OK, I'll admit, I am by no means a marketing expert.  I do however, use direct mail to market my business and have been somewhat successful.  While,  I don't feel I am qualified enough to tell you exactly what you should do in order to have a killer direct mail marketing campaign,  I am fairly certain I have enough experience to  tell you what you shouldn't do. 

 Now, some of these things may seem obvious, but these examples are all based on actual direct mail pieces I have received, read, and subsequently trashed.  You know the saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure"?  Well maybe it really is true.  See, I've since found a new use for this "marketing garbage" and have recylced it to help you improve your own marketing campaigns.

   Learn from these examples  and soon you too will be a quasi marketing expert:

1.       Don't Be Deceptive.  Now, I know that deceptiveness and marketing sometimes go hand and hand however if you want to uphold your reputation, it is best to honest.  Sure, obscuring the truth may generate more calls, but when the client finds out what you are really selling, or what you really charge, that call is not going to result in a sale.  I recently wrote about a letter I received from ING Direct, and how they were marketing adjustable rate mortgage loans, which were cleverly disguised as being better alternatives to fixed-rate mortgages.  Sure the real information was included in the fine print on the back, but how many people actually read that?  The low advertised interest rate was sure to generate a ton of calls, but how many people would back out once they found out what kind of loan this really was?  Bottom line.  Honesty is still always the best policy, even in marketing.

2.       Don't Target Your Market if You Don't Target Your Lists.  Marketing experts will tell you it is better to market to a smaller pool of qualified prospects than a larger pool of people you know nothing about.  Previously, I wrote about another mortgage letter I received, this one from Wachovia, which seemed to be targeted to a very specific type of customer.   Among other things, the bank was looking for someone who wanted to purchase a home and offered an incentive of a $500 gift card to those who applied before a certain date.  Now this would have been a perfectly acceptable letter - if they were targeting refinance customers - but searching for a customer who happened to be buying a home, within that particular timeframe, and meets all of the other criteria is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Eventually you may find what you're looking for but it is hardly worth the effort.

3.     Don't Forget Your Message.  The other day I received a postcard which I am assuming was a joint market effort between a Realtor and a Mortgage Company.  I'm not certain because although the Realtor's information was on one side and the Mortgage Company' s on the other, there was really no indication that these people even knew each other, let alone worked together.  Now joint marketing can be effective, and it can certain reduce costs but it has to look like collaboration and not like you were too cheap to pay for your own postcards.  Not only that, but on the mortgage side it only had pictures of the two loan officers along with their names and telephone numbers and some silly slogan about "doing what's right".  Were they selling mortgages or looking for volunteers for charitable causes?  I don't know.  The message was lost and I couldn't help but wonder why they wasted that space with a cliché instead of using those lines to sell their products or services.  Which brings us to the other side of the postcard...

4.       Don't Forget Your Customer.  The Realtor actually had a message on her side of the card (she got the side without the address and postage) but the message was WRONG.  She wanted to let me know that she sold a house in my neighborhood, she has no more inventory left, and that I should contact her if I wanted to list a house or if I knew anyone else who did.  She included a picture and the address of the house she sold but that was about it, no sales price, no days on the market, no boast about selling in one day, nothing else that would have made someone say "Wow! What an Impressive Agent!" and give her a call.  You sold a house?  Congratulations, but I thought that was your job?  You're low on inventory?  Not my problem.  Think the customer really cares that now that you were finally able to make a sale you are wondering where your next paycheck is going to come from?   Marketing should focus on the customer, not the commission.

5.       Don't Forget to Follow Up.  This is for those who follow the rest of the rules and actually send out a good direct mail marketing piece, only to manage not to lose the sale in the process.   A few months ago I received a different postcard, this time from a contractor.  Now this was a nice postcard and a costly one - jumbo sized, glossy, color printing on both sides.   I liked the message that the contractor was sending, something along the lines of us being neighbors which implied some sort of reliability- you wouldn't screw over a customer that lived down the street right? 

I've dealt with contractors before who have been less than reliable and not very professional and this guy seemed just the opposite.  I decided to give him a call to get some work done and left a message on his voicemail.  It took him almost a week to return my call.  Now I know that contractors often cherry pick jobs but this guy had no idea whether I needed a whole house remodeled or a nail hammered into the wall.  When he finally did call, he agreed to come over and give me an estimate but never showed up.   For some reason, I called him yet again.  He apologized, sounded sincere, and tells me he'll come out the next day, only to not show up again.  Why bother to solicit new business if you are never going to follow through with any leads generated?  Kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?  Guess he really wasn't neighborly after all, or interested in growing his business.

Let's be honest, direct mail has a pretty low response rate compared to other types of marketing.  Sometimes, you simply cannot get people to respond, even if they are interested.  But, if you sabotage your efforts by making mistakes like the ones mentioned above, you don't stand a chance of making any new sales.  Direct mail can be effective, and it can be successful, if implemented correctly.

(Another customer,... another sale...)

 So now that you've learned What Not to Do, you just need to get out there and not do it!