To draw in new customers or drum up business with established ones, a small-to-medium sized business can't afford to overlook direct-mail marketing. It's affordable, highly targeted and fairly easy to do. You can either hire a direct-mail agency or a print broker, or you can create the mailer yourself. A successful mailing must reach the right person, be read by that person and persuade that person to buy something or to be open to receiving a follow-up call from your company.

The purchase of an outside list of names and addresses distinguishes bona-fide direct-mail campaigns from ordinary mailings. Mailing regularly to your existing database of customers and prospects is a good way to reactivate accounts, uncover new leads and generate new business from customers. All you need for an in-house mail campaign is a customer or prospect database, postage and enough motivation to get the mail out the door.

The beauty of direct mail is that you never have to waste a lot of money because testing is very easy. You simply mail your initial package to a select group in small numbers. That way, unsuccessful packages don't turn into costly mistakes. Before you mail any big numbers — with their associated big costs — you'll know approximately to what extent your package will draw a response, and also if it will be successful.

Any direct-mail programme starts with three basic components: an audience, a message, and a mode. Let’s examine each of these components separately.

Who are you trying to reach? What common traits and characteristics does the audience share? Do you want to target existing customers or new ones? What are they like? Try to be as specific as possible. Knowing your audience is crucial when putting together a mailing list and creating a successful direct-mail piece.

Example: Paint companies looking for new customers could reach all the painting contractors in their area by sending a direct mailer to every address, but they would waste postage on a lot of unqualified prospects. Targeted direct mail, on the other hand — both postal and electronic — reaches a more select audience and a more receptive reader.

Your list must be as targeted, accurate and current as possible. You can purchase lists from list-rental companies, magazine publishers, membership directories of trade, special interest, or local organizations, public records, and even the phone book.

Example: In the case of the paint company, wouldn’t it help to have a list of names and addresses of companies that ordered supplies and equipment from the largest retail paint store in the area? How about access to a list of people who expressed interest in new painting products and also asked to look at new information about those products? Lots of mailing list providers sell both prepackaged and specially developed lists that answer these types of questions. Mailing list providers also sell lists with demographics tailored to the target audience you want to reach.

Whether you use your own list or rent one, be sure it's been updated recently. Make sure no names are duplicated, and check for typos and incorrect postal codes. When use First Class or Standard Mail A, your undeliverable mail can be returned to you, so you can use it to clean your list.

What is the message you want to send to your targeted mailing list? Every message is different, but effective direct mail copy contains a few universal elements.

It's as simple as D-I-R-E-C-T:

D. Direct. Get to the point, and don't waste the reader's time. Tell the most important message first.
I. Insight. Do your homework and know your audience. Don't try to sell denture cream to teenagers or peddle tractors to urbanites.
R. Respect. Be respectful in tone and content. Don't insult or intimidate the reader.
E. Educate. Be informative. Share knowledge and communicate value.
C. Creative. In printed material, use graphics, photos and colours to highlight your message. Online, stick with simple text that transmits easily, avoid bandwidth-hogging images or exotic typefaces.
T. Think ahead. Anticipate the reader's questions and answer them in your message.
You want your message to be meaningful and succinct. If your message can fit on a postcard, send one. Postcards are the most inexpensive type of direct mail, and the recipients don't even have to open an envelope to read your message.

It's not difficult to use the postal service as a sales vehicle. All you need is a printer, some postage and a little elbow grease. But extracting maximum value from your mail campaign can be a little more difficult. You can start from scratch and learn the practical lessons the hard way through trial and error, or you can follow these four simple rules to get off to a running start. It's partly a matter of common sense and postal pragmatism:

1. Mail postcards instead of letters whenever possible. Even though it's cheaper than a letter, a postcard actually stands a better chance of catching your prospect's eye than an enclosed letter does. That's because it requires little or no effort to read a well-designed postcard, while someone has to take the trouble to open a letter to see what's inside.

To get the most impact from your postcards, use brightly coloured card stock and a large typeface. Don't make the mistake of jamming too much copy onto a small space. The most important thing to remember about mailing postcards is that they crumple. Use the heaviest card stock your budget will allow.

