Direct Mail

Be careful with direct mail!

It all sounds very simple...

- Create or locate a hot product or service
- Buy a quality mailing list
- Write a 1 or 2 stage sales letter
- Post it out
- Get a percentage number of sales!

This is a very expensive business, especially outside the US, it can cost you thousands and you might not get a cent back.

I witnessed people wasting thousands on this business by jumping in with both feet before testing any response.

Direct mail as with all direct response marketing hinges on testing, measuring and responding. Printing houses often have a minimum number of copies they will do, typically 5,000.

This means people are spending thousands to get any market feedback. The pluses are that the results have sufficient numbers to be statistically significant, and the economy of scale will reduce your expenses PER ITEM, but the overall cost is still considerable.

Do not spend a dime on this type of business until you have mastered and tested all aspects of a marketing campaign including, but not restricted to:

• Different sales letters
• Different products
• Different price structures
• Different copy for envelopes and letters
• Different offers
• Different guarantee's

Once these are tested and a winning combination is evaluated... then you can test different mailing lists. Now imagine each of those tests at £2,000 a shot...

It's not impossible to do this successfully, but this business should generally be left to the professionals or at least the very talented.

Recommended?

I would recommend not using direct mail as a direct response marketing method until a) you have become proficient and b) you have tested all aspects of a campaign.. and this can be done cheapest online.

Click here to look at a cheaper alternative to direct mail