One of the main advantages of direct mail over other marketing methods is how targeted you can be. If you’re using advertising, Search Engine Optimisation, social media, leaflets, posters or most other marketing methods then you can reach large numbers of people, but you can’t target exactly who you’re reaching.
Using direct mail means that you can choose a specific segment that you want to reach, write a letter based on what motivates people in that segment, and send it to their house. Over time if you build up more information about what that person likes or dislikes then you can become even more targeted in your mailings. For instance, sending letters about yoga to people who like yoga and letters about tennis to people who like tennis.
How we can help you use direct mail
We can help you to use direct mail in two ways:
- Writing – we can help you by writing and designing a piece of direct mail which is targeted to your audience.
- Targeting – we can help you carefully target the direct mail to ensure that it gets to as many of the right people as possible.
Writing
In order to run an effective direct mail campaign you need to make sure what you write matches the benefits that your audience is interested in and matches the tone of voice that they’re used to.
If you look at the communication plans we’ve written for each of the 29 activity segments then you’ll see that each of them relates to different brands. For example Paula (26-35, less well off) likes Argos, whereas Elaine (56-65, better off) likes John Lewis. This is vital information that can be used to write effective literature that directly appeals to each segment.
By writing direct mail that is targeted to your audience you can increase the response rate and cut the amount you need to spend on distribution.
Targeting
We can help you target your direct mail campaign in one of two ways.
- Through door drops using the maps from the Strategic Planning tool on promotingactivity.com. These allow us to target areas where the segment you’re focusing on is most likely to live.
- By buying a mailing list of people who match the segment that you’re focusing on. This is more expensive to do, but can produce much better results as it can be personalised and only goes to the people you’re targeting.
We can of course advise you on which of these two methods is most appropriate for your campaign.
Download an example Direct Mail brief.
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