What you Need to Know about Starting a Direct Mailing Campaign

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So you have an amazing product and you want to try a more direct approach to marketing it. One of the first things you might think of is utilizing a direct mail marketing campaign and getting some quality mailing lists to target your market. While this is one of the best ways to get you right to the very consumer you aim to sell to, you need to understand some things about it first.

For starters, response rates for direct mail campaigns are really low. In fact, most direct marketers make money from less than a 1% response rate. It's possible to make bank on this sort of response but you need to understand the economics at work with direct mail. So before you contact a list broker about any direct mail lists you'll need to be keeping track of things.

There are 5 factors you have to calculate in when trying to figure out your potential profit:

Creative costs Price of each mailed piece Cost of packing, handling and shipping Cost to handle returns Cost of goods

Of course, there's one other hefty decision you'll need to make. Do you wish to make your money on your prospects or on your repeat customers? Known as front and back end respectively, it's not unusual for a direct marketer to take a loss on front end but make up the profit on their established customer base.

Creative Costs

While the cost of your goods is pretty straight forward, it gets a little more difficult to calculate some of the others. Creative costs are one of your biggest fixed costs. This is how much you'll be paying for a copywriter to write the content of your package, the cost of any photographs and illustrations you may choose to include and the graphic designer who makes the layout and data file your printer will be using.

It's important that your copywriter and designer have a strong foundation in direct mail campaigns that see high results. Given the nature of the direct mail package it requires a lot of sales skills learned by trial and error so you have to make sure they know how to write and design for your product.

Cost of Each Printed and Mailed Piece

The cost of each mail piece isn't just the cost of printing. There's also postage, the rental fee on a mailing list, and how much it costs to get your direct mail package assembled in a letter shop.

The price of printing is determined by a list of factors, such as quality, page count, paper type, etc. This is all information you'll be getting from your chosen print shop. Just remember that ultimately your cost per piece drops as your print quantity increases.

For postage you should know that it can vary widely, anywhere from 17˘ and 24˘ per piece mailed when using bulk rate. Rates are determined by how much sorting is required, a factor based in large part by how many pieces you mail.

Mailing list fees are also part of this cost. Direct mailing lists are rented per use; they are not purchased permanently from a list broker. Most brokers are also not willing to rent less than 5,000 names. These can sometimes cost anywhere from 8˘ to 25˘ per name, depending on the quality. Mailing lists rise in quality depending on if the names on the list are "direct mail responsive," meaning they've shown interest in purchasing products through mail and are thus more likely to purchase yours.

Direct mail campaigns are a good avenue to try when looking to sell your products just be sure that you do your research and are properly calculating your profit. This is crucial because a good marketing campaign is always testing and readjusting itself; actual profit is always the best way to judge how well your campaign is doing.

Take the time to understand the full scope of your campaign. By putting in the effort to find quality designers and mailing lists while properly judging your profit, you're sure to get a great return on your direct mail campaign. Visit http://www.bbdirect.com/