You probably receive one every day — a personal invitation, exclusive sale, time-sensitive offer, catalog, flyer or a “welcome to the neighborhood” greeting.

These mailers find you at your house, in your office or post office box. If your household or office is like most Americans, nearly half of direct mail is sent to the trash or recycling bin.

Love it or hate it, direct mail can be an effective sales medium. For your direct mailers to avoid disposal, it behooves you to spend time planning an effective campaign.

Why direct mail?

Yvette Craddock

Before embarking on any advertising campaign, it is essential to define exactly what your goals are and why the methods for achieving those goals will work to generate return on investment (ROI). And before choosing direct mail, it is important to avoid a widely adopted fallacy that one mailing will do the trick.

Direct mail is not an overnight sensation. It generally involves multiple mailings to build brand awareness, capture attention and to generate results whether you are engaging in business-to-consumer (b2c) or business-to-business (b2b) marketing.

Here’s a questionnaire to aid your decision making process:

•  What are your short-term and long-term goals?
•  Why is direct mail the most effective and efficient way to reach your goal?
•  Who is your audience?
•  Where can you reach your audience?
•  What products or services are you offering?
•  What is the messages you want to communicate?
•  What type of action do you want the recipient to take?
•  How will your campaign look?
•  How much will each mailing cost?
•  How will you monitor response and ROI?

Let’s address these items by category.

Will direct mail achieve my goals?

Direct mail is a likely solution for your campaign if it fits one of these situations:

•  A new business with a niche market
•  An existing business launching a new product or service to a select groupA series of special offers to spark incremental sales
•  An exclusive invitation to become involved in a business opportunity, special event or cause.

If your goals cannot be met with direct mail, then try another form of advertising.

Who is my audience?

Your target audience should contain profiles of people who you clearly can identify from a behavioral perspective. A credible list-provider will supply you with a database that corresponds to your target audience criteria.

For b2c needs, you can buy a list based on broad factors such as ZIP codes. Or you can more precisely target contacts by selecting specific criteria such as age, gender, homeownership, home value, household income and number of occupants, etc.

If your campaign is geared to a b2b audience, then position, industry, company size and revenues, etc., will be key criteria considerations. The more detailed your list criteria, the greater its cost.

Your goals and budget will influence the final campaign list. This list ultimately will be given to your printer for the fulfillment process.

What are you saying?

Keep your copy clean, simple, concise and action-oriented. People easily can become overwhelmed with direct mailers that have extensive content, multiple graphical bursts, all capital letters and multiple fonts.

Catchy headlines, substantial and time-sensitive offers and a strong call-to-action message tend to generate results. Tap into an audience’s mindset to trigger a positive response.

What does the mailer look like?

Your design should be modern and relate to your brand. Every component of design relates to the mailer’s overall message.

Use color, size and shape to stand out from mail box clutter and generate a level of curiosity to increase responses.

What does the distribution process entail?

Today’s technology allows for flexibility in quantities and cost-effectiveness printing solutions. Additional considerations include personalized messages and unique shapes and sizes.

Most often a direct-mail service or printer can provide you access to their indicia or mailing permit to save postage costs. Remember to add up the cost of the entire campaign.

Did it work?

The ultimate test is the response. The key is to track response through codes, deadlines, phone numbers and other technology tools.

An average campaign yields a response rate up to 5 percent — however, greater returns can be achieved with a thoroughly planned and well-executed campaign. Adjust messaging, tracking and timing between mailings to increase response rates.