2. Establish a consistent look and feel. Since repetition is a key element of direct-mail campaigns, it's important that your mailings leverage your company's identity or brand. Display your logo and tag lines consistently, and stick to a limited palette of fonts whether the mailing is an invitation, a coupon or a traditional sales letter. Coordinate the look and feel of your mailing materials with other company documents. Big and small organizations are often guilty of manipulating their company identity to fit specific sales campaigns and particular needs. In the long run this confuses customers and prospects.

3. Create a mailing calendar. Give some thought to planning the arrival of your mailers. If you can avoid mailing around the holidays, you should. Don't send two mailings to the same customer at the same time -- even if the mailings are for completely different purposes. If you need to send two mailings, alternate their schedule or combine the materials into a single mailing. Doubling up on mail to the same customers and prospects is annoying and gives the impression that one part of your company doesn't know what the other parts are doing.

4. Learn as you go. Once your mailing is out, learn from it. It's better to start small and increase subsequent mailings based on your success. Code all special offers and promotions so you can track which direct mailings work and which ones don't. Ask customers how they heard about your sale, your promotion or your company, and record the data. Refer to your direct-mail tracking data before you send out future mailings.

No one knows your market and prospects better than you do. You have all the information you need right in your head. But sometimes it can be difficult to get those creative juices flowing.

First, write down the most widespread problems your prospects face on a day-to-day basis. Begin with a question or statement that directly addresses the most pressing issue you can think of. Immediately grabbing the reader's attention greatly increases your letter's chances of escaping the wastebasket or delete button. Once you have their attention, tell them how you can solve their problem with your product or service.

Use headlines that address the prospect's problems throughout the letter to keep their attention. Address only their most urgent concerns with headlines. Think in terms of their greatest fears, worries and goals.

A good direct-mail letter engages the reader's interest in the benefits of your product or service long enough to read your call to action. Remember your goal is to generate interest — or, better yet, business.

You must tell people what you want them to do and how they'll benefit. Better yet, make them an offer they can't refuse. Special offers — particularly time-sensitive ones — help get responses. For example, "Save 15 percent on your purchase by ordering before May 3rd!" tells prospects they can save money if they act by a certain date. Remember, it's easier to get people to call you than send something back to you. If you require that customers return an order form or something else via mail, include a pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelope.

Of all the sales prospecting tools you will use throughout your company's life span, a direct-mail package can be one of the most effective. If you can assemble the necessary information in an appealing package, you will warm up your new prospects and increase your likelihood of making a sale before you even speak to your new clients. In essence, you are selling yourself in print, and the product comes later.

The sole purpose of a direct-mail package is to generate a response from a client or prospect: place a call, send in an order form or request more information. Let’s look at some of the key elements of a successful direct-mail package.

1. The Front of the Envelope or Postcard

The function of the envelope is similar to a storefront: excite reluctant potential customers enough to come inside. Tempt them. Tease them. The envelope should be designed in every way to make the prospect open it.

If you think of your direct-mail package as your ad, the envelope would be your headline. Teaser copy, the few lines written on the envelope, is your one chance to get it opened. Keeping within the guidelines of legality and good taste is the only requirement. After that, use whatever works. If it doesn't work, your great offer will get trashed without being opened. Then carry the theme of that teaser copy inside and start your letter with it.

Some examples of great hooks include: "Free Gift Enclosed!", "New Prices Enclosed!", and "Gift Certificate Enclosed!".

Postcards work well because:

• They are inexpensive to print, at 1/3 or 1/4 of a sheet of paper or less.
• They may be printed on the same sheet as the letter, the catalog or the order form for extra savings in printing costs.
• They ship flat and add very little weight to your mailing package.
• They're much more upscale than coupons.
• They have a high “perceived” value.
• They are cheap to redeem; in fact, they have no cost until redemption.
• They may be targeted to specific merchandise or offers — good for overstock or high margin items.
• They are naturally easy to track.

