The Mailing Challenge

For the next several issues of More Clients, I'm going to focus on very hands-on marketing techniques and strategies.

In a recent post on the InfoGuru Support Forum, someone asked for feedback on a postcard mailing he had done to drive people to his web site. He got virtually no results.

Without even seeing the postcard, it's easy to understand why it didn't work. Postcards and other mailings are amongst the trickier marketing tactics. You can loose a lot of money fast, if you don't know what you're doing.

Too many times I've see people mail thousands of letters or postcards hoping for a deluge of responses, only to receive *not one single* response. It can be enough to put you off of marketing forever.

Mailings of all kinds can work. I've used them to get great results and make lot of money. But there are certain things you need to understand before you jump in. First, a few don'ts:

Don't Mail to Strangers
If you're going to mail, the best people are the ones on your prospect list. Which is why it's so important to build a list in the first place. These people know you and are much more likely to read and respond to what you've sent.

Don't Try to Close
A mailing is, for the most part, a marketing vehicle, not a selling tool. That is, it's designed to stimulate qualified responses from prospects. Those who respond are the ones you set up sales appointments with (by phone or in person).

Don't Mail Too Much
Mass mailings can be dangerous. First, if the mailing is ineffective, you've thrown a lot of money down the drain. Second, if you get a lot of responses, it may be too hard to follow up with them all, and your leads will be lost. Start small.

Don't Always Expect a Response
Some of the best mailings are personalized letters, sent to qualified prospects, and then followed up by telephone to make an appointment. They may never call you from the letter, but they will often take a call from you.

And a few dos:

Do Follow Marketing Syntax
Be clear about exactly who this letter is for. Start your letter or postcard with a problem your prospects are experiencing. Follow that with a desired outcome. Then use a brief story for proof and credibility. Follow this with several benefits of learning more. Then end with a call to action.

Do Personalize Your Letter
What mail do you open up and read first? A personalized letter. Hand write the address on the envelope. Use the return address in the heading and their name in the salutation. Make it look like it was sent from one person to another and you'll get a better response.

Do Use Postcards for Events
The best results I ever got from postcard mailings was inviting people on my list to introductory events. Both sides contained detailed information on what the event was about, the benefits of attending, plus date, time, price and how to respond.

Do the Math
Mailings of any kind are expensive. It's not unusual that, hoping for a great response, people will send out hundreds or thousands of pieces, and never really think through how the finances of the marketing and sales process is going to work.

Let me give you more details on this one:

Let's say you decide to mail 1000 postcards to a list you've purchased or compiled. The purpose is to get them to visit your web site.

Postcards plus postage will cost you at least $.50 each. So your total investment is $500.

If you get a great response, just 5% will visit your site. Yes, 95% will go in the trash in about 3 seconds. So that's 50 visitors at a visitor cost of $10 each.

Next, they land on your web page. What exactly do you want them to do there? You'd better make sure they see an in-depth sales letter that motivates them to take some action. You should have a simple response form to fill out.

Of those 50 visitors, how many will read the online letter and fill out the form? You'll be doing exceedingly well if you get 20%. So now you have 10 people who have responded at a cost of $50 each.

Now you need to follow up with these people by email and phone to set up an appointment and convert them into clients. Your appointment rate will usually be less than 30%, so that's three appointments.

And your close rate? Perhaps only one out of three. So there you have it. One thousand postcards that cost you $500 netted you one client. If this client is worth a few thousand dollars to you, it just might be a good campaign.

But the figures I gave are actually very good. Yours are likely to be much lower. In my experience, campaigns like this fizzle out fast. The response is poor, the prospects are marginal, and the close rate is abysmal.

It usually takes just one mailing of this kind to put you off mailings forever.

In next week's More Clients I'll give you some examples of much more effective mailing campaigns that will cost a whole lot less and get much better results.

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The More Clients Bottom Line - If you're considering a mailing campaign, be careful. You could not only get poor results and lose your money, but you'll become cynical about the effectiveness of any kind of marketing.

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Got a horror story about an ineffective mailing? Please share in the Blog. Just click on the comments link below.

Comments

[Alan Boyer]

Actually I've been using postcards quite successfully now for the last couple of years to drive people to my seminars, and ultimately to become my business coaching clients.

