Four Prerequisites for Positive Direct-Mail Results

1. The business is one that is well-suited to direct-mail. Not all businesses are.
2. The direct-mail piece itself is well written and designed so it won’t be thrown out with all the other unsolicited mail. Instead it will get read and acted on immediately.
3. The mailing is sent to enough of the right people to get a profitable response. The more specialized the list, the better.
4. The expectations for what direct-mail can produce are realistic. Many people go into direct-mail expecting the moon and the stars, and when all they get are foothills and valleys, they decide it doesn’t work.
5. 64% of people who receive Direct Mail follow up by going to a company’s website.

Grabbing Attention

A direct-mail piece is able to grab attention in one of two ways: either it promotes a product (ie. commercial laundry parts) or service (ie. caulking and commercial laundry repair) that is so vital to the particular individual or organization that it grabs a reader like a reflex, or its design is such that the recipient is compelled to look at it more closely, upon which interest can be developed. Even in the first case, the design has to be good enough to convey immediately to the reader what is being represented. Readers will not plow through a printed piece to find out what it is selling unless the design is intriguing enough to draw them into it.

Crest Impressions understands this. From one colour to full colour, we will help you design your direct mail piece. This does not mean you have to spend a fortune. Do you want a more effective direct mail piece? Let us know by using our online form. We will then come to you and discuss your options.

Trade Show Tip

It takes only 4.8 seconds for someone to pass by a 10-foot trade show booth, so your display must communicate a benefit and invite people to visit.

To do that, your display must use eye-catching and informative graphics that answer the two questions attendees ask most often: “What does your company do? What are you showing here.”

Source: Brilliant Image, Seven Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10001.

LAWS OF SATISFACTION

These customer satisfaction laws will keep you ahead of your competition, say Ken Makovsky of Makovsky and Co.:

1. Treat the customers you have as though they’re prospects.
2. View customers as partners – members of your team.
3. Consider recruitment as serious business – and hire only the best.
4. Give your staff members the tools they need to build skills and develop professionally, and evaluate them on what they accomplish, not hours worked.
5. Prepare for the inevitable conflicts that arise in any customer relationship with this thought in mind: “It’s how you handle problems that sets one professional or organization apart from others.”
6. Invite customer complaints instead of merely responding to those that come in.
7. Foster exchanges among your organization’s groups and individuals to get their ideas on how to better satisfy customers. And text what you assume is working – even your best programs.

Source: The Public Relations Strategist, cited in Executive Report on Customer Satisfaction, 215 Park Ave. S., Ste. 1301, New York, NY, 10003.