Direct Mail Marketing Made Simple
Direct mail campaigns come with their own unique features, benefits and requirements that can make them more effective than than other marketing efforts such as bulk email. If you're currently running an email campaign, especially if they are cold leads, it's worth considering the switch to direct mail.
Despite its age, direct mail marketing is one of the most efficient and cost effective forms of advertising available to real estate agents, brokers, and investors. Understanding how to create an effective direct mail campaign can be a vital channel for anyone trying to market their business and or kick off an effective campaign to build your brand.
What Is Direct Mail Marketing?
Let's take a look at some of the most common questions asked about direct mail marketing and explore how it can be conducted effectively with your business.
Direct mail is a type of advertising where you send a promotional piece of print marketing to someone who fits your target audience. A direct mail campaign is one of the most cost-effective ways to market your product or service, no matter how big you are.
How To Conduct A Direct Mail Advertising Campaign
Direct mail marketing is one of the most effective ways to get your message in front of your target market.
- Determine Your Target Market: If you want to conduct an effective direct mail marketing campaign, you need to know who you are sending the message to. You need to know what they want, what they need, and how they think. You also need to know their preferences and what will make them take notice.
Before you send out your direct mail marketing campaign, it is important that you understand who your target audience is and what they want from a company. This will help ensure that your campaign is successful and that it reaches the people that it needs too.
Ask yourself who is your best client? Identify your perfect customer and work your way backwards to figure out how you can reach out to prospects that are just like that.
Pro Tip: We share exclusive insights strategies with customers who schedule a discover call with our team.
- Generating Your Target Market Prospect Mailing List: Direct mail marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audiences. The best way to do this is by using a list, or buying one that has been authorized by a trustworthy data company.
Authorized works with the best real estate data companies that are updated daily that you can use to find your perfect prospect. When you use the Authorized system you can rest assured knowing you have dynamic real time data.
Our trusted data providers can also skip trace or append homeowner information such as phone number, mailing address, and emails. Checkout our knowledge base to learn more about our trusted partners so you can get the best list for in your target market.
- Write effective copy: In order to reach customers successfully, a good mailing list is an important start but it's not enough on its own. A direct mail piece designed well will also be important in order to engage people. When sending a direct mailing, you need to think about the person you are targeting- your message should speak directly to them. For example, if you are targeting homeowners in the US, the message should be tailored specifically for their situation.
Before you write, take some time to think about your marketing strategy and target demographic. What does your audience care about? Who are they? Visuals can often be more effective than copy, so it’s a good idea to create something that is both catchy and informative.
In order to save time and still have effective copy, Authorized has partnered with a mailing company that specializes in real estate marketing. They offer pre-built done for you multi touch campaigns and have years of experience knowing what works, and what doesn’t work. Whats even more powerful, is that there is no minimum purchases, so you can send one off multi touch campaigns or in bulk.
- Settle on design: When sending print marketing or letter, the graphic design is of utmost importance as every element needs to be carefully crafted in order to grab your potential customer's attention. You should also make sure your branding is professional and have a clear call to action. Luckily our team has a solution for that as well. You can customize your own mailers using the direct mail builder or make changes to pre-made templates.
- Adjust based on results: To succeed with direct mail, you'll need to have a good plan in place. This includes knowing who is most receptive to your business and tailoring future direct mailings accordingly. Don't forget the importance of tracking response rates, as well as following up with recipients of your campaign. We advise business owners to follow up on direct mailings with further email, text, or digital marketing campaigns. Again Authorized has trusted partner that can help with all of that. Find out more by visiting our knowledge base.
7 Tips to Conduct an Effective Direct Mail Campaign
- Target repeat customers. Examples of direct mailing campaigns may include contacting past customers and encouraging, updating them on new market statistics, or simply sending out a recipe card. Direct mail marketing can be utilized to re-engage previous clients and generate repeat business for your business. You learn more about the fundamental Rule of 7 in our knowledge base.
- Follow-up. Great direct mail marketers create schedules for when to follow up with their target market and past clients. Even if someone didn't respond the first time, you may want to hold off before giving up and sending a different prospect another mailer. You can lean on our system to help solve this by using pre-made multi touch campaigns.
- Stay informed of direct marketing trends. Keep up with the latest developments in direct mailing. Read trade publications and check mailing industry websites to find out about changes that can affect your campaigns. One way you can easily upgrade your direct mail efforts is by adding an Authorized QR code to each piece. This simple addition can bridge the print to digital gap by driving your customers to your Authorized website.
- Personalize. Customers love personalized ads because they feel targeted and; it's more likely that they'll notice and be interested in the ad. Include personal details or tailored promotions in your communications to engage new customers on a more familiar level. This is a powerful way to create a better response and is easy to manage when you use the Authorized platform.
- Create a hybrid campaign. Nowadays, businesses tend to focus on hybrid advertising campaigns that use various marketing techniques. Including a direct mail campaign with other types of marketing can lead to increased success rates. We give you all those options to test from and you can use the one that is best suited to your needs when it comes to advertise your business.
- Include offers they can’t refuse. Promoting a sales campaign starts with having the right offer. Understand what successful promotions are made of and how to grab attention. Keep your mailer interesting by including a special promotion that is enticing to the eye or to your pocketbook. Make sure that it stands out from other mailers and deals.
- Be patient. The best skill a direct mail marketer has is patience. We are used to the immediate responses and gratification of the digital world, but snail mail is a different project in itself. Direct mail takes time - always give your campaigns enough time to produce results before you decide to give up. Trusting your business model and perseverance will lead to great success.
Wrapping Up
Direct mail marketing is one of the most efficient and cost effective forms of advertising available to real estate agents, brokers, and investors.
Understanding how to create an effective direct mail campaign can be a vital channel for anyone trying to market their business and or kick off an effective campaign to build your brand.
Combining your efforts and running direct mail along with strategies the Authorized system offers you is the best way to start a strong campaign. To learn some other tips & tricks check out this article.
- Get your free Authorized account
- Start your free 7-day trail with our trusted print partner
- Add your Authorized QR code to all print marketing
