5 tips for better direct mail

Here are a few tips to improve your direct mail and make it greener in the process.

Direct Mail has been beaten up over the years by the press for being junk (a term I really hate) for  creating large amounts of waste and in general is considered less glamorous then say TV advertising.    Direct Mail is one of the most cost effective and efficient ways to reach your customers and has been proven to work more often then most other media.  Almost every business and organization I know of uses it whether they admit to it or not.   You would probably be surprised at what a creative person can do with the mail (watch the blog for some posts about interesting and innovative direct mail).

Here are a few tips for making sure your direct mail effort is on target and environmentally friendly:

1. Use recycled paper for your printing.  There is really no excuse not to anymore. The difference in paper quality is almost indistinguishable.
2. Make sure you clean your mailing list with tools such as NCOA and other postal processing procedures.  These process will save you money and improve your response. 
3. If you get a request to remove someone from your mailing, do it.
4. Remove any return mail from your database so that you don't mail the names again.  There are a number of data entry services available for this task and many will even pick up the mail and send you a file of bad names.
5. Utilize the DMA's Mail Preference Service to remove names from your database or outside lists that don't want to receive mail.  If they don't want it they probably are not going to respond.

Every name you remove or update means you have saved postage, paper and resources mailing a prospect.

Did you know that for every penny increase in the price of gas it costs the USPS $1 Million a day (or something like that).  Just think about how many cars, planes, trucks etc the USPS uses to get your mail across the country or the world.  A piece of bad mail does the trip twice!  Keeping your database clean  will improve your results and help the environment.

Not sure if Direct Marketing is right for your business, drop me a note and I will be happy to discuss it with you.