Direct Mail Techniques

How to keep your mailing from being thrown away?

We are a sophisticated society. We do open heart surgeries, send men into space, communicate around the world instantly and clone animals. You would think that we would be immune to simple, psychological techniques that play on older, primitive emotions, but in many areas we are like Pavlovian dogs. Some of the direct mail services techniques below have been shown over and over again to increase the likelihood that y our mailing pieces will get opened.

Direct Mail Envelope Techniques

• Use colored envelopes. This one is simple yet often performs better than a plain white envelope.
• Hand address the envelope. A nice font that looks like handwriting can also work. If the letter looks personal it has a very high chance of being opened.
• Stop using 'teaser' copy on your mailing envelopes. Nothing screams louder that the direct marketing piece your customer is about to open is an advertisement than a small pre-sell ad.Remember - Most people sort through their mail while standing over the garbage can.
• Use odd-sized envelopes. It’s simple, but any little thing that you can do to stand apart from the crowd will help.
• Hand stamp the envelopes. The top direct mail companies can add real looking stamps automatically. Again, this is making the mailing piece look personal and stamps do that. We have heard of experiments where even placing the stamp slightly eschew helps improve the chances of the mailing being opened.
• Create a sense of urgency. There are envelopes that look like express next day air packages. These “express” envelopes have a higher than average open rate.
• Send something lumpy/bumpy in the envelope. It could be a small piece of paper rolled up with a message on it (in addition to the sales letter). The idea is to arise curiosity so that the letter is opened.