Mailshots or any Direct Marketing?
Discussion
I know that generally mailshots have a low success rate. Company I used to work for sent 120m annually and got on average a little less than 1% uptake.
However, the premise there was throw enough shit and some will stick.
Anyone with any success using small run of targetted mailings?
Any alternatives that are a bit better?
Thanks.
However, the premise there was throw enough shit and some will stick.
Anyone with any success using small run of targetted mailings?
Any alternatives that are a bit better?
Thanks.
Plotloss said:
I know that generally mailshots have a low success rate. Company I used to work for sent 120m annually and got on average a little less than 1% uptake.
However, the premise there was throw enough shit and some will stick.
Anyone with any success using small run of targetted mailings?
Any alternatives that are a bit better?
Thanks.
If they were sending 120m annually and getting less than 1% then that's smacks of desperation, and very poor list selection. Were they a re Credit Card company???
The best way is to target small, focussed lists, and you should be getting at least 3%. The real money is when you have enough customers to compile your own ('house') list. I regularly get over 20% from my company's list, so the costs are massively reduced, and the profit margins are waaaay higher!
Remember that the three most important elements of any DM campaign are:
1) The list
2) The offer
3) The delivery method
Hope that helps
Thanks for that.
The 120m mailers was even worse than Credit Card companies I'm afraid, it was Extended Warranty...
Best performing mailer from memory was 1.4% and that was Sky box insurance.
A side question.
Do any of these clever 'out of the envelope' experience mailers make any difference? You know the ones with a bit of a clever twist rather than a straight letter based mailshot?
The 120m mailers was even worse than Credit Card companies I'm afraid, it was Extended Warranty...
Best performing mailer from memory was 1.4% and that was Sky box insurance.
A side question.
Do any of these clever 'out of the envelope' experience mailers make any difference? You know the ones with a bit of a clever twist rather than a straight letter based mailshot?
Plotloss said:
A side question.
Do any of these clever 'out of the envelope' experience mailers make any difference? You know the ones with a bit of a clever twist rather than a straight letter based mailshot?
No, they will raise awareness, but there is no definitive proof that they increase response or sales.
If you're selling the end product to Self-Builders etc why not put a lead generating ad in 'Self-Builder Monthly', then you compile your own list, which you can mail as often as you like, and the response rates are much higher - 20% is achievable.
For the correct media to use, get yourself a copy of BRAD (British Rate and Data). It gives prices for all media - indoor, outdoor, web, daily papers, weekiles, monthlies, trade publications etc.
It costs about £250 a copy, but if you go to your local library they normally sell old copies for about £20. When I say 'old' I mean about 6 months old, not back in the days of Winsotn Churchill, so the costs won't have increased that much, if at all.
Plotloss said:
I know that generally mailshots have a low success rate. Company I used to work for sent 120m annually and got on average a little less than 1% uptake.
However, the premise there was throw enough shit and some will stick.
True, but the amount of time it takes to prepare hundreds (or even thousands) of letters, then the amount of money involved (apx 40 pence each) they really can be a big waste of time.
How much do you have set aside for marketing?
Is there a specific locality for your product or is it country/continent/wordl wide?
Noted on the clever mailers, just got one a year or so ago from IBM that was a crumpled bit of paper in a box and it said on it 'We appreciate that most direct mailers end up like this so we've saved you some time, which is what we do' kind of thing, which I thought was clever at the time
Dick, UK wide service, targetted intially at the South East, ideally the closer to home the better. There doesnt seem to be a short of developers in Berkshire it has to be said. Its a luxury product though.
Budget I havent given much consideration to, dont want to go mad but I am aware it costs to sell.
Dick, UK wide service, targetted intially at the South East, ideally the closer to home the better. There doesnt seem to be a short of developers in Berkshire it has to be said. Its a luxury product though.
Budget I havent given much consideration to, dont want to go mad but I am aware it costs to sell.
