Top 10 Direct Marketing Tips
to Improve ROI

Whether you serve all households or businesses in an area or you serve a more specific market, an effective campaign targets those consumers or businesses that are most likely to be interested in your product or service. In fact, up to 40% of direct mail success relies on choosing the correct list of prospects. Getting your message to your target audience generates higher-quality leads and increases your ROI.

You wouldn't purchase groceries months before cooking, so why order a list well before your campaign is ready? Like food, information can spoil over time. Lists go out-of-date at a rate of 15% or more every year. Ordering a list when you're ready to launch your campaign results in a higher percentage of deliverable mail because the list is fresh.

Before starting, ask yourself, "What am I trying to accomplish with this campaign?" Some businesses launch a campaign to build their brand or to announce their presence; others aim to generate leads and orders. Determining your goal is the first and most important step in a direct marketing campaign because all other steps should then drive toward achieving the goal. Without a clear objective, it is impossible to determine success.

To elicit responses, your campaign has to generate excitement. One of the top ten direct marketing mistakes is burying or not including a call to action. Programs such as discounts, free consultations and buy-one-get-one-free offers, coupled with deadlines, give the prospect an incentive to respond to your campaign quickly.

Some people prefer email communication, others prefer phone calls. For consumers, if you offer both phone and mail response, the response rates will be equally split. However, if you eliminate one method, the total response rate typically drops 20%-25%. For businesses, if you eliminate one method, the response rate drops 50% or more, from what it would be with both options. Giving your customers multiple ways to contact you not only generates more responses, it also shows a concern for your clients and their preferred method of communication.

Nothing is stronger than good references. Peers are the second most trusted source of information, with 22% of respondents of a recent Sirius Decisions survey indicating peers as their most trusted source. (Industry Analysts ranked first, with 29%.) When your message comes from customers, it has greater influence due to their objectivity and independence from your company.

Knowing your product or service and your market goes a long way toward success, but you never know exactly what will register with prospects until you do it. The best way to increase response is by testing three elements of your campaign, one at a time. The elements are the headline (or opening sentence), the offer and the pricing. By knowing and using what has already proven to be successful, future campaigns will be more efficient and will generate higher ROI.

It is important to be realistic when developing expectations for your campaign's response rate. The deliverability rates for consumer and business lists are 94% and 90%, respectively. However, the average response rate for direct mail prospecting campaigns is 1-2%. The disparity between delivery and response rate further illustrates the need to target prospects specifically and to use a proven method of reaching them.

Following up a direct mail campaign with a phone call makes the campaign more personal and reinforces your brand. For every day a lead is not contacted, it loses 10% of its value. Calling prospects is a great way to quickly establish a relationship after your campaign has raised awareness of your brand.

Monitoring the number of people who respond to your mailing and what characteristics they have in common is critical. This will reduce workload and increase profits for future campaigns, as you will have defined targets and will know what resonates with those prospects.