Seven Steps to Successful Direct Mail, Part I

February 4, 2005

Free Gift: Since a gift is more-tangible than a discount, it may increase the response rate of your direct mail. You might offer any of the following as free gifts:
— Free sealer for the natural stone tile and slab that you sell.
— Free basic organizer for the saw blades that you sell.
— Free online support for a restoration seminar that you organize.
Limited Time: As mentioned earlier, urgency has to be stated in your direct mail in order to force a decision. Using a limited-time offer is one of the best ways to force the customer to make a decision.
Negative Option: This option is generally used with a free trial. You let your prospective customer try your product for free, and then automatically ship unless the prospect specifically refuses the order within a certain time frame. Let’s say you sell polishing pads for fabricators. You offer one of your polishing pads to your customer for a one month free trial and after one month you send one more polishing pad to your customer unless you get a phone call from them specifically to cancel the order.
For products you can’t sell in one step, you need offers that can identify prospective customers for your sales force. This usually requires giving something away:
Free Information: This is an ideal offer for identifying interested prospective customers, creating a list and initiating a first contact for a long-term relationship. It’s especially important for big-ticket sales, such as equipment or multi-room installations.
Free Samples: If you are selling stone, a free sample is the best offer to generate inquiries and leads for your sales team. After receiving the inquiry from the prospective customer, you might send your sales staff to close the sale. “Free” is the strongest word in marketing if you use it legitimately.
Free Gift for Inquiry: You offer a gift as a reward for requesting information about your product. As you might expect, this can increase the number of prospect customers who inquire but lower their quality.
Referral Program: You give your customer a gift for providing the name of someone else who may be interested in your products.
H. Kursad Devecioglu is president of Creative Sales & Trading Inc in New York. He also works as a sales manager for a New Jersey importer of natural-stone products.