When it is ready I'd advise starting a small Pay Per Click advertising campaign (Google Adwords first, then Overture). The beauty being your customers find you when they are looking for information so you aren't sending them stuff on the offchance that they are in the market. My average PPC sales lead is £4. My average magazine one is £80. The only reason I don't do 100% PPC is I've run out of damn keywords.
I'd also read up on and study Search Engine Optimisation and work at this whenever you can alongside your other campaigns. The basics are write LOTS of stuff around your chosen keywords and get as many other sites to link to yours as possible.
If you are a one man band then these two should take up all of your marketing time and give you a much better return than the 'traditoinal' forms of marketing.
I'd also read up on and study Search Engine Optimisation and work at this whenever you can alongside your other campaigns. The basics are write LOTS of stuff around your chosen keywords and get as many other sites to link to yours as possible.
If you are a one man band then these two should take up all of your marketing time and give you a much better return than the 'traditoinal' forms of marketing.
So how does this adword malarky work then?
You have a list of key terms and when someone searches something that yields those key terms your site gets listed in the adword section?
How much does this cost per click?
Its the sort of thing that a lot of people will want to browse, most of which will have no intention of buying due to price if you see what I mean.
So do you pay per click or pay per click that converts?
You have a list of key terms and when someone searches something that yields those key terms your site gets listed in the adword section?
How much does this cost per click?
Its the sort of thing that a lot of people will want to browse, most of which will have no intention of buying due to price if you see what I mean.
So do you pay per click or pay per click that converts?
Plotloss said:
So how does this adword malarky work then?
You have a list of key terms and when someone searches something that yields those key terms your site gets listed in the adword section?
Yes, you choose all the keywords relevent to your product and bid on them. There are certain tricks you need to learn to get a great result, such as optimising which words to pay more for and bidding on certain related but non-specific terms.
Plotloss said:
How much does this cost per click?
It costs as much as you want it to really. IIRC with google you can start at 5 pence per keyword. It's basically an auction where the more you are willing to pay the higher up on the right-hand-side your ad appears.
Plotloss said:
Its the sort of thing that a lot of people will want to browse, most of which will have no intention of buying due to price if you see what I mean.
So do you pay per click or pay per click that converts?
That's why you do Search Engine Optimisation too. Research has proven that people looking for info click on the natural listings to the left whereas people further down the sales cycle who are more ready to buy are more likely to click on the ads to the right. You will of course always get a % of clicks which go no-where but you should find that it's still a good Return on Investment. Unfortunately you pay for all clicks, whether they convert or not.
A lot of it will be trial and error but feel free to either post on here or email me for more help if you decide to go ahead with it.
>> Edited by dick dastardly on Thursday 20th October 13:55
I'd agree with all the above - building your own mailing lists is the best way as your audience is already targeted.
Google employs a new site penalty, which can last for up to 8 months on competitive keywords, so it's a good idea to use Adwords. Use Adwords similar to mail marketing, get your pitch/ad right and your keywords properly researched (including spellings) and you could be paying as little as 19p per click.
When you get the customer to your site, you'd have some kind of form asking for their email address so that you can send them more information - this is how you build your up mail campaign DB.
Write lots of interesting content on your subject, with each page having a different keyword subject, try and repeat that keyword as many times as makes sense to the reader, you should then see some good traffic from Yahoo/MSN et al. As stated Google works slightly differently and requires you to get other sites to link to your site using your keyword in the hyperlink.
Edited to add: Experiment with Adwords first before using Overture, because Adwords is more reactive to changes, so you can change your pitch quicker if you think its going wrong - With Overture you need to get the site reviewed before the ads go live which takes around 4 days, so if you get it wrong, that's an 8 day wait!
>> Edited by schueymcfee on Thursday 20th October 14:07
Google employs a new site penalty, which can last for up to 8 months on competitive keywords, so it's a good idea to use Adwords. Use Adwords similar to mail marketing, get your pitch/ad right and your keywords properly researched (including spellings) and you could be paying as little as 19p per click.
When you get the customer to your site, you'd have some kind of form asking for their email address so that you can send them more information - this is how you build your up mail campaign DB.
