Direct mail is one of those tactics which is typically overlooked while everyone is jockeying for attention online. And true to my nature, I’m always looking for the marketing tactics most people aren’t paying attention to in order to gain an edge in my marketing.
7 reasons to strongly consider doing direct mail:
1. Extremely targeted – You can target markets by demographics, psychographics, or (my personal favorite) past purchases. There are compiled lists, which consist of contacts who share some similarity like living in the same zip code, belonging to the same political party, or having blue eyes.
There are responders lists, which are made up of people who have responded or opted in in some way like requesting more info, filling out a warranty card, or calling from a radio or tv commercial. Then there are my favorite kind of lists. These are list of buyers of some other product or service. People on these lists have already demonstrated a willingness to buy something.
2. Super stealthy – Unlike marketing online, direct mail gives you the ability to test, grow, and build a campaign or business with very little visibility by your competitors. It’s very easy with all the tools available to “spy” on your competition online, not so with direct mail. They won’t know how much you’re mailing, how often, or have any idea what your conversions are.
3. Easily scalable – The size you can grow to is only limited by the number of available responsive lists. With direct mail you can very predictably scale your business by continuing to test additional lists and with a knowledgable list broker you can predict what size you can scale to sometimes after the first test.
4. It’s simple to test and track – With a direct mail campaign your biggest variables are list, mail piece, and response device. Obviously, there are other components (or parts within the parts). But having just 3 main things to test makes it easy to track and easy to tweak.
5. Low-tech/Beginner friendly – You don’t need to know how to write code. You don’t have to hire someone to write code. There’s no code involved. Once the copy and layout is done for the mail piece, turning on your campaign is as easy as calling your list broker to order names and then calling the print/mail shop to place your order. You don’t even have to touch a stamp if you don’t want to.
6. Relatively cheap – In my experience I’ve seen per lead costs for as low as $2, optins for $4, and per sale cost for a $1,495 dollar product as low as $150. Imagine offering a JV partner just $150 bucks for a $1,495 sale. Also leads generated via direct mail tend to have a MUCH higher LTV (lifetime value) and fewer unsubscribes and spam complaints.
7. It’s an independent platform – Imagine not having a big company telling you what your ads can look like! Obviously you are still regulated by the FTC and various other entities concerned with rules regarding what you can and can’t say in your advertising. But there are no companies telling you your message doesn’t meet with their approval, no quality scores, no algorithym changes, none of the things that can adversly affect your business overnight.
BONUS REASON: Very little competition. Like I mentioned above, I love going where people are ignoring opportunities to generate easy leads and profits.
Today, email inboxes are full and people are eager to hit the delete, or worse, the spam complaint button. But just the opposite is true for most people’s mailboxes. Your message stands out when yours is the only one they’re holding in their hands reading.
Bottom line… it doesn’t matter if you use direct mail for lead generation, direct selling, or simply to fill up webinars, direct mail can help you build and grow your business predictably and with very little hassle.
So now you’re probably wondering how you can learn the very latest direct mail – postcard marketing tactics people are using to build huge lists of buyers.
Let me introduce you to Luke Jaten…
Luke Jaten has been involved in sales and marketing since he started his first business mowing lawns at the age of 11.
At the ripe old age of 17, he answered his first direct response ad about how to make money in mail order and by 1987 (at 19 years old) he was running full-page ads in magazines himself.
Since then, Luke has used magazines, newspapers, tv, radio, the internet, direct mail, mobile web, voice broadcasting, telemarketing (inbound and outbound), and teleseminars to market and sell nutritional supplements, software, sandwich franchises, business opportunities, seminars, real estate courses, books, alarm systems, web design, investments, payday loan franchises, credit repair services, diet products, 900 lines, music clubs, magazine subscriptions and lots more… either for himself or for other people.
In the last seven years alone, Luke’s ads have sold over $55 million dollars worth of goods and services.
In 2006 Luke started teaching his brand of marketing and now many of his students have gone on to create multi-million dollar direct response businesses themselves.
I tell you all that to tell you this exciting piece of news: You can get Luke’s latest book called “Postcard Marketing Profits” for free with a tiny shipping charge!
This marketing system really does work. Before the internet, mailboxes were full of postcards and direct mail pieces, and people threw it all in the trash.
Today, direct mail is almost completely ignored by most companies and individuals who used to use it. That is a major opportunity that Luke and his students are taking advantage of right now. It’s a very, very big deal.
I encourage all of my readers to at least grab Luke’s book and see how this could work for you in 2013.