While Direct Mail is often considered the “king” of direct marketing, your Campaign needs to be set up properly if you want it to succeed. Here are a few reasons why your campaign may be underperforming, along with tips for setting up your campaign for success…

1. You’re not segmenting. If your campaign is not segmented (i.e., targeted to specific audiences), you’re doing it wrong. Your Return on Investment (ROI) will undoubtedly increase if you segment your audience, as segmenting ensures the right info is reaching the right consumer.

While some campaigns are segmented down to dozens of target audiences (if you’re a Fortune 100/500 Company), that much segmentation isn’t needed for most SMBs and startups. That being said, each campaign should be segmented as much as possible.

At New Move Marketing, most of our clients segment based on one or more of the following categories (these are just a few examples; you can see a full list of segmenting options here):

• Gender: Men and women have different buying behavior and make unique shopping decisions
• Location: Location tells us a lot about consumers, including income level and where they shop
• Dwelling Type: Home owners and apartment owners have very different purchasing needs and habits

2. Your Call-to-Action is unclear or missing a unique identifier. Every marketing action should have a clear Call-to-Action (CTA) coupled with a unique identifier for the CTA. A CTA is a group of words that direct your audience to take a specific action, such as viewing your website or visiting your store.

A strong CTA can be difficult to craft. For example, “Learn more at website name” is a common, yet poor CTA since “learn more” is ambiguous. To drive action (and sales), provide your consumer with a clear and time-sensitive directive, such as:

• Visit NewMoveMarketing.com/Order-a-List today to purchase a New Move Marketing List!

This CTA is clear and directs the consumer as to the specific actions they need to take: (1) visit NewMoveMarketing.com/Order-a-List and (2) purchase a list. It is also time-sensitive (“today”).

Check out this article for tips on creating CTAs and tracking the success of your Direct Mail Campaign.

3. You’re using an inaccurate or outdated mailing list. One of the most valuable pieces of your campaign is your mailing list. This list needs to be as accurate as possible to ensure you are not wasting valuable advertising dollars on bad addresses.

If you are receiving a high Rate of Return (i.e., a lot of your mailing pieces are being returned) or low response rate on your Direct Mail campaign, you likely have a bad list! While last minute changes on the consumers’ end are unavoidable, with New Move Marketing, you can anticipate that over 90% of the records you receive will be accurate.

We suggest you ask your mailing list company the following questions to ensure their lists are top quality:

• How do you obtain your contacts?
• What segmenting options do you provide?
• How do you ensure the accuracy of your lists?

Follow these three tips and we promise you will start seeing an increase in the performance of your campaign!