Mid-Hudson Marketing

Given the cost of postage these days, direct mail is primarily utilized to reach the crème de la crème. It has been well-established as one of the most intimate forms of marketing, reaching its targeted recipient's hands with little or no competition for his or her attention. Of course, it has its challenges. Failure to reach addressee is the most common frustration with a variety of reasons to blame including error, loss, destruction or negligence in delivery. Other circumstances also thwart the direct mail effort such as recipient vacations; procrastination in attending to personal mail; preoccupation with other more urgent matters; and, disdain for any unauthorized solicitations.

Is Direct Mail obsolete in this era of online marketing?

Funny you should ask. Almost daily, direct mail arrives in my mailbox from a wide variety of companies, organizations and individual professionals, both local and national! And ironically, Google is often among them along with PayPal, a selection of major banking institutions and investment firms, healthcare practices, insurance companies, grocery store flyers, among many others. Why?

Because it is still a viable route into the hands of important members of the market they are targeting. True, direct mail is frequently ignored and discarded but the ROI must make sense to the behemoths using it to continue to do so.

Special interest magazines as well as a variety of catalogs are direct mailed at appropriate times of the year to encourage interest and sales from segments of the market that may not be utilizing the Internet, or are too busy to discover such companies on their own with all the online competition. In addition, politicians rely heavily on direct mail during each election period with a multitude of attempts to win your vote. Like bricks and mortar stores, direct mail continues to provide another avenue of gaining your market share.

Above: Two Mid-Hudson Marketing direct mailers created for a financial planner striving to inform local aging residents that they could benefit from his free seminars.

How To Attract Attention of Recipient

With so many difficulties in reaching your targeted market, we have found that in some instances, a large glamorous postcard accomplishes the direct mail task better than any other format. Why? A postcard can't miss its mark because there is no encumbrance of an envelope obscuring its message. When designed and produced properly, it is large, attractive and easy to glance at.

Above: A real estate client's direct mailer contained an enticing message to engage interest and response.

Above: A landscape client's direct mailer was created to promote the company's availability, services and reputation.

How does the Direct Mail process work?

After conceiving project focus and message, you need to decide to whom it will be mailed. If a client does not have an appropriate demographically selected mailing list to use, research can determine the availability and cost of a suitable list based on a variety of general parameters such as income, home value, age, interests, and more. After the project has been printed, mailing professionals use a supplied mailing list to address each piece, and follow strictly regulated postal standards to prepare it for delivery to a post office where it is processed, usually as first class or standard (third class) mail. Delivery can vary from a single day to several weeks, depending on post office performance and type of mail selected.

Above: Another real estate client's direct mailer was created to provoke response from frustrated sellers of their homes.

The Challenges of the USPS System

Having been through this process many times over the years, it is important to be aware that every campaign is vulnerable to the inconsistency of the USPS performance. This is especially true if there is a targeted date of an event or sale. To use an analogy, as it impossible to time the stock market, the same holds true of timing the delivery of your direct mailer. To avoid the humiliation and disappointment of missing the optimal date of arrival, it is best to allow maximum time as stated in the USPS regulations. This may result in a surprisingly expedited delivery (as luck would have it,) and stymie the original reason for choosing direct mail in the first place. Attendance at events, arrival at a sale or top-of-mind awareness in the voting booth are often the result of the urgency in which to respond. If it is too far in the future, people tend to forget.

So why use direct mail at all? When it is delivered, it conveys your message directly to your targeted recipient which may not happen as effectively with all the other distractions in other marketing strategies like ads on a busy printed page or competing with the infinitely labyrinthine nature of the Internet, as examples. The best strategy when a definite date is important is to rely not just on the direct mail, but on a variety of marketing strategies to make sure of your campaign's success.

Above: Another landscape client's direct mailer included two special valuable offers to encourage response.