Want to grow your business but haven’t heard of direct mailing marketing? Then this article is for you. We will tell you how to advertise your business, achieve the best results and what is email marketing.
What Is Direct Mail Marketing?
Direct mail (DM) is the first and most common type of direct marketing. In the United States, it accounts for 59% of the annual volume of the direct marketing market, and DM sells goods and services worth more than $100 million per year. Today, it is difficult to find a company that in one form or another does not use DM tools. Thus, since 1947 DM in the United States holds second or third place (after newspapers and television) in terms of advertising space.
American companies spend DM an average of about 18% of the advertising budget, and some – even up to 25%. The situation is similar in Europe, for example, in Germany, postmen deliver advertising messages worth more than 12 million euros in mailboxes every morning.
Why Is Direct Mail Marketing Still Effective?
It should be noted the undeniable advantages in which direct mail marketing works best:
• low cost (price) with traditional types of advertising – one minute of TV advertising costs thousands of dollars, and one mail – about 30 cents;
• speed of delivery of the message to the consumer – the fastest is fax mailing and mailing by e-mail;
• high selectivity and individual approach to the consumer – selection of addresses for DM provides the maximum accuracy of hit of advertising letters;
• no territorial and product restrictions – you can send by mail almost everything (advertising letter, company catalog, audio and video cassettes with advertising, product samples with accompanying documentation, and much more) and at any distance;
• confidentiality – DM-campaign can be hidden from competitors;
• exact observance of time of advertising influence – DM allows to choose the moment of influence on the client with greater accuracy (for example, delivery of letters to the client on Saturday directly before breakfast when he is in a good mood);
• accuracy of calculation of final results – DM allows knowing in advance (before carrying out advertising campaign) and with a certain accuracy quantity of possible responses. For example, if in the Western market 2% of responses to DM-treatment is considered a good result, in Russia these figures are higher than in other countries up to 10-20% of recipients (for comparison: 3-4% respond to television advertising);
• the ability to effectively control the feedback of consumers;
• the ability to convey to the consumer more information than in traditional forms of advertising.
Advertising text should be easy to read, accompanied by bright headlines and graphics, as well as describe not so much the merits of the company, as the benefits that the customer will receive from its services.
How Much Does Direct Mail Marketing Cost?
The cost of such e-mail marketing can be both quite low and high. It all depends on your preferences and your budget. Some do most of the work themselves and spend only on printing and mailing, others hire professional designers.
Your first cost will be for design. You can do it yourself, buy a ready-made template for a few dollars online, or hire professional designers.
The next step is a marketing copy, which you can also write yourself or set aside a little budget to hire a professional copywriter. To get a mailing list, if you do not have potential customer data, you need to pay about 0.22 to 30 cents per entry. The penultimate stage is printing. It all depends on the quality of the paper, color, page size, and more. They pay about $0.03 to $2.00 for printing per piece.
And your last expense will be postage. The price of postage is quite relative because it depends on your wishes (quantity, weight, etc.). If you implement your email marketing correctly, it will bring good results for your business, and the costs will not be so much. If you need help with your projects, you can contact direct mail marketing companies. With direct marketing mail companies, you can achieve the best possible results that fit any budget.