Direct Mail Archives - Creative Agency Secrets

Overcoming a spam label by MailChimp

10 June, 2020/0 Comments/in Direct Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

One of my clients did something ill-advised and their account got flagged by MailChimp as spammer.

Goodness that’s a tough call and the restrictions placed on the account are significant.

The good news is that I succeeded in untangling the situation and restoring the account. BUT it would have been better never to have got into that situation in the first place.

And so if you’re tempted to re-use an old mailing list, don’t. Digging out old lists from a few years ago who haven’t been mailed and who haven’t had a history on your account is a big risk. If your email service provider gets a higher than normal bounce or spam reporting rate, it will be noticed. I think ISPs are very vigilant at this time.

If you do want to re-use an old list, I suggest you create a separate audience and after the first mail-out has identified unsubscribes and bounces, then later merge it into your main audience so it doesn’t contaminate your good standing.

Good mailing list hygiene

Something to do today – run through your email list and check off whether you have everything in place to enable personalisation. Correct first name, last name, company name? No capitals? Can you deduce recipients’ names from their email address e.g. fred@xyz.com

Now start planning out your segmentation. Here are three easy segments for you to set up.

Customers
Prospects
Industry groups

Focus on retention

For most direct marketing at these times, I recommend retention rather than acquisition. It’s easier to keep than acquire a new customer.

Three quick campaigns you can run

Repurchases – a suitable date after the last event
Best sellers – your top 20% of sales by product
Referrals and testimonials – ask your customer to do ONE thing for you

Untangle a spam label by Mailchimp

Anatomy of effective cold direct mail

4 September, 2019/0 Comments/in B2C, Direct Marketing, Lead Generation /by Rebecca Caroe

I love getting really timely direct mail messages that are relevant.

This one came just in time to help me navigate a change to podcast categories.

Let’s analyse the direct message

Hello podcaster,

[Small fail here as they don’t know my name. Implies a purchased list rather than an opted in CRM database.]

In case you missed it, Apple Podcasts have changed how they categorize podcasts. In short, new categories like True Crime have been introduced, old categories have been rebranded and lots of new sub-categories dedicated to sports, comedy, TV and more have been added!

[Opening paragraph – helpful link to contextualise in case I haven’t seen the news. It’s a blog post on their website…. that’s good because it drives traffic and cookies my browser. Nice bold text for likely interesting new categories to draw my eye.]

Unfortunately, some services as SoundCloud don’t support them yet. Spreaker is a platform dedicated to podcasting and we put the podcasters’ needs first.

[Natch! a snipe at a popular competitor. I use SoundCloud for my podcast and so this is relevant to me. Could be a merge field – but not likely. I think they may have targeted me from the SoundCloud platform.]

For this reason

our podcast platform already fully supports the new Apple Podcasts categories so you can improve your show’s discoverability
Spreaker allows you to set three categories – your podcast will rank in more than one category on iTunes at the same time – and fully customize the RSS feed tags
our service enables you to earn money with your podcast thanks to the Spreaker’s Monetization Program.

[Small quibble about supplying 3 reasons and not numbering them… and referring to “this reason” when it should be “these reasons”. However, their nimble coding enabling the new categories quickly is encouraging when considering an alternative hosting platform. Hopefully they keep up the speedy work.]

If you want to start using the new Apple categories and are curious about what Spreaker could do for your podcast – why not give us a try with our FREE, no strings attached, month-long trial.

All you need to do is click this special code: GETAPPLECATEGORIES

[Simple offer, clear time limit and a coupon code so they can identify subscribers from this campaign.]

If you need instructions to move your podcast over to Spreaker, you can follow this guide.

[More useful user guides to smooth a transition.]

We hope to see you on Spreaker sometime soon!

Template your own message

Follow the same paragraph structure when approaching your own prospects and try this for yourself.

Read more of our articles on copywriting and learn tips for your own marketing.

Preparatory work for direct mail lowers costs

2 February, 2017/2 Comments/in B2B, B2C, Direct Marketing, Sales /by Rebecca Caroe

Direct mail is a highly effective marketing technique that delivers sales revenue in a short time frame.

Some direct mail is poorly conceived and so does not achieve its potential.

[WARNING – this is not always true].

Printed direct mail promoting a printer

I received three mailers from a printing firm which serve as a great example of a campaign that could have been much more effective with some pre-planning working with an expert in direct mail campaign structure such as us.

Direct Mail campaign structure

Using a mailing list of marketing agencies, three print pieces of DM were posted out.

The copy promoted “digital by nature” and a new world of digital printing.

The positives

Each card had a number to show where it came in the sequence
Each one showed different paper colours front and back
Each card had the print specifications for the front and back detailed which was cute
All print was beautifully executed
The 3rd card showed how to set up artwork to work with digital White Toner
The 4th card showed how to set up artwork to work with digital Clear Toner

The negatives

I did not receive the first card so the campaign opener was lost
My agency does not buy print or do graphic design, we are not a good prospect for this service
No landing page for the campaign on the website
When I first visited there wasn’t a mention of the campaign on the homepage, there is now.
This goes to a landing page which has the wrong link in the contact us button.
Wrong link – testing would have showed this up

How I would have improved the campaign

Combined telephone canvassing with direct mail
1. Checked the database by phone first asking one question “Do you design for print?”
2. This would have reduced the downstream print and mailing costs, focused the campaign
Published a landing page URL on the collateral
1. Tested all the links so the contact us URL was correct (it currently references the same page it’s on)
2. Included a “behind the scenes” video to show the inside track of the skill Valley Print used to create the mailers and the challenges they faced e.g. printing white on black for the envelope
Used a courier delivery not NZ Post to improve delivery success
1. This is particularly important for a posted print direct mail series
Followed up by phone with
1. an invitation to watch the video
2. stay in touch
3. subscribe to news updates
4. further qualify for future work opportunities
This would have built a mailing list, fully up to date and ready for in-house new business sales team to continue to work in the coming months
Planned follow up campaigns including more of the excellent tutorials for designers

Ready to talk direct mail with us?

Give us your challenge and let the creative team loose!

What’s a typical response rate for personalised B2B direct mail?

21 November, 2016/0 Comments/in B2B, Direct Marketing, Lead Generation /by Rebecca Caroe

What’s a typical response rate for highly personalised B2B direct mail? What provider would you work with? I’ve heard of Enthusem and Pebblepost.
It’s a well designed card with their logo, name or website on it.

Logo for Enthusem

Your response rate for B2B direct mail depends on a couple of things

What you’re selling and whether the recipient has heard of you or has the need right now for your product/service.
If you are already known, you can get response rates over 10%, particularly if you are trusted.
One way to improve your “response rate” is to do a follow up by telephone to check they got the message and to elicit a reply verbally.
You will get the best results by working with someone experienced in Direct Response Mailings. This is a skilled position – do not expect high % returns without expertise in creating the mailing asset. If you’re inexperienced buying direct mail services, I suggest meeting a few agencies for a “Chemistry” meeting where they will show you their work and ask you about your business needs. This will educate you about the process and likely outcomes.

Lastly, both the services you suggest seem good, I’ve not used them. But a competent Direct Marketing Agency (like Creative Agency Secrets) will do a similar job of customised direct mail pieces as these businesses. Which may be much cheaper. It depends on how big your database is as to which is a good / cheap option.

We use our 8 Step New Business Development process and each has a category – this blog post is related to Step 2 – Marketing Communications and Step 3 – New Business Pipeline

Click on the icons to see more posts in each category.

This answer was first submitted on Clarity.fm

Tag Archive for: Direct Mail

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