Ten Ways to Decrease Direct Mail Spending

Create. Implement. Measure. Repeat… At NextPage, everyday we learn from and refine our marketing processes. Our primary goal is to help you make money. Your return on marketing investment has two sides, the cost side and the revenue side. Here are 10 ways to improve both sides of the ROI equation with your direct mail campaigns:

  1. Clear out the Non-Responsive: Determine what deems someone non-responsive, and stop mailing when it is clear they are not going to respond.
  2. Segment Your Lists:Segment and target audiences on macro and micro levels. You don’t have to mail to everyone to be highly impactful.
  3. Personalize Your Message: Speak to specific audiences on a micro level. The more relevant your communications, the sooner you’ll see results or be able to deem recipients non-responsive.
  4. Test, Test, Test: Test the effectiveness of your message, offer and list on a smaller audience before deploying on a large scale. For example, direct marketers often send new messaging, creative or offers to 10% of their list first, measuring the results against the control or other versions of the marketing piece. Once a winner has been determined, the most effective version is sent to the entire audience.
  5. Automate: Print Automation and Marketing Automation technology allow you to increase your speed to market and decrease the cost spent to deploy each campaign. Auto-triggered campaigns can also be used to respond to prospect and customer actions with timely, relevant mail touches.
  6. Clean Your Data: Conduct a thorough data-cleansing of your house and purchased lists to eliminate duplicate, outdated or incomplete data. You’ll mail less, more accurately and improve your ROI.
  7. Use Your Returns: Do something with returned mail. This seems simplistic, but the tendency is to ignore returned mail and not update the database. Create a process so this is always done.
  8. Go Multi-ChannelIncorporate non-paper-based mediums such as email, text messaging, and online landing pages with your direct mail campaigns to increase engagement and reduce cost-per-touch.
  9. Pair Email and Mail: Utilize direct mail to keep email as a main communication method by mailing only to bounces, unsubscribes and consistent non-openers with the goal of determining why they are not engage via email. (Email: BFF blog MP.com/EmailsBFF)
  10. Honor Your Audience’s Preference: Eliminate people from your list who do not wish to receive mail by utilizing the DMA’s Mail Preference Service. Learn more at https://www.dmachoice.org

Build a Plan for Reducing Your Direct Mail Costs

One of the biggest challenges to achieving the ten points above is not having a plan. Without a plan, marketers shoot from the hip and hope they get it right. And while that works occasionally if you want something that controls cost and works consistently, start with a plan.

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Pillar 122
Kansas City, Missouri 64161

(816) 459-8404

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