Get the Most from Your Mailings

It's not difficult to use the US Postal Service as a sales vehicle. All you need is a printer, some postage and a little elbow grease. But extracting maximum value from your mail campaign can be a little more difficult. You can start from scratch and learn the practical lessons the hard way through trial and error, or you follow these four simple rules to get off to a running start. It's partly a matter of common sense and postal pragmatism:

1. Mail postcards instead of envelopes whenever possible. Even though it's 13 cents a piece cheaper than a letter, a postcard actually stands a better chance of catching your prospect's eye than an enclosed letter does. That's because it requires little or no effort to read a well-designed postcard, while someone has to take the trouble to open a letter to see what's inside.

To get the most impact from your postcards, use brightly colored card stock and a large typeface. Don't make the mistake of jamming too much copy onto a small space. Your message should be brief enough to lend itself to a 41/4" X 6" surface. Any larger and you'll have to pay the full 33 cent letter postage fee. The most important thing to remember about mailing postcards is that they crumple. Use the heaviest card stock your budget will allow.

2. Establish a consistent look and feel. Since repetition is a key element of direct mail campaigns, it's important that your mailings leverage your company's identity or brand. Display your logo and tag lines consistently, and stick to a limited palette of fonts whether the mailing is an invitation, a coupon or a traditional sales letter. Coordinate the look and feel of your mailing materials with other company documents. Big and small organizations are often guilty of manipulating their company identity to fit specific sales campaigns and particular needs. In the long run, this confuses customers and prospects.

3. Create a mailing calendar. Give some thought to planning the arrival of your mailers. If you can avoid mailing around the holidays, you should. Don't send two mailings to the same customer at the same time -- even if the mailings are for completely different purposes. If you need to send two mailings, alternate their schedule or combine the materials into a single mailing. Doubling up on mail to the same customers and prospects is annoying and gives the impression that one part of your company doesn't know what the other parts are doing.

4. Use a postage meter. If you haven't already invested in a postage meter system, it may be time to do so. The main advantage of printing postage yourself -- in addition to the time and hassles savings from not having to deal with stamps -- is that you can print exact postage rather than mailing in the increments prescribed by the stamps you have on hand. The savings can add up surprisingly quickly.