Direct Mail Marketing Checklist

Posted April 17, 2018

1. Objectives

Decide what your objectives are: for example, making direct sales, maintaining customer relationships or generating new inquiries.

Identify your target audience, typically similar to your existing customers.

Establish your budget; consider how much each response will be worth to you, and the likely response rate.

Plan the timing of the mailshots; avoid holidays, and ensure that mailings that are linked to a specific event arrive in good time.

Build your own mailing list and keep it up to date; keep records of inquiries and existing customers and ask existing contacts for new leads.

Consider renting a mailing list; clearly specify your target audience, how many names you want and whether you intend to re-use the list.

Ensure that your use and storage of personal data complies with the data protection act.

Prepare a letter with a clear, attention-grabbing message selling the benefits of your offers; prepare any enclosures, etc.

Design the mailshot to be attractive, personalize the envelope and letter as far as possible, and avoid the appearance of junk mail.

Encourage responses: make responding easy with a pre-printed reply card and consider offering an incentive to reply promptly.

Use test mailings to establish likely response rates, and to compare the effectiveness of different mailshots or mailing lists.

Decide how you will handle the response and make any necessary preparations: for example, train employees how to deal with injuries.

Sending out the mailings; consider using a company that specializes in direct mail marketing services.

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