Write lots of interesting content on your subject, with each page having a different keyword subject, try and repeat that keyword as many times as makes sense to the reader, you should then see some good traffic from Yahoo/MSN et al. As stated Google works slightly differently and requires you to get other sites to link to your site using your keyword in the hyperlink.
Edited to add: Experiment with Adwords first before using Overture, because Adwords is more reactive to changes, so you can change your pitch quicker if you think its going wrong - With Overture you need to get the site reviewed before the ads go live which takes around 4 days, so if you get it wrong, that's an 8 day wait!
>> Edited by schueymcfee on Thursday 20th October 14:07
DM can be hugely successful. Whilst often expensive on a per unit basis, it can deliver very high (>20%) response. I couldn't give you specific information/advice without reviewing the full brief (and in the same way couldn't suggest serious alternatives), but there are three things you should really consider.
Objectives
Obviously your ultimate objective is additional sales, but what would you consider an actual result? It might be placing your brand under their nose, getting them to make contact (and on your 'solid gold' mailing list), or get them to your website (and bookmark it).
You might also consider whether results are actually measurable. I'll come back to this later with an example.
It's also important to integrate it within your overall marketing programme (and the website can be very useful for this).
Targetting
As mentioned, crucial. Untargetted mail is wasted mail. Money saved here can be spent on a better proposition.
I once did a door-drop campaign for a company using a postal mailing list. The client failed to cleanse the list of addresses that they couldn't supply, and addresses that they already supplied. We later worked out that it would have been cheaper to have delivered to specific addresses on each street than the mass post code drop we went with. The more expensive targetting would have been cheaper than the longer print run.
Presuming that you are in a pretty specialised business, you should consider the specialised press and websites. Investigate both size and quality of mailing lists you could purchase, but also the cost of placing a direct response advertisement.
Proposition
What are you going to offer in the pack. A couple of things I've noticed, particularly with B2B are:
- Often recipients don't need your thing all the time, and particularly not on the day your pack arrives. So how can you gain a longer benefit? Perhaps include a full catalogue that will stay in a deskfile? Perhaps some handy guide (maybe a guide to asbestos law or something) that is worth keeping? Perhaps you just encourage them to bookmark your website
- Often they might be interested, but don't want the pressure of a meeting or sales pitch. Consider giving them access to a useful resource without actually having to talk to someone. If you have a lot of information/brochures, let them request the relevant ones from the site (or by reply card)
Another important thing is "How do you get them to even read the damned thing?"
- Humour (like the IBM thing)
- A promotion (send the card back to enter a prize draw) can work, but often makes people suspicious.
- Enclosed gift, but choose carefully. You need to make them curious and/or guilty enough to read on. A cheap biro probably wouldn't be enough.
- The five second proposition: what's on the front page? why should I read on?
An example:
In my house there have been a few concerns about noise. I spotted an ad in a trade magazine for sound-deadening underlay and plasterboard (not something I'd seen before). I followed the weblink browsed around and downloaded a few brochures and a pricelist. I was impressed enough to bookmark it and email the other residents ("here's an idea to bear in mind for the future"
. I could have ordered samples, but decided not to.
My point is that a simple proposition, a good website, and the ability to avoid a sales pitch has actually delivered five potential customers (never mind the dozen people I might chat with over a pint who are having building work done). And yet the most they have got from me is one cookie for site visit. One day, they are going to get a few thousand pounds of business, even though right now the ad appears to have failed.
Objectives
Obviously your ultimate objective is additional sales, but what would you consider an actual result? It might be placing your brand under their nose, getting them to make contact (and on your 'solid gold' mailing list), or get them to your website (and bookmark it).
You might also consider whether results are actually measurable. I'll come back to this later with an example.
It's also important to integrate it within your overall marketing programme (and the website can be very useful for this).
Targetting
As mentioned, crucial. Untargetted mail is wasted mail. Money saved here can be spent on a better proposition.
