Creating the perfect piece of Direct Mail for your next campaign can be a daunting task, but there has never been a better time to send Direct Mail than right now. The amount of post that people receive is down so your advertisement has less noise to shout over and more people are at home, ensuring people are guaranteed to see it. But how do you create the perfect piece of Direct Mail? Here are our top tips to optimise your ROI.
At a glance:
- The Offer
- Call To Action
- Standing out from the crowd
- Pick the right format for you
- Choose the right images
The offer
The offer is everything in a Direct Mail campaign. It is the worm on the hook that will catch the customer. So it’s essential to make your offer:
- Tantalising – Ensure your offer is a good deal. Everyone loves a deal but it’s pointless offering £5 off a £100,000 item. Free delivery or money off are always great offers.
- Prominent – It’s ineffective having a great offer but hiding it in size ten font on the back page. Put your offer on the front cover in large font, and if your budget allows it, draw attention to it with foil or UV spot varnish.
If you stick to the above rules, your offer will catch the readers attention. But how do you reel them in? (Yes I am sticking with this fishing analogy.) Use a great CTA.
Call to action
You have piqued the readers’ interest with an excellent offer now it’s time to seal the deal with a brilliant call to action. Offline marketing call to actions are a little different from their digital counterparts. Digital call to actions usually revolves around clicking a button. This, however, can also be done on a piece of direct mail see below:
But this type of direct mail is not for everyone so what call to actions can you use on a more traditional piece of Direct Mail? They usually instruct customers to go to a webpage. But call to actions don’t just have to be “GO TO BLAH BLAH”. You can enhance your call to action by making it as easy as possible by including technology within your Direct Mail.
QR codes are the easiest way of getting people to a webpage. By now everyone knows what QR codes are and how to use them. Royal Mail’s own research has found that people are using QR codes more and more.
Example of CTA: Scan me, you know you want to!
Make sure your customer is APPY. Not that is not a spelling mistake. If you have your own app, you can use visual markers on the direct mail piece to activate anything on the app. You could have many different triggers on the direct mail that will enable different scenarios. One could open a video; another could add credit to the customers’ account. This option requires the customer to have your app so works best for customer reactivation.
Example of CTA: Scan me with your (company name) app and watch me come to life!
Stand out from the crowd
Now you have got your offer and call to action it’s time to make your Direct Mail stand out from the rest. One of our favourite ways of doing this is to personalise the piece of Direct Mail. Personalising the advert could hold the recipients’ attention long enough to have a positive impact and convert them. You can personalise the mail by:
- Use the recipients’ name in the main copy. Doing this can increase the time a person reads for dramatically.
- Remind the customer of the products they have bought. This again is an excellent technique for customer reactivation. Show similar products they might like and so on.
- Include content that is relevant to them as individuals. If you have segmented your customer database to include hobbies, birthdays etc. can again increase conversion rates.
Using personalisation can help you stand out from the crowd and improve your relationship with your customers, addressing them by name and using their likes and interests in the copy will enforce the fact that you value your customers.
Pick the right format for you
Choosing the right format for your campaign can be crucial to its success or failure. Padding out your copy to brochure length when an A4 folded letter would suffice will guarantee people won’t engage with your mail. There are a plethora of formats you can choose from, so choose wisely. Brochures let you tell a story. Leaflets allow you to make your messaging punchy and grab attention quickly. Fold-out formats such as roll folds allow you to tell a short story and include lots of imagery to grab attention.
Choose the right images
Did someone say imagery? Images are worth a thousand words and using them again will increase your chances of converting the recipient. We hope you already know to use images that are in focus and don’t forget to save them as 300 dpi and not 72 dpi as print is a higher resolution than screens.
Poor quality images will cheapen your brand and should be thought of as an asset and not an afterthought. Images of people using your products are always a good starting point. Investing in good quality images allow you to use them across platforms and offers consistency for your campaign.
Conclusion
Those were our tips for creating the perfect piece of Direct Mail. If you would like more tips or advice, then speak to one of our marketing consultants on 0207 022 9825.
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