Direct Mail Marketing is a big industry. What exactly are you promoting? Physical or digital products? Or are you promoting a service? And with your business can you offer discounts, incentives and so on? All of these and more will play a big role in your Direct Mail marketing strategy. Most companies will charge a certain amount per 1,000 inserts but it varies. I have seen some companies that charge as little as $50 for 1,000 mailing inserts and others may have a minimum of 10,000 inserts for a couple of hundred dollars as well. So it's pretty varied. That's why it's important to know what you want to accomplish and what you're going to promote. Hope this helps.
Sarah, I think you confuse direct email marketing with "mass" email marketing aka email spamming. Direct email or cold email works great if your messaging offers value to the recipient. For example, if I want to sell an SEO service to XYZ company - what I would do is to research who is in charge of the company (decision maker), let's say it's Dean, director of marketing and I found his email online. My first email would be to give him value upfront, by running a quick SEO audit of his website and give the report to him FOR FREE. So my email would go like this: Hi Dean, I found your company on Google and I noticed that your website appears to be broken on page "1". So I ran a quick SEO report and found a few problems you may want to have a look at. Here's the report: dropbox.com/agasgagasg Keep up the good work, Dean. Best regards, Chad And then you can sell later after the rapport is built. I can go into a lot more detail but I don't think it's necessary for now. I hope my answer helps.
No, I confused "mail" with physical mail that turns up in my letterbox and figured if meant email he'd have said "email" God, I get so many of those and they also go straight into the bin. I've never had one that actually offered any value up front so nowadays they don't even get read.
With all due respect, you are not the center of the world. If it doesn't work with you, it doesn't mean that it won't work with anyone. My clients and I have used cold emailing to acquire new clients, reach influencers, guest post outreach and etc. Take telephone marketing for example, if it doesn't work now (at least for you, I presume), why does it still exist? Why do companies waste so much money hiring telemarketers if it doesn't give any return on investments?
Jeez, who yanked your chain? I spoke completely in the first person and gave my personal opinion - I didn't say they never work, I didn't try to speak for the general population, I said they don't work with me. I figure there are lots of things I don't respond to that must still work because people keep spending money on them. That would include "how much do you want for your domain?" emails "I've looked at your business" phone calls - but which business? they never can tell you Windows scam phone calls - some people must get sucked in because why else would they waste time doing them? Windows scam pop up ads - I've got a blog post where people report paying hundreds of dollars to these guys, looks very profitable and the victim comes to you! "Let me give you a free report" - the kinds of emails you send. As you say, you generate good business from them so people must not be as exhausted by them as I am Maybe it's time for @fera12 to come back and tell us which type of "direct mail" the thread is referring to.
Yanked my chain? Haha real classy, Sarah. It was a basic email example, I don't personally send that kind of email to people. Like I said, you confuse direct email marketing with spamming. It's not the same thing. Lazy people abuse it so much that people label "direct email marketing" spam. I am not a big fan of outbound marketing as I believe it is intrusive and annoying, my point is I have no doubt aggressive marketing like direct email marketing still works if done right.
If you reread the thread you'll see that both @Dana C. Beck and I both thought the @fera12 was referring to physical mail, you thought it was email. Until the OP returns we won't actually know nor be able to give any information - although technically the OP was just asking for a roll call of people with knowledge, and wasn't seeking actual info. I've obviously pissed you off in some other thread because you've found fault where none was intended. I guess I need to read through our history to find what went wrong.
Sarah, I have nothing against you. I am not even active on the forum. Maybe my wording sounds offensive to you, if that's so, then I apologize as it was not my intention. I am not even 1% pissed off, by the way. I just thought we were discussing our ideas and opinions.
If that is indeed the case, I would love to see when you are 50% pissed off or more. It would prove to be entertaining I'm sure.
Haha, don't hold your breath, man. Maybe I am too passionate about what I talk about, and it comes off as aggressive.
In strict marketing lingo, "direct mail marketing" means sending out physical mailers in the real world. I started doing direct mail in the 1980's and have run a few such campaigns this year. "Email marketing" is entirely different, so I will post a few comments about what I believe the OP was interested in, which is "direct mail marketing." In the 1980's and 1990's direct mail marketing in the B2B world was very productive. We could get response rates of between 2% and 8%, especially if we had postage prepaid "bingo" reply cards as part of the mailing. I sometimes mailed as many as one million pieces per year. Towards the end of the 1990's and into the 2000's the response rate dropped to .25% on average and it was no longer viable from an ROI perspective and that is why most businesspeople rarely, if ever, get physical marketing mailings any more. However, a couple of years ago a colleague confided to me that direct mail was "working" again, perhaps, in part, because nowadays, if you get a piece of mail in your office, it is unusual and you keep it on their desk for quite some time and may actually read it. But, we are still overwhelmed with marketing pitches so to be truly effective, a direct mail piece should be complemented with either an email campaign, a telemarketing campaign or both to maximize results. So, the short answer is "Yes" a direct mail campaign can be effective now.
Direct Response is the best way to know if you offer works or not. Because you ask for a response as soon as the people see your letter or ad, then you can measure how well you are doing. That leaves nothing to hasard. But, the greatest copywriters, when cold mailing, get around 2% conversion rate. If you have a good sales letter, you should expect around 1%. So, take that into consideration. Also, if you want more conversions, you should include a sales funnel, so you don't ask people for a 499$ check right on the first sales letter, but mostly give them something for free first and then upsell in the future mails. That's how the best direct response companies work.
Direct Mail Marketing Sarah stated what's really happen most of the mails that have sent and its not confusing at all but showing the real experience. Chad read between the lines from the bold words to clear up your mind because Sarah already stated your style of posting.
Could you please clarify what point are you trying to make? I apologized to Sarah for offending her whether she accepts it or not, I couldn't care less. I already showed my gesture. I am an honest guy, sometimes I can come off as blunt and "politically incorrect" but it's who I am and it reflects on my writing style.
It's a working marketing method if you target the market you want after a thorough analysis by filtering unwanted markets/people.
Its all started with direct mail marketing and Sarah already stated her own experience then suddenly you quoted Sarah as "Confuse?" Now you apologized which is the right approach, good for you. Proven experience from Sarah is legit in which most related to the thread and specially helped the opener. However, my point is, kindly consider first the users experience before your creative mind because you have always found fault where none was intended - credit to Sarah
OK, thank you, I guess? How does all of this concern you? After all, it was Sarah's and my interaction. I have already pointed out that email marketing and spam marketing aren't the same thing, hence the confusion I pointed out to Sarah.