I’m eating breakfast together with Geoffrey McDonald Bowl, and we discuss what we can do to attract new clients. It is our conclusion that direct mail deserves to take a second look. Go back to basics and create an effective, clever and clever campaign. This sounds easy, isn’t it?
It’s been several weeks since I had that meal, and I’ve been thinking about DMs for a few weeks. DM notion has been going around in my head. So I’m thrilled to see two DM campaigns are delivered to my desk. What else are other companies doing? Are there any helpful ideas? That’s great timing.
My initial excitement slowly diminishes when I open each box. The first one is extremely expensive and the second is a low-budget affair. Both executions fail as an example of how large budgets can’t guarantee good campaigns. If you’re looking to do better for your company and have a DM concept that you’d like to improve, this is my take and some advice to use in both campaigns.
DM Piece one: Car Company, Big Budget Campaign
It is clear it is true that the DM piece is an amazing package. It is delivered in a custom-sized envelope that is vibrant and colourful and catches my eye immediately. According to the old saying, Don’t look at a book solely by its cover. The campaign, however, has many mistakes. Here’s a list of the flaws.
Inaccurate Mailing List
The first thing I noticed is my name has been spelt incorrectly. I’m not able to directly blame the company who distributed the mailer as it clearly hired the mailing list using an external database. From my perspective, it is advisable to use a third-party resource, and you were to use it, it’s best to implement some kind of quality control into your procedures. Perhaps your assistant might contact a few people to verify their contact information and then search for names of companies and names of contacts to confirm information or ask the owner of the database details of the previous business that utilized the database and get their opinion. The sloppy spelling of words can be annoying, but they can be easily corrected.
Wrong Target Market
Maybe it’s going back to Marketing 101, but sending a DM message to a company that isn’t in the market for the product you offer isn’t an effective strategy. Even if I’m impressed by the offer, the offer isn’t offered to a company similar to mine. Determining who will be the recipients of the campaign is vital, and especially for those who have a tight budget, it will prevent waste, cost and the chance of receiving people who are upset with an offer that’s not available to their company. This is an important decision to make for your business when you are using the DM option.
The right place, WRONG TIME
I believe that you are in the perfect location at the right moment and the DM piece attempts to capitalize on this. It’s promoting the biggest sports event, and the “gift” is a fan scarf. The timing of the event is not ideal. The letter arrives just after the event’s start and does not catch the initial media buzz. The letter isn’t a snail mail issue’ since the date of the letter also falls one day after the event has begun. The whole campaign is missing the impact because these dates are known ahead of time – many years actually, and it’s unfortunate that the campaign wasn’t handled to make the most of the opportunities.
CALL TO ACTION
The packet includes a letter that, at the end of the paragraph, includes an appeal to action. It reads, “The initial 12 individuals who contact and arrange the test drive will get the chance to win four tickets for the NRL match”. I’m guessing here. However, my guess is the person who put this package together is from New South Wales. Anyone who has been to Melbourne or Victoria knows how tickets for an AFL match is a more appealing proposition than tickets to the NRL game. It’s just good marketing to customize your message and make your database as segmented as it is possible. Another opportunity was missed this time.
THE REASON FOR THE PIECE
My final opinion on the article is that I do not comprehend the concept or message behind the campaign. The campaign seems to try to convince readers that the company, even though it’s based in China, it is actually “green and gold’. It’s not logical to me. Sure, it does mention local job opportunities, but everyone knows that it’s an internationally recognized brand. What better way to work to make it clear this and make use of a different analogy? Overall this is a poor job.
Example Two: A Debt Collection Company
After the initial disappointment of the DM work, I am greeted with an ounce of optimism when an unassuming envelope is delivered to my desk. The envelope isn’t branded; however, it is white and has a GPO Box return address. I decide to open it due to curiosity. The first issue I see is the right side of the page which I unfold, is empty and does not have anything to say. I think about it for a moment and flip the page around. Aha! Here’s the text, but it’s like an image copied from a piece of paper. It’s not alive or vibrant, simply a page of text. It’s extremely boring. I see the logo of the company, and I am unable to determine the person behind it, and the image doesn’t motivate me to explore further.
I’m not able to understand the letter, but take a look at the bottom of the page, where you will see an uncut tick box that says Please tick this box and return the letter to us, etc. There is, however, not a return envelope. There are no returns address of the business, and there is no indication in the cutaway to identify the business. This suggests to me that there are mail merge fields that are not present in the document.
This is a low-budget campaign, and it falls short of the mark. However, the piece from the car company clarifies to me that money can’t purchase excellent DM campaigns. This is a great thing for those with budgets that are tight. This suggests that there is still a lot of opportunity in this competitive market. In sum, here’s the way these campaigns might have benefited from their marketing expenditures:
Third-party mailing lists with quality checks
Make sure the message is directed to a clearly targeted audience
Make it your own call to the action and incentive if it is possible
Utilize reply envelopes to increase a response rate
Make sure to use each side of the piece of communication, and
Create custom mail merge fields in the copy.
While this DM idea is being considered by us, I’ve decided to invest a bit of effort into doing some routine maintenance to update the business card, our website and an e-newsletter template before going ahead with this kind of campaign. It’s best to execute what we have currently moved more efficiently instead of focusing on another idea. Maybe there’s something to learn from this for us all.
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