The opening mailing
There are three issues to consider in the opening mailing:
Getting the mailing list of prospective customers
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Sorting out what are you going to offer these people
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Design and copywriting of the leaflet.
We've touched on the first issue - getting the list. If you are being pushed to buy thousands of addresses, don't - unless you would be happy with very small response rates.
Now let us consider what you are going to offer these people - and this is where we will start to deviate from what you might expect. What we want are high levels of response, even if that doesn't mean many sales.
Here is a lists of what you might offer the people on your selected mailing list
A full product - that is one of your more expensive items
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A low cost, or maybe highly discounted product - something that wouldn't be very exciting in itself in terms of profit, but would bring you in not just a modest sale, but also the name and address of an interested person - which as we will see is much more interesting in the long run.
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A free catalogue, free sample, free CD...
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A free report which gives the recipient something they really want to know.
The point is that these are very different options - and if at all possible I would urge you to consider the items lower down the list (where you will get the higher response rate) because a significant part of the idea here is to build up a list of people who are interested in your products and services.
Of course, if you can do this and get a profitable sale, that is ideal. Certainly some of the companies I work with manage this well, offering a handful of heavily discounted lines in an opening catalogue. The mailing makes a small profit, but more importantly brings in the names and addresses of people you will be selling to in the future.
The point is that there will be many customers out there who might look at your product and think - yes maybe - but never get around to buying - so you don't know who they are. To get to these people you have to mail everyone again. You certainly don't want to be mailing to the people who never even get around to opening your envelope.
So you are collecting the names of people who have enough interest in what you offer to write for the information or free sample, you are building a list for the future - as we shall see in a moment.
Which now means there is one more issue to consider - the copywriting and design of your leaflet. If this is a new area for you, please click on Creative - but if you are happy with what you are producing, undertake the mailing yourself. Depending on the result you get click on one of the arrows below to continue.
List works |
List fails |
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