I received a piece of direct mail today from a printing company - who will remain nameless.  It was a really great example of how not to do direct mail,  and it went something like this…I have changed the names and details to spare blushes, but kept all the formatting and grammar errors.

Dear PRINT BUYER

We are a printing Company in Happyland offering a range of printed business Stationery inclusive of Magazines, programmes, business cards, letterheads, leaflets, brochures, tags, lables, tickets, inovices pads, posters, and much more.

We are seeking to expand our client base due to the purchase of our develop 7000 digital printing press.

Please contact us on 01234 111222 or email your interest to me@digitalprinting.com for all enquiries or quotations.

Many thanks for taking time to read this

Thanks

Jon Happiness

Analysis
This wasn’t really a direct mail at all, it was a quickly put together letter that clearly wasn’t going to help them expand their client base in the slightest. So where could they have improved if they just spent a little more time to be creative before they sent out the letter? Here are my thoughts…

1. Check any piece of direct mail for spelling, grammar and other errors like the use of capitals where they aren’t required. Leaving glaring errors just looks sloppy and for a printer it doesn’t bode well for the quality production of your literature.
2. Get the name of a decision maker, “Dear PRINT BUYER” , even if it is in capitals it just isn’t good enough. If you are going to send direct mail, find out who the print buyer is,  and address it personally to them.
3. Think of reason why the recipient should contact you. Do they really care that you have a new digital printing press? What does it mean to them? What can your new printing press do for them? Does it make the print cheaper, offer more colours, get the job done quicker etc etc. Think about the benefits to the customer not to yourself i.e. “we want to expand our customer base”.
4. Why not be more creative - one print company sent out a birth announcement to celebrate the arrival of their new printing press. It contained an invite to the naming ceremony, sugar cigars and some discount vouchers so that individuals could try out the new press at a reduced rate.
5. Give them a reason to get back in touch with you, whether it be a free guide, discount vouchers, free consultation, anything that makes the recipient want to contact you, rather than file the direct mail under B for bin.

So just think before you send out your next direct mail piece, is it really targeted at the right company, is it full of benefits and does it give the recipient a reason to get back to you. For more blog posts on this subject, take a look at some of our earlier posts

Direct Mail - Stop and think

Direct Mail Success

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