I once did a door-drop campaign for a company using a postal mailing list. The client failed to cleanse the list of addresses that they couldn't supply, and addresses that they already supplied. We later worked out that it would have been cheaper to have delivered to specific addresses on each street than the mass post code drop we went with. The more expensive targetting would have been cheaper than the longer print run.
Presuming that you are in a pretty specialised business, you should consider the specialised press and websites. Investigate both size and quality of mailing lists you could purchase, but also the cost of placing a direct response advertisement.
Proposition
What are you going to offer in the pack. A couple of things I've noticed, particularly with B2B are:
- Often recipients don't need your thing all the time, and particularly not on the day your pack arrives. So how can you gain a longer benefit? Perhaps include a full catalogue that will stay in a deskfile? Perhaps some handy guide (maybe a guide to asbestos law or something) that is worth keeping? Perhaps you just encourage them to bookmark your website
- Often they might be interested, but don't want the pressure of a meeting or sales pitch. Consider giving them access to a useful resource without actually having to talk to someone. If you have a lot of information/brochures, let them request the relevant ones from the site (or by reply card)
Another important thing is "How do you get them to even read the damned thing?"
- Humour (like the IBM thing)
- A promotion (send the card back to enter a prize draw) can work, but often makes people suspicious.
- Enclosed gift, but choose carefully. You need to make them curious and/or guilty enough to read on. A cheap biro probably wouldn't be enough.
- The five second proposition: what's on the front page? why should I read on?
An example:
In my house there have been a few concerns about noise. I spotted an ad in a trade magazine for sound-deadening underlay and plasterboard (not something I'd seen before). I followed the weblink browsed around and downloaded a few brochures and a pricelist. I was impressed enough to bookmark it and email the other residents ("here's an idea to bear in mind for the future"
. I could have ordered samples, but decided not to. My point is that a simple proposition, a good website, and the ability to avoid a sales pitch has actually delivered five potential customers (never mind the dozen people I might chat with over a pint who are having building work done). And yet the most they have got from me is one cookie for site visit. One day, they are going to get a few thousand pounds of business, even though right now the ad appears to have failed.
Direct mail enquiry levels are usually less than 1%, but obviously it depends on the product and demographic. The maths is very simple in most direct mail campaigns - and extremely accurate to predict. In short, calculate the cost of:
1) Acquiring the data.
2) The flyer / envelope.
3) Postage.
Let's assume you're mailing, say, 10,000 flyers and there is a 0.75% enquiry rate. Then you will avhieve 75 enquiries. You then calculate your conversion rate from enquiry to order, let's assume it's 20% (1 in 5), you'll get 15 new customers. Calculate the profit you've made on these 15 sales and then subtract the cost of the direct mail. If it makes money then do it. If it doesn't then don't. The real trick of direct mail is that it tends to be more economic the higher the value of the product / service that is being sold. For example, selling 15 cars at £30k each could deliver sales of £450k. The same couldn't be said for selling £30 mobile phones.
1) Acquiring the data.
2) The flyer / envelope.
3) Postage.
Let's assume you're mailing, say, 10,000 flyers and there is a 0.75% enquiry rate. Then you will avhieve 75 enquiries. You then calculate your conversion rate from enquiry to order, let's assume it's 20% (1 in 5), you'll get 15 new customers. Calculate the profit you've made on these 15 sales and then subtract the cost of the direct mail. If it makes money then do it. If it doesn't then don't. The real trick of direct mail is that it tends to be more economic the higher the value of the product / service that is being sold. For example, selling 15 cars at £30k each could deliver sales of £450k. The same couldn't be said for selling £30 mobile phones.
I (an IT bod) and a friend (who runs a team-building event company) recently embarked on a small (less than 4000) email marketing campaign for her company. I was adamant that it was a waste of time and money, but she was paying me, so I went along with it. She bought in a list of "decision-makers" and we constructed and sent the email at a rate of 200 per day. I have to admit that I am very impressed with the results. She claims that she has had lots of good enquiries and several sales directly as a result of the email.
It may be worth consideration, as the costs are substantially less than mailing printed medias.
It may be worth consideration, as the costs are substantially less than mailing printed medias.
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