Sharpe & Direct. The Direct Response and Email Marketing Newsletter

The easiest way to increase your direct mail response rates is to make your packages more personal. Given the choice between reading a flyer and reading a hand-written note from a friend, most people will read the personal note first. Here are some ways to make your direct mail packages more personal. (more…)

Mailing the same direct mail offer to the same consumer list a second time typically generates a response rate that’s 65% smaller than the initial response. Mailing a third time usually generates a response that’s more than 50% smaller than the initial mailing. (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…)

You can lose a direct mail sale quicker than you think.

So your primary goal at the start of your sales letter is to demonstrate relevance. You must prove, and quickly, that what you have to say is relevant to your reader. That’s why I recommend you write your copy as though it’s appearing on page one of a Google search results page. (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…)

What boosts direct mail response rates better than a premium? Half a premium. (more…)

You’ll make more money in direct mail by selling to fewer people. (more…)

Direct mail fundraisers learned long ago that stamps boost response rates. Maybe the same will work for your sales letters. Why not test and find out? (more…)

Know one of the quickest ways to boost the effectiveness of your direct mail sales letters? Mail two letters instead of one, in the same envelope. (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…)

I once wrote a direct mail piece that generated a dreadful response rate. It was too high. (more…)

My brother-in-law says you should be thankful for truckers because everything you buy was handled at some point by a trucker. LoWayne is a trucker, so he’s biased. But I think he’s right anyway. (more…)

In the Good Old Days of direct mail, which is to say, before 1997 and the advent of the Internet, I and other direct mail marketers agonized over what to put “above the fold.” (more…)

Your landing page conversions will increase once you answer three of the most common questions asked by visitors who receive your direct mail invitation to visit their website.

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Do you tell this lie in your sales letters?

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Do lift notes still lift response rates in business-to-business mailings? Yes, as long as they stand out.

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If you want to increase revenue using direct mail, you have two options: sell more to the customers you have, or find new customers and sell to them. The tricky part is knowing how to do that. (more…)

Here’s something to test.

Take your existing business-to-business direct mail
package and make just one change: put two
windows on the mailing envelope instead of one. Mail
it and see what happens. (more…)

I have a client who wanted to drive prospective
customers to his online store using a
business-to-business postcard. Great idea, I
thought, and cost
effective. (more…)

Conventional wisdom says that the front of a direct mail postcard is for the picture and the back is for the address, stamp and a short message. (more…)

The toughest job you face as a B2B direct marketer is reaching your prospect with your message. Reaching C-level executives is particularly difficult because they employ mailroom staff and executive secretaries who screen their mail, or your mail, depending on how you look at it. (more…)

Are your direct mail response rates lower than you expect? Check your sales letter or direct mail package against this checklist to uncover the reasons for your poor response. (more…)

1. Mail to a different list
Your list is the most important part of your direct mail campaign. Who you mail to is more important than what you mail. So if you are persuaded that your offer is attractive, (more…)

I could tell you that the average temperature in the world is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But that fact wouldn’t keep you from getting sunstroke in Cairo. Or frostbite in Tuktoyaktuk. Averages tell you only so much. (more…)

Successful direct mail packages contain three things: an attractive offer, a call to action, and a response device. The offer is the Incentive. The call to action is the Imperative. And the response device is the Instrument. (more…)