Guide

Analyze your product and your present customer

Understand who would benefit from your product or service

Study your competitors and how they market the product

This will help you in understanding what types of mailing lists may be best for your target market.

Review your budget, sample costs of direct mail can include:

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Postage

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Design of the mail piece

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Printing of the mail piece

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List purchase

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Processing by the mail house

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Fulfillment of orders

Make sure you schedule ahead because a successful direct mail campaign takes time. Rushing can lead to mistakes and each step is very important.

Designing of the mail piece

The readability and the attractiveness of your mail piece are very important so that the consumer will open and read your offer.

Printing of the mail piece

Make sure you check with the post office before printing the mail piece to make certain that the mail piece meets all postal regulations.

Purchase of the mailing list

This is as important as all other aspects of your campaign. Analyze your target consumer and pick the list that best suits you needs. A list broker can give you valuable tips and advice and the service will cost you nothing. A mailing list broker has access to most all available lists so they will provide you with the best list that suits your needed. List owners would only want to sell their own list. So the services of a broker can be more widespread because they are not offering just their own lists the options can be greater.

Preparing your mailing for bulk rate delivery

An experienced mail house does this best because they will prepare the mailing pieces for entry into the postal stream. Their services can include applying the postage, sorting the mail for bulk rate savings, stuffing envelopes and affixing the addresses. If you are doing a large mailing these processes can be very time consuming and labor intensive.

Delivery time by the Post Office

If you have time sensitive materials you must take delivery time in to consideration.

Analysis of the results

You can measure the success of your campaign by tracking the responses and the number of new customers that are generated from your efforts. Remember, just a few new customers can more than cover the cost for the campaign. Evaluate what was successful and tailor your next mailing to meet those needed.