2. The Cover Letter

A cover letter can be the most important and powerful part of a direct-mail package. Its pulling power is so strong that there are times a letter can work without any brochure or backup material.

The letter that you compose won't be a real letter, in the true sense of the word. A letter is a personal piece of correspondence you write and send to one or two people. When you send it to 10, 10,000 or 10 million people, and it's designed to sell your product, it's really a highly stylised ad designed to look like a letter.

The letter is the part of your mailing package your potential customers read. They may look at your brochure, but they read the letter. And if it's good, it's perceived as a personal note from you to them. For maximum effectiveness and believability, your letter must look like a letter. The more it looks like a piece of personal business correspondence, the better your response will be.

It’s also the place to sell the benefits of owning and using your products. This is where your powerful benefits generate the response, which is the objective of the letter. You generate a call by flaunting the benefits, then asking the reader for a response in the letter copy several times.

If the reader doesn't respond in some fashion, your package didn't work. Throughout your letter, weave explicit directions leading readers directly down the path to respond. Direct mail is, after all, a game of numbers. Use anything you can — within the realm of legality and good taste — to make that one additional reader in 100 pick up the phone and call. There is a big difference between three readers in 100 calling to place orders and four readers in 100 calling.

3. The Brochure

Your brochure gives you the opportunity to show the features of your product or services, and becomes important for three reasons. People who are serious about your product want more information and will read it. So here the brochure becomes the clincher in the sale — the last push to make that one person in 100 pick up the phone and call to place an order. Second, your brochure gives you added credibility. You can tell prospects in your cover letter that the hotel they will be staying at is beautiful, but imagine how much more convincing it will be when you show them the pictures of the pool and the veranda in the brochure. Finally, with this additional and less personal selling space, you can show all the features of your product you didn't have the space for in your letter. If your product has many great features, it's best to list them in bulleted fashion in the brochure. Most readers will stop to read bulleted lists, because of the time savings.

Crisp printing and sharp design are important elements of a successful brochure. If the price of developing a colour brochure is a concern for you, a black-and-white data sheet or a new product bulletin is a low-cost form of brochure that may fit into your budget. Some industries, especially the electronics industry, use a data sheet for all new products. These brochures typically include a line drawing or photo and information about the features. Try to sneak in as many benefits as you can without creating a boring data sheet. Use a typeface other than the one you used in your letter so it looks typeset.

4. Reply Vehicle

Face it, the easiest response to generate is a phone call. It's instant gratification for the reader, and with a charge card, it's money in the bank for you. In addition, it's much easier to sell a prospect on the phone than from a sheet of paper. You can get feedback; you can find out what the customer wants or dislikes; you can joke around; and you can even ask prying questions to find out how serious the buyer is. You can make special offers or pricing considerations.

A business reply card, or BRC, can be used to solicit non-ordering responses, such as a request for more information or to have a representative call. BRCs are not as effective when one is seeking payment at the time the order is placed. A reply envelope and an order form are desired when payment is desired up front. On your order form, make sure you say on the top what it is: "Rush Order Form." This is also a good place to include a guarantee. Up at the top, let them know it's an order form right away by including the words, "___YES! I'd like to order! Rush me x,y,z." Also, don't forget to put your name and address on this form in case it gets separated from the package.

If your mailing envelope has a window, the mailing label should be affixed to the order form and then be designed to show through the window. This makes it even easier for the recipient to order by mail, which helps overcome the law of reader inertia: A body at rest tends to stay at rest unless everything is laid out to make it easy to order.

Be sure to read each article with the mindset “How could this apply to our business.” Thinking of it that way will guarantee that you get value. Better yet, take notes as you read and commit to having the ideas implemented by the time the next edition arrives. Also, make copies for each team member. To really make sure something positive happens, work with your business development specialist to talk your team through the ideas and how to set a schedule for getting them implemented. We’re here to help you get started.

She doesn’t want to touch it. She doesn’t want to smell it. She doesn’t want to hear it. Lord love her. She’s a Mail Order Freak.

--Jim Fishel, direct-mail specialist

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