Sharpe & Direct. The Direct Response and Email Marketing Newsletter

The sweetest sound in any language is the sound of your name. That’s why the most important word in direct mail is “you.”

Since your prospective customers care about themselves more than they care about you or what you are selling through the mail, your direct mail package should make your prospects the hero of your letters. (more…)

If you use direct mail to generate leads for your sales force, and if you’re hunting for an offer that will motivate prospects to respond to your mailings, how about asking your sales force for some advice? Your best sales people know what to say to prospects to close sales. Different folks need different closes. You can take these closing techniques and make them your direct mail offers. (more…)

If your direct mail lead generation campaigns are typical, the majority of people who respond to your sales letters aren’t ready to buy. That’s why one of the most important tasks in direct response lead generation is qualifying every inquiry, assigning it to one of four groups. (more…)

Postcards are cheap to print and mail but they have one major weakness as far as direct response lead generation is concerned. They don’t have a physical response mechanism. (more…)

When I served in the British Special Forces, I learned a lesson from a sniper that applies directly to your success at direct mail marketing. (more…)

I know a company that helps financial services professionals generate sales leads by hosting free financial planning seminars, usually with lunch or dinner included. (more…)

Are you a business-to-business direct mail marketer looking for something better to offer than white papers? Consider self-assessment surveys. (more…)

Do you snub 25 percent of your potential customers? If your business is typical, you do. (more…)

You will succeed at business-to-business direct mail sales lead generation if you master three calculations, and your response rate is not one of them. Your response rate tells you only a small part of what you are doing correctly. (more…)

Two of the greatest challenges for a company doing direct mail sales lead generation are getting attention and creating attractive offers. A compelling package with a poor offer will flop. And a poor package with a compelling offer won’t even get opened. (more…)

In B2B direct mail lead generation, as your volume of leads goes up, your quality goes down, and vice versa.

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If the most important part of any business-to-business direct mail package is the list, how can you be sure that you have a good list before you drop your money (and your reputation) in the mailbox? Answer: Ask the right questions before you rent that list. (more…)

I don’t relish being proven wrong. But a while back I sat down to discover who my best clients were. I wanted to increase my revenues. I figured that the best way to do that was to discover who my best clients were and to then go after more firms that were like them. (more…)

One of the disadvantages of business-to-business
direct mail lead generation letters is that you are
selling on paper, not in person. That means you are
unable to read your prospect’s body language.
Unable to hear and overcome his objections. (more…)

This article is my reply to a question sent in by a reader of this newsletter. I have included the entire question, which is long but necessary to read to understand my answers. (more…)

If you use direct mail postcards to generate leads or sell a product or service, you need to create postcards that grab your prospect’s attention. The place to do that is Side A, the side that doesn’t have the stamp and address on it. Here are some creative ways to (more…)

What’s the most cost-effective, personal and direct way there is to attract new customers to your business, stimulate repeat business from your existing customers, and generate sales from past customers? Direct mail marketing. Here are 30 ways to use this time-tested medium to your advantage. (more…)

My business needs a steady supply of new customers. Yours does too, probably. Customers leave and go with competitors. Customers go out of business. Customers fall away without a word of explanation. So I need–you need–a regular supply of new customers to replace the ones that disappear each year. (more…)

Where sales leads are concerned, sometimes you need quality and sometimes you need quantity. If your sales process involves consultations, (more…)

1. Personal
Unlike an advertisement in a trade publication, which can be read by anyone, your sales letter arrives at your prospect’s place of business as a piece of personal communication from your mind to his. (more…)

Have you ever been talking with a salesperson when he (or she) suddenly started to press you hard for your business? If you were not ready to buy, you likely walked away. And the salesperson lost a sale because (more…)

One rule in direct mail is that your letter sells your offer and your brochure sells what you’re selling. (more…)