A direct mail campaign isn't just a matter of stuffing envelopes and sending them out at random and waiting for the money to roll in, if it was we'd all be rich. Some say there is a science to direct mail; I just call it pure common sense. You look at what you want from your mailing campaign and use your common sense to get it.



When I started out with home business opportunities I didn't have much cash to pay for stamps, envelopes, promotional fliers and mailing lists. That made me think hard about what I was doing and not to waste the few resources that I had.

I studied the mailshots that I was receiving and learned from them. My mail spoke to me and first to go was little brown envelopes in favour of white C5 envelopes. The brown envelopes looked cheap and told me that no matter what riches the sender was promising they were unlikely to be earning any money with the plans that they were promoting. Before I threw them out I made a note of the senders postal details, ready for when I had something better to offer them. Without realising it I started my first mailing list.

I was advised to use first class stamps, but my mail told me that I didn't notice what stamps the senders were using so I opted for the cheaper second class. I was also advised to write something like ?this is the information that you requested? on the outside of the envelope. I didn't do that because it was lying and felt that you can't build up a relationship of trust with your customers if you lie from the outset.

Average response rates were reckoned to be 1-2%. I did my sums and figured out that those who were sending out very low cost plans could only lose money even if they hit a high 2%. The minimum value of the home publishing guides that I was selling in each mailshot was around ?60 and even then those mailshots were used more to get new customers for my mailing list.

Inside the envelopes was a carefully prepared mailshot. I never included more than 5 sheets of paper unless I was promoting something with a long sales letter. As many other people were promoting the same products I found it more responsive to redesign the promotional circulars, which made prospects take another look at something they had seen before.

Whenever anybody bought from those fliers I sent my customers master copies of my designs with their details inserted and offered to do the same for their customers at low cost. By doing that I gained many loyal customers who bought from me again and again and I added more names to my mailing list.

I folded the fliers with the printed side on the outside and that was more likely to hook people in than if the circulars were folded blank side up. These were all called envelope tricks and as I did a lot of testing I can assure you that my methods worked. Some mailers highlighted key phrases or stuck little coloured post it notes on their fliers urging you to buy. I didn't do either of those things because right from the beginning they said unprofessional and desperate to me.

When you have a good mailshot prepared it won't do anything if you don't have the right lists. The absolute best lists are your own and I started my list with response from low cost ads, little brown envelope mailers and of course the most responsive my customers. I always got back quickly to those who responded to my ads and used a first class stamp then. I made myself available to customers and prospective customers by telling them that if they had any queries they were welcome to ring me.

As time went on I mailed out more and needed to rent lists, quite a minefield if you don't know what you are doing. Renting and buying lists are two different things. If you buy a list you will probably end up owning a very old list that has been sold many times and is practically worthless.

Renting means that you agree to only mail a list once, but if you get response the names can be added to your own list, a much better deal. Companies who rent names generally promise to limit the amount of times they rent the list out, but not all stick to their promises. One company has sold my name hundreds of times over the last 10 years and I never responded to anything through them or those unfortunate mailers.

Eventually I had 3 separate mailshots with hundreds going out each week. A magazine, my own mailings and a shared mailing that I ran for paying customers. That meant that I needed a lot of names and addresses and had to use 6 suppliers on a regular basis and occasionally rent top ups from other companies. The suppliers got their lists from advertising home business opportunities.

The best lists usually came from business opportunity magazine editors, but they were limited in numbers. I never bought more than 250 from them and always waited at least 6 weeks for the next purchase. I also bought leads regularly from publishers who advertised in the nationals but again always waited at least 6 weeks and never bought more than 500 at a time.

Now some might say that wasn't economical because when you buy leads the more you buy at a time the less you pay, but I learned quickly that the more leads you bought the more likely they were to be unresponsive old leads or even envelopes returned as goneaways, they just don't get a high enough amount of new names for regular high mailers.

When I stuck to smaller amounts from my regular suppliers I rarely had goneaways, in fact the worst case of goneaways that I had was when I bought a list from one of the big companies. They advertised brand new names and promised a ridiculously high response rate or your money back. Fortunately I only did a test mailing of 200 out of 1,000 bought leads. I had 11% goneaways and absolutely no response.

I sent the same mailshot out to a mixture of my own list and names from my regular suppliers and had no goneaways and a high response. When I complained and asked for my money back I was told that a test mailing of 200 wasn't high enough. As if I would be foolish enough to waste my customers money and my own on mailing the rest of the list!

Another mistake was to buy from companies who advertised homework in the nationals and then advertised business opportunity lists. The response was abysmal and I received complaints from some of those mailed to. I only got caught out with that once and then checked the nationals to see who was advertising what, if a company was advertising both business opportunities and homework I rang and told them that I didn't want names of those responding to homework advertising on the list that I wanted to buy.

The last thing that I did may seem very time consuming but was worth it. I made a record on my computer of everybody that I mailed. The record would consist of name, first part of address, date, where I had got the name from ? list or request etc., what I had mailed them.

The record would look something like this:

John Jack, 22 Wood, 12.3.07, list MM, Own m

I would add to and change the records as time went by. When they bought I made a record of what they bought in red and transferred the name with address in full to a buyers list. I spent at least an hour a day adding to and checking these records, and as the same names often crop up on different lists I avoided mailing the same names too often and as occasionally mailshots would come back as goneaways or with rude ?do not send your rubbish again? I was able to avoid mailing these people again by checking the bought lists against my records.

My response rates were always much higher than average, at least 4% as opposed to 1-2%. Gaining me higher personal sales and loyal paying customers who were happy to pay to use my mailing service. Using your common sense and studying the competition is the way to success with most businesses.