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In the age of the Internet, remarkably, it’s snail mail marketing that often wins the race to recipients’ consciousness. Here are nine tips for making direct mail work for you.

When search engine optimization company G5 looked to stand out among its target customers, did it do a big banner ad buy? An e-mail blast? A Facebook fan page? No, it looked to old-fashioned, unplugged direct mail. G5 sent out 500 postcards to potential clients with a branded tube of lip balm attached. The postcard read: “Wouldn’t it be great if there was a lip balm you only had to
use once? We think so too, but we’re not in the lip balm business.

We can, however, show you what local advertising efforts produce the most profitable customers.”

G5 selected lip balm for a number of reasons. First, its hometown of Bend, OR, is very outdoorsy. Many people in the region are into skiing, hiking and rafting. All of that exposure to the sun requires protection so the company felt lip balm is something most recipients would use and quite possibly associate with the activities they love. Plus, G5’s CEO uses it all of the time.

But most importantly, the company didn’t want to just send some regular postcard that would have been “filed” in a nearby trashcan. “Lip balm was a good fit for us,” says Devin Davis, director of marketing at G5. “We have very targeted verticals. There’s a lot of misinformation out there about who does what. It’s important for us to build name recognition so people know us and recognize what we do. Considering the space we’re in, most people send out e-mail blasts. If you get something in the mail, it’s more memorable. Sending lip balm can’t hurt. If it’s good quality, you use it.”

Ramped-Up Response Rates 
Combining a promotional product with direct mail can double or triple response rates, says Chris Piper, principal of Breakout-Strategic Merchandising Solution, which created the effort for G5. The recipient “gravitates toward it when they see it in their inbox. You can get a 10%-18% return rate. The standard is only 4%-6%.”

Harvey Markovitz, director of the Interactive & Direct Marketing Lab at Pace University, agrees. “If done scientifically and strategically, it can get a 10% or better response for new offerings by unknown mailers,” he says. “Even pure play e-marketers like Netflix, eBay, FreshDirect and Amazon recognize the power of traditional snail mail. They send relevant, meaningful and consumer value/benefit messages to their targets to draw them to [their Web sites].”

While considered, perhaps, the least sexy form of advertising, direct marketing continues to be one of the most important tools in a marketers’ toolbox. Fifty three percent of all U.S. advertising expenditures, totaling $176.9 billion, are dedicated to direct marketing channels, per the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) “Power of Direct Marketing Report” released in October.

Direct mail, specifically, commands a $15 return on investment for every dollar spent, per the DMA. This is one of the reasons direct mail is second only to e-mail as the channel most commonly used in an integrated, multi-channel marketing campaign. Direct mail is used 75.4% of the time compared to e-mail which marketers add 79.1% of the time.

Often promotional products can help put a campaign over the top, says Ed Manzitti, vice president of research and marketing intelligence for the DMA. “Dimensional mail stands out from the more traditional size envelope and therefore invites recipients to open it. This different format can contain more inserts and premiums, as well as longer letters. Because it can be more expensive to produce such a campaign, they’re less common and stand out more.”

While marketers continue to shift dollars to the Internet, “the fastest way to get rid of online messages is to push the delete button,” says Markovitz. “But consumer experience and research has shown people love, love to get mail.”

While many experts agree that direct mail, especially “lumpy mail” is a powerful tool, there are still a number of steps the marketer must take to ensure that they’re maximizing their marketing dollars spent. Here are nine tips to ensure that your direct mail program delivers:

1. Spark their curiosity. Rather than just send one letter or item, marketers can create a series of mailings to tell an entire story. Red Rocket Media Group recently converted 25% of recipients into clients with a recent episodic mailer dubbed
“Who is Red?”

It sent out seven mailings of packages that included a red lightbulb with a card saying “Get bright ideas with Red,” a red bag of coffee that said “Energize your ideas with Red” and boxing gloves that read “Knock out your competition with Red.” “It was magical,” says Jennifer Bryant, president of Red Rocket. “We just finished our second campaign, where we targeted five companies according to the specific criteria we chose. I’ve called four out of five and have seen great interest and potential with two of them so far.”

The Connecticut Lottery, meanwhile, sent out a keychain with the lottery logo embedded on a coin. “The idea was to create just enough curiosity to get the package opened,” says David Katz, vice president of database/direct at Cronin and Company. “We achieved the objective by getting just over a 2% response rate to the mailing and leads for the CT Lottery retail division.”

2. Know your target. Catch Your Limit Consulting realizes there are a lot of fish (a.k.a. potential clients) in the sea, however it uses a very targeted database when sending out direct mail with premiums.

“Often people feel they need to tell the whole world. Depending on the product, that may be a good idea, but often it’s not,” says Jeff Brainard of Catch Your Limit. Before launching a traditional mail campaign, the marketer must not only know who to send it to, but also have an idea as to what the target market segment is in to.

