5 Common Direct Mail Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Direct mail is a highly effective way to advertise your business, attract new customers, and increase sales. However, many business owners make avoidable mistakes that diminish the results of their campaigns, especially during their first one or two campaigns. Fortunately, these foibles are easy to fix and once you do, you will see even greater results.

Troi Mailing Services is also here to help. We are Toronto’s direct mail advertising experts, offering design, printing, fulfillment, and analysis services. Our team can help you avoid these common direct mail mistakes and launch successful campaign after successful campaign.

1. Using an outdated mailing list

If you use an outdated mailing list, your campaign could be doomed before the first flyer is mailed. A recent, accurate, and detailed mailing list is a crucial prerequisite for a successful direct mail campaign.

First, it helps eliminate wastage caused by sending mailers to inactive addresses. You want every single mail piece to be delivered to a prospective or current customer, that is, someone truly interested in your offer. This increases the likelihood of conversion. 

Conversely, sending mailers to unknown addresses increases the likelihood that your postcard or flyer will end up in the recycling bin. Updating your mailing list also helps eliminate duplicate addresses, further reducing campaign wastage.

Second, a high-quality and validated mailing list allows you to segment audiences. Then, you can tailor your marketing strategy to those specific groups, bolstering your chance of launching a successful campaign.

Solution:

Analyze your mailing database every three to six months. Ensure that it includes precise demographic information like location, age, marital status, etc. 

Troi Mailing Services cleans up your databases using Canada Post address validation software. It identifies and removes duplicate and invalid addresses within your address files. We also utilize the National Change of Address (NCOA) to help identify clients that have moved or passed away in the last five years.

2. Unattractive and unengaging design

Good design is crucial to the success of direct mail advertising. An important message or enticing offer can be lost in a crowded, unattractive, or unengaging design. Your mail piece is more likely to be overlooked—and audiences may even mistake your mailer for spam.

Investing in a high-quality design doesn’t just increase the effectiveness of your mail pieces; it also portrays your business in a positive light. Attractive and thoughtfully designed mailers convey professionalism, trustworthiness, and reliability. Recipients are more inclined to trust you with their business if they believe your brand is reputable and offers high-quality services.

An eye-catching design helps ensure a positive first impression and sets you apart from your competition. You want to stand out in the mail, not blend in.

Solution: 

Creating an attractive and engaging design can be difficult for those lacking professional design experience. Troi Mailing Services has a number of blog posts offering design tips for direct mail pieces, such as 6 Tips for Designing Eye-Catching Marketing Materials. We also provide design services for mail advertising campaigns. Our expert in-house design team is available to assist you in all of your design needs.

3. Poor-quality printing

Once you’ve taken the time to create an eye-catching and engaging design, don’t waste all that effort with shoddy printing. High-quality printing is equally essential. Otherwise, your mailers will look unprofessional and unattractive to prospective customers. Your message may also be hard to read, diminishing the effectiveness of your campaign.

Your printed marketing materials should be vibrant, crisp, and highly readable. Text needs to be clear and—crucially—large enough that it’s easy to decipher. Images, meanwhile, must be sharp, correctly coloured, and free of any distortion or pixelation.

Solution: 

Partnering with an experienced commercial printer ensures that your mail pieces look just as impressive in real life as they do on a computer screen. Troi Mailing Services’ sister company Timeline Printing has more than 35 years of industry experience. Your project is handled by an experienced technician from start to finish. Furthermore, working with both Troi Mailing Services and Timeline Printing saves you money.

4. Lack of personalization

Personalization is a requirement in modern mail advertising. It helps produce higher response rates, resulting in a better return on investment (ROI). With personalization, you can tailor the design and message of your mailers to better appeal to specific segments of your audience. This improves effectiveness and helps you stand out from your competition.

In the past, personalization was limited to mentioning the recipient’s names. However, modern technologies allow for greater personalization, including customized images, offers, headings, QR codes, and more.

Solution:

Troi Mailing Services offers variable imaging printing (also known as variable data printing), which is an advanced form of digital printing. It allows for extensive personalization within a single print run. Not only do we design and print your direct mailer, but we can also customize it with unique content that meets the needs of your target segments.

5. An unnoticeable, hidden, or unclear call-to-action

Your direct mail piece must include a call-to-action (CTA), and it should be clearly visible and easy to understand. After all, it’s called a call to action, not a whisper to action.

You can significantly improve your campaign’s response rate and conversion rate simply by highlighting the next step that you want audiences to take. Therefore, CTAs are incredibly important precisely because they encourage recipients to take the desired action. You’ve gone through all this work to create an engaging mail piece; don’t waste it by hiding your CTA!

Solution: 

Your CTA should use actionable words like “buy,” “order,” “shop,” “donate,” “get started,” “sign up,” or “subscribe.” It should be as clear and concise as possible. You want audiences to understand precisely what they’re supposed to do next.

Avoid These Direct Mail Mistakes. Contact the Mail Advertising Experts at Troi Mailing Services!

Troi Mailing Services is your one-stop shop for mail advertising. We can help with every aspect of your direct mail campaigns, including design, printing, fulfillment, and analysis. With our assistance, you will see the maximum results from your direct mail campaigns.

Regardless of your business goals, direct mail can help you achieve them. For example, you can increase brand awareness, attract new customers, reconnect with existing clients, advertise an upcoming event, or increase sales. Just ask us how!

To learn more about our mail advertising services, call Troi Mailing Services at 1-866-486-0423 or contact us online.