10 Critical Direct Mail Best Practices

How to Get the MOST Results From Your Direct Mail

By Jim Schimpf

For more than 10 years the folks at Opportunity Knocks have been producing the kind of direct mail, and direct response mail tools that have helped businesses grow their businesses — without breaking the bank. Throughout all this time, it’s safe to assume, we’ve LEARNED a few things along the way! While we work hard to ensure that all the direct response postcards, flyers, listing domination tools, and brochures that we produce have all the elements we are about to explore below, many businesses still love to create their own marketing pieces, and we totally support them in that effort.

Consequently, here are 10 direct mail BEST practices to keep in mind.

This checklist is designed to quickly guide you through the process of creating a highly responsive direct mail piece based on 10 Critical Best Practices of Direct Mail Marketing shared by the Direct Marketing Association. Let’s take a look…

  1. Headline: What are the three main benefits the customer will experience if they buy your product or service?
  2. Who Are You: Tell the prospect the reason(s) why they should be interested in your product or service (Why should they read the postcard?)
  3. Why Should The Prospect Believe You: What type of credibility or experience do you have with the product or service? (Number of years, number of sales, largest, biggest, most experience, etc.)
  4. Competitive Advantages: What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? How are you different from your competitors? We call them differentiators.
  5. References or Testimonials: The more external social proof you have, the more credible you become.
  6. Big Promise: What irresistible claims can you make about your product or service? Example: “Your friends will swear you installed a new lawn after we fertilize it.”
  7. Create Drama: “Before and After” Pictures, or pictures of you and your happy clients. Remember response is based on emotion. What happy feelings will they feel after they bought your product or service?
  8. Guarantees: Make it strong!
  9. Offers: These should be simply irresistible. A card without an offer is simply an information piece.
  10. Deadline: In most cases, if you don’t have a deadline or expiration, your offer is not complete.

We hope these guidelines help give you the results you are looking for from your marketing. If you would like more information or you just need a little help understanding and implementing these critical best practices, contact us at 866-319-7109 today.