Does Direct Mail work in 2011?

Everyone left their shovels in the direct mail gold mines... and ran for the internet.

I guess those guys (Dan Kennedy...) took advantage!!! Its like the people who took advantage of yahoo after the google rush.

Direct mail worked for many years before the internet and was "The Thing".

In answer, it worked in the 90's when I tried it... but havent tried it in 2011 "Yet".

I have a potential chiropractor customer that I got from a postcard. And he himself moved to a new town a few months back and got a good part of his current clients through mass mailing of postcards to homes in his area with a very positive ROI.

Test and tweak, but my guess is yes, definitely, I can still work. Not always but it can for sure.

Direct Mail is just another medium of communication to be used.

Any sort of communication CAN work...you just need to know if:

A) It's the BEST method to use for YOUR target market

and

B) Make sure your marketing MESSAGE is appealing enough for your market to care.

The wrong message in the best marketing tool = money down the drain.
The right message in the wrong marketing tool = money down the drain.

Test small and scale up for the best results at minimum risk.

~Dexx

Well - in my area, which has a great amount of rural-thinking people in it, there is a huge vein of gold ready to be tapped into for web development/hosting. I jokingly tell people that when we get electricity here, it will be fantastic.

Anyway - I just don't think that calling on the phone will work for me. Yes, I know - there are many success stories - but, I just don't believe it will. One large hindrance is time - I sit at an office 8-5 every day. Now, customers do come in, but, I don't know when that will be - and there is a lot of free time. I can work online easily. Design sites? Plenty of time for that. But, I can't be on the phone calling and a customer comes in. Plus, after I get home in the evening, go walking my son, eat dinner, I have time to develop sites in the evening.

I think with the amount of small businesses within say, a 50 mile radius, I could get 100+ customers, and, would be barely scratching the surface.

What I would like to do is charge $99-$199-$299 for a 1, 3, or 5 page site, and then, host it for $30 a month. However, even if I had to waive the up front fee, I could still be very profitable.

Thanks for your thoughts and insights.

Short answer: YES OF COURSE!!

But most of the people don't know how to use it, even Internet Marketing is direct Marketing with other media, instead of letters you use landing pages.

The book you are talking about can be applied to many circumstances today without using paper and envelopes and here is an example:

a) Study Bill Glazer headlines and use them in your PPC campaigns.

b) Study his sales letters, tweak them and use them as landing pages or squeeze pages.

c) Study how he uses the benefits of his products/services and apply them to your own services.

Hope it helps

Jeremy, not only will direct mail work for you it will work for your clients as well. ESPECIALLY in a local community.


You made a comment about sitting in your office and waiting for the next customer...that is how most mom & pop shops go through their day too.

They put yellowpages ads...then sit and wait....newspaper...then sit and wait....you might put up a google places for them....then its sit and wait.

It is the "Build it and they will come" mindset....well guess what ...."Invite them, and they will come quicker and more often"

Having the ability to put your brand name ( or your clients brand name) in front of everyone in the community on a regular basis ( or in your case, every potential business customer) on a regular basis...educating them with interesting facts on a frequent postcard..or otherwise aggressively putting yourself in front of their face is going to put you on a much quicker pace to capture the majority market share of business in your area....especially where everyone else is just waiting for people to decide they need to take action or happen upon one of their ads somewhere.

There are two types of prospect....one who has come to the realization that they need a particular service....then there is everyone else who are still ignorant to the fact that their life would be much better with your service....its this larger group that aren't going to go look for you on page 1 of google, or the yellowpages, or google places, and they aren't going to type in a website name. You reach that group by going to them and getting in front of their eyeballs and getting their attention.

you have to manually wake them up to the possibilities.

Direct mail is one of the best ways to quickly and decisively get to every prospect out there. Most of your potential prospects are going to remain clueless until you start effecting their thought process in your favor. You could do it with email and texting..there are spam laws to consider, and it may take quite some time to build a list...but those are viable aggressive methods to put prospects into motion.

