5 Direct Mail Mistakes 90% Of Marketers Make

Every year, the marketing sphere is changing.

It’s growing, evolving, and expanding.

Along with that near constant transformation, the industry also serves us up new tools and novel strategies for marketing our brands.

Snapchat, Instagram, geotagging, advanced SEO.

There seems to be an unending stock of ever better advances.

In all the excitement, have we forgotten about some of the tried-and-true marketing methods that have served us well in the past?

Are we even making the most of some of these methods?

Take direct mailing, for example.

In recent years, there’s been a huge drawdown in this marketing avenue, with reductions counted in the billions.

It’s not hard to guess that this shift is due to the revolutionary power of the Internet.

Well, once upon a time, mailboxes were brimming with direct mail.

Now, not so much.

But wait a second… isn’t this article about how to avoid some of the most dreaded direct mail mistakes?

If less and fewer people are using it… why would we want to use it?

That’s exactly why you want to use it!

Think about it for a second.

When you use this guide to skip the mistakes most marketers make with their direct mail campaign, your mailpiece won’t be one of a hundred in the box that day.

Instead, in many cases, it will be one of a kind!

While it might not seem obvious at first, this trend away from direct mail means that every piece that is sent has a bigger chance to make an impact.

Plus, direct mail has become savvier with the changing times and still returns solid results.

And in reality, customers are still responding to direct mail.

So, even if you had previously discounted this method, let’s dust it off, and learn how to magnify its effect to the full extent.

Ineffectively Highlighting Features or Benefits

You’ve probably heard it a million times: give your potential customers or clients benefits instead of features.

Well, today, we’re going to shake that rule up a little bit and take a look at how it’s not always right.

It’s completely true that benefits are often easier to tell a story with.

And that many demographics also respond well to them.

However, a common issue with direct mail pieces is that they often focus on features when they should be illustrating benefits or benefits when they should be demonstrating features.

So how do you know which to use in your mailpieces?

Because every market and niche is going to be a little different, you have to consider your specific demographic here.

Are you sending mailpieces to a group of ultra-intellectual analysts?

It might be a good idea to lean toward features over benefits.

This is a group that’s looking for hard numbers and straightforward features.

What about if you’re mailing teenagers about a hip new product?

Benefits might very well be the way to go.

This crowd is often more interested in how a product or service can be a godsend for them.

To aid you in this process, check out how to use basic demographic segmentation to narrow in on your chosen audience.

Protip: If you’re struggling to decide whether to focus more on features or benefits, keep in mind that you don’t have to be all in on only one. You can always have an equal share of both until you get a better lock on how your demographic responds to your marketing.

Leaving Out an Actual Offer

Along the lines of using benefits or features in your mail copy, you’ll also want to include an offer.

Too often you may have seen mailpieces that simply present you with a product or service, but don’t offer anything additional.

Whether you choose to go with a product demo, a coupon, a sample, an exclusive podcast, or a free webinar, you’ll want to include a well-chosen offer to your lead.

The point is to grab your audience’s attention by giving them something related to the product, but not necessarily the whole experience.

This whets their appetite and draws them to your brand.

Few people can turn down a free offer, and it equally solidifies your brand with them.

The goal is also to have your audience do something to get the offer.

If they have to send in to get a booklet or register to download an ebook, they’ve made a vital connection with your brand.

Protip: Look for chances to jazz up the names of your offers. Instead of simply calling it a free webinar for your service, name it something like “free strategy planning session with a pro.” Then you can also set aside time during the webinar to answer live audience questions that pertain to their needs.

Neglecting Your Follow-up

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again and again: follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.

You might think that lead will still be qualified and ready to buy weeks or even months from now, but the reality is something completely different.

First, research has proven that about half of sales go to the first company that responds.

(You might even be shocked to learn that leads that are responded to within a single hour get 7 times the conversion rate).

We can carry this thinking over to how your mailers’ inquiry process and surmise that the longer the wait, the less qualified the lead is.

