Question: What's Stopping You From Using Direct Mail?

Thanks Joe.

Best,
Ewen

Great insight Ozi.

If you were to compare the available lists and list data in Australia,
I suspect it will be behind what's available in USA.

Best,
Ewen

Yes that is correct on a global scale.

For those that have a local business where their pool
of customers, clients and patients are with a few mile radius,
then mail gets the message into all their hands.

Best,
Ewen

Fear of the unknown especially with a start-up is always there in one sense or another. I draw strength from resources and knowledge from the trial and errors of those before me.

Many have paved the way for us in any endeavor. While direct mail is somewhat new to me I took a look at what direct mail systems have worked and have been tried and proven. Then with any system that has been in place for some time try to put a new twist on it while keeping the base model that works intact.

I believe direct mail has high value for someone using it for their own business or as an agency providing the service to others. To be successful you have to present the VALUE for either party.

If for my own business; what do I have to offer to someone that will guarantee the best ROI. What is my budget and what can I get for it that will keep my campaign consistent in the same market area.

As an agency; give them value, come up with "no-brainers", view your direct mailer as prime real estate and only an exclusive few can and will have access to it.

If you are a "one-man-show", so be it...you have no choice, do what you can to make it happen. You just have to start and let things fall in place...they won't at all if you don't try. Look for others that you can partner with, you have a product/service of value.

Come up with a plan and go for it. Direct mail is not dead. So nothing is stopping me from getting my first EDDM direct mailer out.

I haven't figured out what to sell using Direct Mail that I couldn't sell better with retargeting and email marketing.

Not knocking DM, I wish, wish, wish I could master DM, but at the moment my time resources are limited and so I would need a pretty strong reason to choose DM over the email+remarketing that I'm using currently.

I think it has a lot to do with the products I'm selling atm. If I had products better suited to offline consumption, then I'd look into DM.

What I'd LOVE to do someday is get into the print newsletter business. That's the kind of stuff that's right up my ally, but again, it's that time factor of setting aside the time to learn something new like DM.

I'm sure Ewen will weigh in but perhaps the mailing and printing costs may be the highest cost of any campaign but maybe the point is about the risk.

If you select the wrong list.

If you create the wrong message.

If the timing is wrong.

The cost of the printing and mailing comes after those higher costs for getting those bits wrong.

An average message to the right list would beat a great message to the wrong list for example.

I think Ewen is highlighting his skills in list selection and message creation to boost results.

Best regards,

Ozi

You nailed it Sasha, ride-along.

Have two others advertise on the same postcard.

Not new to those who have bought Bob Ross's M3 training.

For those who haven't bought it, not familiar with the concept, here's some examples...

Example 1 My business which supplies paper to point of sales machines.

Reaching out to restaurants and café's I would contact coffee roasters, cleaning suppliers, cooking oil suppliers, baking suppliers, fresh food suppliers, accountants and bookkeepers, payroll people, air filter suppliers and cleaners, table napkin suppliers.

Example 2 Bob Ross: His business which replaces home windows.
He has a liquor store and pizza store on his postcard.

Example 3: You do online lead generation for Lawyer's.
You would contact office cleaners, accountants, office supplies, cloud payroll, office leasing companies, copier companies, office water companies, telcos, office furniture companies.

They all want the same clients as the person in the examples


They win because it's half the cost of printing and mailing compared if they did it themselves.

You win because they paid for the printing and mailing.

If you are going to a targeted list, then you add that into the price.

No matter how much you screw up, you can never lose money this way.

So all one's fears about direct mail are gone by using this method.

You have unlimited opportunity to reach as many of your target audience as many times as you want.

So thanks to all who were brave enough to post what's stopping you using direct mail.

Best,
Ewen

To those that have a much higher and much lower price point than yours
because within that list there will be those that are willing to pay more than yours and there's those that won't be willing to invest as much as yours.

Make sense?

Best,
Ewen

It would dilute your response rate but the marketing is free for you, so it's not a problem. MY concern is that the partners who are paying (albeit a cheaper price) will themselves be unsatisfied with the low response rate, and they may not stick around.

It's just one way to get your message out. If you think it's not worth the hassle, you can always use solo mailouts instead of coops. When it comes to your message being heavily diluted, every message is already diluted by other messages regardless of their origin or packaging. When you send a solo postcard and it arrives in my mailbox at the same time as dozen of other offers, your message will be diluted. The only difference is that they didn't cover the costs of your message! :-)