THE BASICS OF A DIRECT MAIL PIECE by John Rigdon We all get direct mail pieces in our mail box every day. Direct mail is often referred to as "junk mail" because so much of what we receive is mis-directed. The bottom line difference between direct mail and junk mail is whether or not it reaches its target market. It's true that one man's trash is another man's treasure, so your job as a direct mailer is to target those prospects who will "treasure" your mail piece. Target your market. Your best response, no matter what the offer will come from current customers. I'm constantly amazed at the small business owners who haven't even bothered to find out who these people are. Once you have worked your customer list, rent lists from business- es similar to yours. You can expect to pay from $35.00 to $250.00 per thousand to rent a list for a one time mailing. As in most things, you get what you pay for. Expect to pay somewhere in the middle (around $100 per thousand) for a good clean list. A traditional direct mail piece consists of 4 parts. All of the successful mailers use this format regardless of the product they have to sell. While you may be tempted to cut back on one or more pieces, I can tell you from painful experience that you'll do so at your expense. I've read numerous articles from "experts" who try to explain why one or more of the pieces are important and whether or not you can do without them, but the bottom line is, as a group they work. The individual pieces don't! Open an envelope from one of the big time mailers and you'll find these 4 pieces. 1. A color brochure which describes the product in detail, explaining features and benefits with little or no discussion of price. 2. A one-color sales letter which runs from two to four pages which hits hard on the benefits of the product and offers a special price or other premium if you act soon. 3. A separate order card which may also include a coupon which gives additional premiums or savings. This order card also details terms of the sale, sales tax, and whether you accept charge cards and COD. 4. A return envelope for the customer to return his order. Many beginners tend to ignore this piece, but my experience has shown a 30% improvement on the exact same offer, using the same list just by including a return envelope. Incidentally, the postage paid business reply does not make nearly as much difference as just including an envelope. Business reply envelopes cost you no more to print however, and you only pay postage for those which contain orders, so it makes good sense to use them. The entire mail piece doesn't have to be expensive. You can produce a nice effective piece including postage for less than 50 cents per piece. Currently, my company's mail piece is costing us 38 cents each including postage. Here's the breakdown. Postage .146 two envelopes .08 sales letter .07 order card .023 list rental .065 (varies by list, this is an average) ------ .384 On a per thousand basis, that's $384.00, therefore the product I have to sell must generate that much in orders just to cover costs. Many direct mail gurus will tell you to accept 3% response, but my experience has consistently shown that response rates of 11% to 15% are consistently realized if you follow the rules. My basic offer is $75.00 with a sell-up to $135.00 and $300.00. If I get a 3% response on the basic offer only, I'll return $2250.00 on an investment of $384. As you plan your direct mail campaign, plan your pricing so you can break even on a 1% response. Then test your offers with various combinations to see what works the best. Once you have a combination that garners an 8% to 12% return, roll it out to a much larger audience. As you can see from our example above, a 12% return would yield almost $10,000 on our original $384 investment. There are a number of mailing houses who can handle the nuts and bolts of getting the mailing out for you much cheaper than you can afford to hire people yourself. Don't let them talk you into mailing multi- thousand pieces however until you've had the time to test several pieces and count the response. Each test can be fully evaluated within two to three weeks of mailing, so you can zero in on a winning combination within a few months. Let's look at the individual pieces. The single most important piece is the sales letter. It should be written the way you talk... short choppy sentences, each expressing a point. No big words, no difficult concepts. Stress the benefits. Start with the primary benefit at the top of the letter. Make it bold, offset it from the rest of the letter. Lead into the letter stressing that benefit. About half way down the page, present the second benefit. Then follow through the remainder of the letter with all of the other benefits in short snappy style. Close out the letter with a price offer which is irresistible relative to the benefits you offer. After the letter close, include 1 or 2 PS's. These should restate the primary benefit and offer an additional benefit or special price if the customer acts within a limited time. Most times, the PS is read second, right after the front page header, so it's especially important to restate the primary benefit and offer a deal. This will encourage the prospect to go back and read the body of the letter. The color brochure is the least important and most expensive part of the mail package, but you should not ignore it. A nice brochure alone, is virtually useless. I receive many of them every day, either alone, or in an envelope by themselves, and even before I knew the "why", I almost never responded to any of the offers. Having said that however, let's look at the purpose the brochure serves, and what it should con- tain. The brochure should contain any technical specifications on your product, perhaps a picture if appropriate, and restate each of the product's features, stressing the benefits. If you have any pricing at all, show full list prices of the product. You may also use the bro- chure to list other products or services your company has to offer, but if so, don't carry those products to the sales letter. Any single mail piece should only sell one or several closely related products. The order card should be laid out on one side as an order blank. Include your phone number prominently, including fax number if available. Remember to include blanks on the order card for all of the information you want to add to your data base about your customer. More times than not, the customer will provide this information freely. The reverse side of the order card should contain your warranty or guarantee information. In today's market, 85% of your orders will come over the telephone. Therefore it is vitally important for you to have qualified personnel ready to answer the phone. An incompetent receptionist could cost you thousands of dollars in lost sales and if you must call back, more often than not you'll lose the sale. Don't hesitate to "hard sell" the guy on the phone. Do whatever it takes to close the deal right then. In addition to potentially lost sales, the longer it takes to close the sale, the more it costs you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- John Rigdon is the president of Eastern Digital Resources, publisher of The Total Mailing List Manager software and direct mail consultants. Eastern Digital Resources specializes in mailing list brokerage, direct mail consulting, and software publishing. A FREE demo of The Total Mailing List Manager Software is available. Send your request to Eastern Digital Resources - PO Box 1451 - Clearwater, SC 29822-1451. Tel. (803) 593-0870. Copyright 1992 by John Rigdon UNICOM Information Services.