Fred Albrecht, owner, Proforma Albrecht & Co., says, “research the company or customer base to determine what’s important to them.” For example, when targeting consumers or businesses that value the environment, use eco-friendly goods such as pens made from biodegradable plastic or packaging made from recycled waste. “It shows you can relate to them,” says Albrecht.      
   
3. Copy is king. When a recipient receives a postcard or a letter, the marketer has precious few seconds to engage them. That’s why it’s critical to use a strong headline that states the most important benefit that’s being offered. “A great headline promises a specific result,” says Peter Geisheker, CEO of The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm. “For example, ‘if our skin care product does not make your face look 10 years younger in 30 days or less, we’ll give you a 110% refund.’”

He recommends always using a friendly, conversational style and avoiding corporate speak or complicated vocabulary words. “All this does is turn people off,” says Geisheker. Of course, the call-to-action is also essential. “‘Act now and get a free logoed fleece blanket’” and other such offers work like magic,” Geisheker says. “That’s why you see it used so often on TV, particularly on infomercials and other successful direct response advertising.”

4. Pass the test. Before buying an expensive premium, see how it performs against a cheaper alternative or just a postcard. “Test the use of the premium before you roll it out in a mailer,” says Pam Lockard, president and CEO of DMN3, a direct marketing agency in Texas. “You should determine if the expected response rate justifies the increased cost.”

Marketers should also make sure that their lists are “clean” meaning that the intended recipient is still located at the stated address. Lists can also be purchased based on demographic and psychographic data.

5. Humor helps. When you’ve got a company name like Jeff Brainard’s, Catch Your Limit Consulting, the variety of humor-related premiums is as vast as the ocean. For example, Brainard sent out tin fish scalers with a sticker that reads: “You have to catch them to clean them.”

“Because of our company’s name, it makes sense that we’d send out fish scalers,” he says. “We could have sent out really fancy, modern ones, but the look and feel of our company is like an old fish shack. These scalers look like the old-time sort of things you’d see in a fish camp. The brochure we sent was all about our brand management consulting and how we’re the world’s only management, marketing and fish cleaning company.”   

6. Try 3-D. Time Warner Telecomm has a lot of competition for voice, data and Internet services. To try and get the attention of businesses within the 8,500 buildings TW serves in cities nationwide, it added another dimension to its direct mail campaign. It hired Faction Media in Denver, to create a free-standing, one-piece insert.

The cover invites the consumer to “open up a whole new world.” Once opened, a three-dimensional city scene with a billboard containing copy offering a free incentive in exchange for making a sales appointment pops up. The cards are customized per the locale (New York features the Empire State Building and Seattle, the Space Needle).

Incentives varied, however the most common “bait” is a free video camera. “The piece was bulky and large, therefore it was a clutter buster just due to its size and weight,” says Aaron Battle, creative director at Faction. “Similar to a children’s pop-up book, many people just kept the piece on their desk because it was different and fun.” Best of all, it yielded a response rate of 8%-10%.

7. Know your postal rules. It’s always best to check with the post office before producing a mail piece with a premium. Check the rates, in advance, for any piece that’s out of the ordinary in weight, thickness or paper texture, says Lockard. “We recently distributed energy saving tips on a flash drive to a client’s consumer base using padded envelopes,” she says. “Due to the thickness of the package, we were required to pay a higher standard postage rate.”

New postage automation rules limit what you can mail and still get the lowest standard mail rates. The current standard postage rates may vary from as low as $0.18 per piece for a 3.3 ounce or less automated letter-size package to a minimum $0.463 for pieces too large or thick for automation discounts.

8. Become an “Environmailist.” The biggest thing in the direct world right now is the trend toward being ecologically sensitive with mailings, says Katz. The United States Postal Service has started a campaign called “Enviromailist,” which encourages people to help “green the mail.” This includes better targeting, respecting consumers’ mail preferences, good address hygiene and postal optimization to deliver the right message at the right time.

“All of these practices allow marketers to use paper and transportation resources more efficiently, reducing pressure on forests, cutting energy use and climate changing emissions and producing less waste,” says Katz.

Another way to reduce waste is to give recipients an item they’ll actually want to use. Westin, Marriott and other hotel properties, for example, have been sending out imprinted microfiber lens clothes to hotel clients. They can be used to clean glasses, computer screens and DVDs. “Sales teams love them because they’re inexpensive, make great mailers, are easy to travel with and have high perceived value,” says Brian Fircano, of Ad Concepts Inc., which helped create the effort.

Practicing solid direct marketing fundamentals like targeting the right person with the right product at the right address is not only better for the planet, it’s better for conversion rates.

9. Follow-up. Call or e-mail the direct mail recipient the same week. “The price per package can range anywhere from $3 to $100 in certain cases,” says Brainard. “Either way it’s a big investment and you want to follow up on it.”

Kenneth Hein is a contributing writer based in New York.