With everything going on in someone’s life, can we expect customers to get a follow-up months after a mailer and still respond the same way they would if that follow-up came much earlier?

It’s equally true that how your follow-up process works is just as important as how quickly it’s put into action.

Are you sending out repeat mailers or calling prospects who failed to respond to your direct mailing?

Will you use a telemarketing service for your follow-ups or do you prefer to make each call yourself so that you can connect with your leads on a personal level?

These are important questions to consider when building your follow-up process.

Remember to think of this process as guiding your potential customer to exactly where they need to go: your brand.

Protip: Follow-up and lead nurturing go hand-in-hand. Viewing your follow-up process in this way means your brand will enjoy stronger relationships and increased conversion rates. Make sure to utilize all the tools we’ve reviewed together for building those relationships.

Streamline your automating process using Actionetics. Not only can you schedule emails, but you’ll also have the advantage of creating high-quality emails with its Email Builder.

Jamming In as Many Adjectives and Exclamation Points as Possible

It can sometimes seem like certain industries are fraught with this issue.

You’ve probably seen your fair share of mailers with this mistake.

They’re full of multiple, giant exclamation points and generic words like “massive” or “insane.”

One of the first things you’ll learn when you bring on a professional copywriter is that many of them strongly recommend leaving these off of your copy.

It’s not that adjectives are bad or even that a well-placed exclamation point should always be avoided.

But in an era where a majority of content is being left unread, you’ll want to skip tacky and generic.

These tactics are uncreative and lazy, but they’re also easy to discount because of their lack of substance. And really, do they even convey anything?

Instead, get inspired and stand out by making your copy the best it can be.

Catchphrases can be clever, and selling points can address your customers’ real needs.

Protip: If you’re new to the world of copy and not feeling it yet, you can often pick up an expert writer at the click of a button. Check out our article on exactly how to do it.

You don’t have to worry about cheesy lines and copywriting tasks if you have an awesome copy generating tool like that of Funnel Scripts. If you haven’t signed up for a copy yet, then click here.

Forgetting to Personalize Your Mailing

When we started out today, you learned that even though direct mail has taken a hit in recent years, it remains a way to get noticed, maybe even more so.

And companies continue to use it to great effect.

To take your mailpiece to the next level, personalize it for greater impact.

In an age where our lives are being saturated by digital communications, a personalized mailer delivered right to your door is indeed a rare occurrence.

What if that communication uses your name several times?

What if it was sent at a relevant time to an event in your life?

What if your prospect received a handwritten letter from you addressing part of their unique situation?

While that last one might involve quite a bit of work, for certain niches with higher-ticket funnels, it might make absolute sense.

And if recent research is any indication, that lead will feel a direct connection with this personalized content.

Look for those opportunities to add a bit of personalization wherever you can.

Take advantage of your email automation tools email merge features to automatically add in your subscriber’s name or any other relevant detail. Actionetics has made it convenient by letting you add email merge tags to your email subject or body. Learn more about email merge tags here.

Protip: Across the Internet, you’ll find formulas for personalizing content.

But just like your relationships aren’t necessarily built on a blueprint, creating relationships with your leads through personalization should be similar.

Think of it as a natural process not constrained by rules.

What direct mailing strategies have caught your eye in the past and kept you from tossing another mailer?

ClickFunnels Action Steps

How to Create Emails with Email Builder

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account

Step 2: Click Actionetics

Step 3: Go to Email Broadcasts and click on the New Email Broadcast button.

Step 4: Design your email! You can choose from several templates.

Step 5: Add the information needed

1. The subject of your email
2. Add the email lists. In this case, those who signed up for your webinar
3. Your SMTP Configuration which will be used to send emails.

Step 6: Open Email Editor

Step 7: Add and remove elements to your email according to your preference

Step 8: Click Save

Step 9: You can opt to send your emails upon creation or schedule them to be sent at a future time. Simply click “Send Later” and set the time and date.