Not getting any response to your mailings?
Sometimes I have to dampen a new client’s overly enthusiastic expectations about direct mail in general and my abilities in particular. “On occasion,” I’ll caution, “I’ve been known to create a package that pulls so little response, you wonder if it even mailed.”
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty for Slate Magazine
Is the solution to “disguise” the marketing pieces as “real” mail, via stamped and hand-written envelopes?
Brian Brady | Respond to this comment
‘Fraid not, Brian. “Postal patrons” (as the USPS so patronizingly calls us) have long ceased thinking of the mail as a medium of correspondence … more accurately recognizing it as a means of advertising and billing (no matter how you envelop your message).
And no, deception is not marketing … or at least not successful, long-term, brand-building, repeat-buying, customer-satisfying marketing which is the sine qua non of subscription sales.
Richard Riccelli | Respond to this comment
Some businesses seem to think that sending anything means they deserve a response–they’re living in a dream world.
I recently received a direct mail piece from a real estate firm. It included no return address and no mention of the state in which it is located. They are probably still wondering what went wrong.
Chuck Green | Respond to this comment
Precisely. Putting something in the mail may be direct, but it isn’t necessarily, or even often, marketing.
If we expect to engage customers, we have an obligation to be clear and informative, interesting and inspiring, open and responsive … all the attributes of the communications arts deployed as a creative science by the (regrettably) few who actually understand the principles and best practices of demonstrably-effective direct marketing.
For in-lookers, Mr. Green (IdeaBook and PagePlane) is among the finest of those few. And he can show you how to be good at it too.
Richard Riccelli | Respond to this comment