Crafting an Effective Offer Guarantees Direct Marketing Success - Part II
Sending postcards to your list of prospects or your address book of customers every month will work wonders for your business. An average return on investment (ROI) of over 1100 percent can be expected from a regular direct mail campaign (according to the Direct Marketing Association and based on the lifetime value of a customer). 40 percent of the success of your direct mail program is attributable to the offer.
In part one of this article series, you learned the first four questions you need to ask yourself in order to determine the quality of your offer. These questions pertained to how specific the offer is, how exclusive the offer is, how valuable and how unique the offer is. We'll now move on to the final four questions for consideration.
1. Is my offer useful? Don't offer something your clients don't need. Financial institutions were once notorious for this, offering items (such as toasters and radios) that everyone already has as the only incentive for opening an account with them. Make sure your offer is perceived as useful by somehow saving your prospects and clients time, money or otherwise improving their lives.
Make sure any discounts or freebies you offer pertain to your most popular products or services, not your least popular. Products or services that fail to sell at full price are probably not going to sell that well at a discounted price either (unless saving money is the only thing that interests your clients).
2. Is my offer relevant? Don't offer clients or prospects something they don't want, can't afford or will never use. You'll be wasting your marketing budget and their time as well. Volume discounts are useless to individuals, for example. Another example, luxury items are unlikely to be purchased by prospects with lower incomes. If your product or service pertains to children (or pets), don't send the offer to households without children (or pets). Demographics are essential to determining whether your offer is relevant.
3. Is my offer easy to redeem? No one wants to jump through hoops in order to redeem an offer. Make it as easy as possible. An expiration date is expected, but don't put other restrictions on the offer such as only certain days and times. For example, if you're running a restaurant and you've offered 20 percent off the total purchase, don't restrict clients from using it on lunch specials or during happy hour.
4. Does my offer have a deadline? Procrastination is a common ailment. Your offer should include a deadline for redemption in order to encourage prospects to act sooner rather than later. For example, rather than "offer available for a limited time," give an exact date of expiration. You can always make an "exception" and honor it anyway if someone shows up a little late.
Once you've answered all eight questions about your offer, and have determined that it is acceptable, test it. You could divide your list (or database) into segments and mail a different variation of the offer to each one. Track your results carefully and the next time you're preparing to send a direct mail piece, you'll have a better idea of exactly what type of offer works best.
About the Author
John Welsh is the owner of http://www.postcardsandInvitations.com. John is combining years of mailing expertise and knowledge of great graphic design in one company to make marketing simple for busy professionals. Visit his website to create effective postcard marketing programs.
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