will have to go through the cleaning process again.

100% Delivery Guaranteed

Most importantly use direct marketing lists that offer a 100% Delivery Guarantee on all of their lists. Before you scour the internet searching, we can assure you we are the only UK direct marketing company to offer this on all of our 30 marketing lists.

Our unique offer means we will not only refund the data cost for any undeliverable mail or email item but we’ll also top that up with an additional 50p per item to cover the cost of postage.

Get in touch with our team today on 0845 345 7755 or email [email protected] for more information on our delivery guarantee and to select your marketing list today.

Category: Hints and Tips