Nearly all of my own clients come from personalized mail packets (where I've done some scoping of the client beforehand and customize my approach and wording), or more generic postcard campaigns ( standard product offers limited time etc.) and word of mouth. Recently I have created an online presence because my products and services can be sold nationally...and I'm still learning the ropes of the online world...which is why I hang out here

Direct mail is alive and well I assure you. I would encourage you to put together your piece and then show some of the warriors in here that you know or have communicated with to get some constructive feedback. You want to do everything you can to make your effort successful.

May you see much success,

Doran P

Jeremy,

Direct mail works..but as with any marketing endeavor. You must test, test test, track track and track some more. Direct mail is really no different than the internet. it is about finding the right customer base..and sending the right mail piece(offer to them). I have done quite a bit of direct mailing over the years. Always start small..have some one qualified to develop your mail piece do it for you and then mail away but with small volumes to start. Make sure you look at multiple fullfillment pieces..even down to card stock you use. The littles things in direct mail can make or break the campaign. If it was me I would start with an A and B mail piece..small volume so you can collect as much info as possible. Also make sure your working with the right direct mail company..there is a major difference between mom and pop and the really refined directmailers out there.

Hell yes, it works!

Well I don't know where you live but in Canada many direct mailers as I call them buy mailing list for fair bit of change only to find their phones not ringing.Why because the list are not good and I have seen results here.See you send out the info for discount rate but you get that lower rate as the Post Office does not return the ones moved or non existing to you they shred them.So you have no idea who did and did not get them.I know the general public doesn't like the "Junk Mail" coming in the mail but sending it as unaddressed flyer may be the way to go here in Canada it's about 12 cents per flyer.Like I say I have seen large companies get burned by poor mailing lists that are outdated or completely inaccurate.Check with other businesses who have mailing lists see their callback rate if they'll share with you.Been with Postal Service 34 years so I can honestly say know what I'm talking about.
Hope this helps out.

Well - if you were in a position of wanting to start selling websites to businesses offline for either free or an upfront fee, and then, monthly hosting on top of that, but, were unable to market by cold-calling (either in person or over phone,) what would you do to grow your business?

Thanks.

Thank you! I don't have a sound card in my work computer, so, will check it out later this evening!

If you were selling to business in your area then access to their addresses would be much easier to get that data may be more reliable I was referring to the individual home or home owner.

I watch on the blog don't know if I call this direct marketing as the first info the material was sent from a company he was already dealing with if your info was advertised in their magazine that may be direct marketing.3rd one well not all bloggers post or will give you their mailing address to send such a letter.The 2nd one is good if you were advertising say real estate,moving co. etc and wanted business.
I refer direct marketing as though you are getting fresh customers and want them to visit say your website a plain postcard with something to grab their attention to want to visit site would be an idea.Just my thoughts.

direct marketing works for sure! I know a very successful business owner! BUT, they do all the design and printing... Sales he says have decreased significantly and they are getting into internet marketing.
My thoughts .. STAY AWAY

I have to agree from my end there is no drop in direct mailing and local companies are using this as they want you to put your foot in the door and since our local internet directories are poor it's a challenge to find a local website most have a little info with no url.A good creative printer can do well in the business as Doran Peck I'm sure knows.Some people like reading the postcard or the sales catalogue or local pizza deal.

It works "big time" but like most things only if done correctly.

Dan Kennedy preaches the 3 M's, Market, Message, & Media get those 3 things down pat and your on to a winner.

Also the mistake I see almost everyone make is they only ever mail one time, if I'm sending out a direct mail to get offline clients I'm mailing a minimum of 3 timesto that list, on average you will get around 50% - 100% better responce by mailing multiple times, so your leaving huge amounts of money on the table mailing only once.

Also your direct mail piece should look more like a personal letter as opposed junk mail such as bills etc. I've heard somewhere that upto 60% of junk mail never even makes it to the recipient, that alone would kill a direct mail campaign, even if it was the greatest product/service on earth and Gary Halbert wrote the copy you would probably still be on to a loser.

~Bryan

Well- what can I, as one person, do, to sell website development/hosting, by wanting to add 10-25 clients a month?