Direct marketing, love it or hate those emails land in your inbox multiple times a day and whether you follow them up or not they do work. If you run a business and are thinking of upping your marketing game, then taking advantage of direct mail software is a great first step, but before you get involved there are six questions you might want to ask yourself to make sure you’re on the right track.
What’s your hook?
The first thing your recipient is going to see is the subject line and this is where the battle to open the email is won or lost. Business experts state that you need to try a mix of the personal and the direct to create a successful subject line. You’ll need show that what you’re offering has an explicit, concrete value whether that’s a discount, a fulfillment of a long-held ambition or a reward.
Have you pinned down who your audience are?
You shouldn’t’ even have put finger to keyboard before you’ve done a great amount of research into who your target market are. Without this key information on age, demographic and so on you’ll be in the dark as to what makes your customer tick and run the risk of sending emails that are way off the mark.
Is your tech up to scratch?
Or more likely, are your tech skills up to scratch? If you’re not familiar with mail merges, managed address books or how to send out a mailout you’re going to need to either learn fast or delegate.
If you’re not sure what you’re doing or if your system can cope with the job talk to the experts, like Nye Technical Services, LLC or consider hiring a marketing manager.
What are you asking readers to do?
Identify early on what it is your customer needs to do, their call to action. None of us has time to plough through long emails to get to the important bit, so if you’re asking your customer to visit your website or carry out a survey make that clear high up in the body of the email.
Have you developed the right style?
If you’re not sure what to write or how to write a direct mail marketing email then don’t try and guess. Do a little research into what works and what doesn’t and imitate winning styles.
Avoid writing reams of text and instead keep your mailout short and to the point. Create a sense of right now about your text that urges your reader to take action and not miss out on any bargains you might be offering. Have a colleague or friend read through your attempt to make sure it’s on point.
Have you gone through with a fine tooth comb?
When you’ve spent a great deal of time working on something it can be easy to miss mistakes that are right in front of you so have a proofreader come and give it the once over. Then sit back and see your hits racking up as direct marketing takes effect.