Warning: the following statistics are hardly promising and definitely not satisfying. In fact, they’re kind of depressing.
1-3% is the average response rate for a direct campaign.
44% of direct goes to the garbage dump unopened.
55% of Americans dislike getting internet disks in the while 26% despise it.
But the following statistics may sound better to you:
85% of women age 25-44 read direct pieces.
72% of adults said they reply to direct that contains a buy one, get one free offer.
100% of the suggestions I am about to provide you with will work.
With postage rates rising, it is becoming even more expensive to send out direct , and with such a low return rate, different ideas need to be dreamt up in order to profit from such a campaign. As the average American receives 560 pieces of direct each year, the potential to end up buried in the pile is also incredibly high. So, how do we combat that? Well, we step out of line and do something completely crazy.
As a marketing consultant, these are my tried and true, proven, w00001AA8orked a million times ways to increase your direct and sales response rates.
1) The first problem is getting YOUR direct piece noticed out of the huge pile of 560-yearly pieces. There are five rules I follow religiously for this: use a live stamp, never use an inkjet printer, use personalized return address labels (a person’s name, not a company’s name), use an outrageous individualized design on the enveloped, and use a handwriting font to write the person’s address.
While most of my suggestions are pretty self-explanatory, I would like to elaborate on my suggestion to use outrageous designs on the envelope. In the past, I have drawn crazy doodles and out-of-the-box pictures on each of the envelopes we sent out. Of course, I turned them into graphics so that I wouldn’t actually have to draw on each of the envelopes by hand, but it appeared that I had. It is refreshing to receive a piece of that isn’t boring and bland like the rest of them.
2) Once the is opened, it’s important that what is on the outside of the envelope matches whatever is on the inside. On the direct campaigns that I doodle on, I always doodle inside as well (I also always doodle on postcards and every other direct mailer I send out, envelope or not). From words like “Amazing!” to arrows to smiley faces, I doodle everything on these postcards. It catches people’s attention! They don’t want to see anymore of the boring white paper with black type, and this way you can ensure that they will notice exactly what you want them to. Most people will read past everything that isn’t highlighted in some way.
3) Ok, you’ve gotten them to open it and interested in what you have to say. Now, include an incentive for them to respond to your direct . Offer to send them a free lunch ($5 gift card to a fast food restaurant) or other type of gift card if they will send you back their name, address, phone number, and answer a few simple questions about their company’s habits and needs. In the past, this has skyrocketed my response rates to 20% and even higher.
You’ll be amazed at how much information you can gain simply by offering this small incentive. In addition, when they answer your few targeted questions, you’ll have the information you need to sift out the dead leads. If they don’t have any use for your product, why waste your time? You’ll also be able to establish your own mailing list of people who would be great recipients for future direct campaigns.
You’ve got your responses now. All you need to do is follow through and you’re set! You’ve increased your response rate, and if you’ve got the sales people, you can easily increase your sales rates.
I’ve got one more suggestion for you also; it’s just a little something I like to use for my clients. Viral marketing can work wonders on your campaign if you know how to do it correctly. For my clients, we design and e- out crazy desktop wallpapers that include an offer (some sort of service or product at a discounted price) and then include a ‘Forward to a Friend’ link.
Because there is an offer involved, people will e- out that wallpaper like there is no tomorrow, and if they really like your company or the graphics you have on the wallpaper, your advertisement will be displayed proudly on their computer constantly. We set up an e- capture so every time the wallpaper is forwarded, we are sent the person’s e-. This way, we build up our e- list as well! It’s a win-win situation.
Each and every tip I have suggested is sure to work for you because it has worked for me for years. If you do it correctly, you’ll increase your response rates and Cigarette Cards exponentially. If you’re not seeing results, try my next suggestion - one, if not all, of these is guaranteed to work for you.
For more information on the doodles and envelopes discussed above, visit my website at pdamarketing.netpdamarketing.net where the doodles I use for my clients are available for you as well. I am a seasoned marketing consultant and co-founder of PDA Marketing, a full-service marketing and design firm in Baltimore, MD. I can set up your next direct campaign to get you the maximum response rate. For some examples of what I’ve done in the past, try theabsolutelyfreemailer.com/survey.htmltheabsolutelyfreemailer.com/survey.html

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