How Much is Enough? The Secret To Successful Direct Mail Campaigns How many pieces of mail do you think make a successful direct mail campaign? One? Six? Twelve or more? If you answered twelve or more, you are on the right track. Many direct mail marketing gurus suggest you wear out your mailing list of primary clients and prospects – those people you feel should be buying from you because of your existing relationship or their pressing needs – as long as the list is profitable. At a minimum, you should mail to your well-maintained list twice a year. If you have enough to offer and your list is large, you might consider ramping up the mailings to once a month – and for a rare, few companies, once a week. Building the Perfect List In general, I am not a fan of renting lists. They often are outdated, and recipients may feel like they are being bombarded by junk mail. If a name turns up on a list you bought (rented is the polite term for the limited number of mailings you can contract a list for), chances are good that same name will be on a thousand other companies’ mailing lists who rented that same list. So how can you get fresh names of people who may actually know you and, better still, want to do business with you? Building a mailing list worthy of great direct mail pieces (where you’re going to use snail mail or e-mail or a combination of both) takes time. You’ll want to develop systems to update, maintain, and add to at every conceivable opportunity. Here are a few ways you can get names for your perfect list: Encourage visitors to your website to leave their e-mail addresses by offering a valuable gift (coupon, complimentary report, free consultation, etc.). Have guests to your office fill out a guest registry, including their e-mail addresses. Collect business cards wherever you go: networking, special events, luncheons, seminars, etc. – and ask for permission to keep in contact with them. By providing a business card, it is generally accepted practice that you are being granted permission to contact them – but it’s always a good policy to ask, just the same. Use a rented list of snail-mail addresses first, and announce a complimentary something on your website which they may have in exchange for permission to e-mail or contact them in the future. This kind of permission-based mailing list is what you should go after always. Treat your list of gathered contact information with respect. Nobody wants spam in their in-boxes, and junk mail is perceived as, well, junk. So any mailing that you send out should offer value to its recipients. To you, your list represents a valuable commodity for several reasons: 1. It represents your client contacts, both past and present, providing a unique look at your company’s growth and direction; 2. Your list is filled with decision makers – the ones who can say “yes” to your proposals, making it a rich database of who’s who in the industry you serve; 3. It is through this list that you may continue to get work, projects, and solid client feedback about other needs not yet met. As a result, this list is a valuable marketing AND researching tool, so use it to its fullest potential; 4. When you identify a need (and see that you can fill it), you can use direct mail as a promotional tool among many to leverage your promotions; and 5. It will help to grow your list to replace what business you might normally lose through attrition (they close, the owners retire or pass the business on to someone who doesn’t know you from Adam’s cat, they merge and already have relationships established with other vendors, etc.). For instance, if your business loses five clients a year through attrition, and you want to replace them, it may take a mailing campaign of twelve pieces or more sent to a minimum of 200 if you anticipate a 5% return. And of course, return rates widely vary because it depends on how well-defined your target is, how strong your mailing pieces are, timing of mailing, and several other factors. The title of this article is defining the secret to successful direct mail campaigns. In many cases, the median is as much a part of the message (snail or e-mail, letter or “present” in a box, creative or informative, etc.) – but the most important part of having a successful campaign is to start with a solid list that you know is a winner. This list consists of people who actually want to hear from you – and ultimately, buy from you again and again. In a subsequent article, we’ll look at which type of campaign might serve you best, depending on where your product or service is in its lifecycle.