Robert, you are right about having to understand what the end cost, or cost to acquire a client is with any marketing process. I send 1,000 postcards a month, get anywhere from 50-75 phone calls (5% to 7.5%) (so 50+ get added to my ongoing list of followers, emails, etc). Normally about 1/2 of those end up setting in the seminar seats, and that number is going up all the time (I actually had over 100 in October, but, the 50+ is much closer to normal). About 1/2 of those in the seats, 10-15 become clients of some kind, usually buying a low cost ebook and intro seminar, and 1-5 become coaching clients. That works for me, quite well as a matter of fact.

My postcards cost me $0.33 each on www.usps.com using a SPOT color approach. So, my 1,000 emails cost me $330/month, and if I even land 1 coaching client that is $330 to land a client that is paying me thousands, so that works. I also get about 10-15 that are paying me anywhere from $50 to $250 and will eventually become clients, so that's another thousand dollars or so.

What i've discovered is that, over time, that the number of people attending have started to escalate up toward the 10% area, maybe because of branding.

In any case, you are right about having to have the right message or it is a waste. When I started this I got 1-5 people just barely showing an interest. When I found the right message that jumped to the 5%-10%.

[Dawud Miracle]

I would do a few mailings each year when I had my alternative healing practice. I can say that I would get probably a 1-2% return on my mailings. But at the time, it was one of the only ways I knew to market my businesses to people who knew me.

Of course, now I'm back to being a web developer and know many other ways to get a much higher return rate on marketing materials. And, for little, or no, cost.

[Clyde Lerner]

I've been using www.sendoutcards.com/clyde for over a year now. I don't send mass mailings. I send selective mailings in my own hand written signature and own personalized font. I use for both personal user, client retention and client prospecting. I feel greeting cards are much more effective then postcards.

[$teve F]

Great article, however I have to totally disagree about not sending to strangers. I have run over 20 direct mail campaigns for 10 different clients in the past 3 years and I have always found that my best campaigns are the ones that follow this simple strategy:
1. develop a database
2. telemarketing to get the contact name
3. direct mail to these strangers
4. telesales follow up

I have found that following up people with Telesales that you have direct mailed gains double the amount of "hot prospects". It seems to be that people feel more obliged to take your telesales call if you have direct mailed them. Of course you need to make sure that the direct mail is well targeted and provides a solution to a need.

If I commence with a telesales campaign (ie only direct mailing prospects) - i will always end up with a much more cost-effective direct mail campaign, however i also end up with less than half the prospects, which in turn means a lower ROI.

[Cathy Rodrigues]

Mailings have had mixed reviews for me. My mailing lists included both people I knew and some unknown to me. While I initially recieved no respose from the mailings, one year later I received three phone calls inquiring about whether I still run the support groups for mothers of medically complex infants. My mailings were announcing the groups and then fliers that outlined the sessions. So, the lesson for me--hang in and don't give up. It takes time for things to percolate and come to fruition!

Cathy Rodrigues
www.parentingthespecialneedschild.com
www.cathyrodrigues.com

[Hannah Martine]

We did a postcard campaign for a client who opened up a new location in a new city, with the web address listed as the main point of contact. The day the postcards were mailed (5,000 of them!!) and the press release sent out, the web hosting service took down the website due to a confusion on their end about who owns the web address. The website was down for three weeks ... the mailing was a major flop.

Hannah Martine

[Lyle Lachmuth - The Unsticking Coach]

Mine is a classic story -- with a happy ending.

I wanted to promote a brand new Consulting Skills workshop. Created a spiffy brochure. Mailed out 1,500. Took out several ads. Spent I forget how much.

Got 1 response.

Was depressed.

Then, I thought "Ah. But, somebody is interested!"

Grew a relationship with the company that had sponsered a person to 'test' the program. Got them to agree to be our first run try out -- at a reduced price.

Voila! The program was a success. And, we had a new client for the next 3 years!

Lyle
http://TheUnstickingCoach.com

[Jennie]

This is most timely information for me! I am preparing materials for a direct marketing campaign. I am using them as a professional touch to complement my portfolio for approaching galleries and will start with a phone call first as well as a follow up.

I did have a mailout campaign of website invitation postcards and I have kept up with inviting key galleries to shows with no success but keeping my name in front of them. all I hope now is that they don't think i am spamming! it is so easy to put people on the wrong side and not knowing what you are doing can really create a problem. I will be reading this with interest.

[Malcolm Munro]

I worked for a trade association and sent out 2500 postcards for an event I was hosting. For some reason, the post office read the RETURN address that was preprinted as the destination so they were all mailed right back to me!

Malcolm Munro
www.peopleskillsguru.com