==== ==== Direct Mail Insider Secrets Revealed! Check Out The Link Below! http://bit.ly/dm-r ==== ====
What is Direct Mail? A Definition... Direct Mail is advertising material delivered to consumers through the post. It usually takes the form of leaflets, letters and brochures, and is usually individually addressed to the recipient. Junk Mail - does direct mail work? Over 1 billion direct mail items were sent out in the UK in 2007. There is no doubt that companies continue to invest large amounts of money in direct mail for a reason: it works! Research has shown that during marketing campaigns, customer response rates are significantly higher when the materials have been personalised in some way towards the recipient. Getting Started - It`s all in the Database The first thing to consider is who you want to send your marketing materials to. Many companies have a customer database to which they may want to send promotional mail, the first thing to do is export the database into a safe file format. Microsoft Excel is a popular format: either the standard .xls format, or the newer .xlsx format found on Excel 2007 and later. Other usable formats include Comma Separated Values (.csv) and Access database (.db). Once the data has been exported from your customer management system, it may need to be 'cleansed'. The data cleansing process involves a couple of operations which effectively clean-up the database, removes duplicate entries and verifies that the addresses and postcodes are valid according to the Royal Mail Postal Address File (PAF). Now that the data is clean, you can be confident that your customers are not going to receive multiple copies of the same letter, and that you are not going to print more items than you need to. If you do not have an existing database, there are many companies who can supply a mailing list for you to use. You can often customise the database, for example, target certain age groups, or income brackets, the possibilities are endless. One advantage of buying in a database is that you can sure that the data is already clean, without duplicates and up-to-date. This brings us to the next step, the printing. Printing - The Professional Touch
It is important that the items you are posting are visually pleasing and can deliver the message. You only have a few seconds to make an impact before your customer makes a decision to bin the item or read on. A professional company specialising in print and design can be invaluable when it comes to producing your letter, leaflet or brochure. Direct Mail Fulfilment In the Direct Mail industry, the term 'fulfilment' (often spelled fulfillment) is used to cover a range of specialist services involving preparing and actually sending the items through the post. Typically, people require their items to be addressed (printing names and addresses from the database), inserted into and envelope and pre-sorted in some way before being supplied to a company to distribute the items. Mail fulfilment is the most complicated part of the process because there are so many variations on what can be achieved. Specialist mailing companies will be able to offer sound advice on how many items can be inserted into an envelope, whether you want to print the addresses onto plain envelopes, or onto the leaflets themselves which are then inserted into windowed envelopes. Some Mailing Houses offer additional services such as 'polywrapping' or 'polybagging' which is when a brochure or leaflets are wrapped in plastic before sending through the post. Sending through the post. The UK Postal service was fully deregulated by Postcomm in 2006, which ended the monopoly of Royal Mail and opened the market up to alternative postal service companies. This means that there are a host of alternative mail providers who can offer large savings on the cost of postage. Typically, direct mail companies will have a contract with certain alternative providers and will be able to pass on some of the postage savings to their customers. Be careful however, not all companies pass on the full savings, to be sure to find out before you decide which Mailing House to use. Direct Mailing at a Low Cost Direct Mailing was once the preserve of larger companies, but is now affordable to smaller businesses. Since the deregulation of the postal market, costs have come down dramatically. Many Print and Direct mail companies offer package deals on print and mailing and will manage your whole campaign, saving you even more. Final Word Direct Mail Campaigns can appear to be quite complicated at first, but if you take it step by step and appoint a professional company to assist you, then your business can benefit a great deal from sending direct mail to your customers and potential customers.
If you are looking for Cheap Direct Mail Services and want to find out more about how it can benefit your business, visit Low Cost Mailing here. Mike Parkhouse, Low Cost Mailing
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==== ==== Direct Mail Insider Secrets Revealed! Check Out The Link Below! http://bit.ly/dm-r ==== ====