3 Tips to Improve Direct-Mail Marketing Conversions for Your Business

If the opportunity to connect with potential customers one-on-one in a setting where they are relaxed and receptive sounds appealing, then direct-mail marketing may be a tactic you’re keen to explore. This method of advertising allows you the opportunity to communicate directly with consumers who may or may not know you exist, and might never consider your products or services otherwise. Sounds great, right? So why isn’t everyone doing it? Well, there is a bit of a catch. This blanket approach requires you to send out mailers to tons of households without necessarily knowing if the residents are in your target demographic or if they are even interested in what you have to offer. However, like any decent marketing strategy, you have to find ways to create interest with the materials you send out. And while you can definitely save some money over paper mailers these days by sending out emails (and reach a much larger audience, to boot), you still have to engineer your strategy so that it results in conversions, or some kind of positive response from recipients. Whether you opt to send emails or snail mail, you obviously want to do whatever you can to ensure your efforts don’t go straight to the trash. So here are just a few tips to improve your conversion rates.

1.  Generate leads. The carpet-bombing approach may not be your best bet when it comes to direct-mail marketing. Consider, for example, your efforts at search engine optimization. The goal is to get targeted traffic coming into your website because a consumer that is seeking your goods or services is far more valuable, in general, than the average accidental tourist. The same holds true with direct-mail marketing; when the recipient is already interested in what you have to offer, providing them with incentive of some kind, or even valuable knowledge can help to push them towards a purchase. So build up a mailing list through any means possible, even if you have to buy data from a reliable marketing research firm.

2.  Tailor your content. There are two important goals you need to hit when it comes to the content of your direct-mail efforts. For one thing, you need to select a layout and design that not only represents your brand image, but also appeals to the consumer public, or more specifically, your target demographics. However, you also need to make sure that your mailers include some kind of call to action. You want consumers to take immediate action and you need to think about what you can do to encourage them to at least keep reading or pull up your website, although a purchase is, of course, the ideal outcome.

3.  Track and analyze. The only way to improve is to see what you’re doing wrong and what’s working like gangbusters so you can tailor your future efforts for optimum conversion. In terms of real-world mailers, this could involve the use of a coupon or code of some sort or the inclusion of a QR code that consumers snap a pic of on their phone or tablet to get to a deal on your website. Online, a simple link will do the trick. The use of modern tracking methods can help you to see exactly what consumers are responding to so that the marketing funds you spend with a company like KD Mailing & Fulfillment will show a significant return on investment.