Making Direct Mail Work

It went well: when next

• When next
• New copy
• Test
• Campaign

I have found that many people tend to over-estimate how often they can use a successful mailing list.   The fact is that if you mail a list and get a 2% response rate, then you have got a 98% failure rate.  Out of that 98% who did not buy there is probably 10% who looked at the promotion and were part-minded to buy - but then for some reason didn't.  

There are also people who almost never buy on the first promotion, and who will be more likely to buy next time around.

All of which means that there are good reasons to mail sooner rather than later.  Indeed if you leave it too long you'll find that the people who read your promotion seriously but didn't buy will have forgotten about you.  Your hard work in getting these people to buy is lost.

There is no absolute rule on how regularly you can mail the same list, but it is certainly possible to mail most lists 10 times a year if you can change some of the items in a promotion.  For many firms this means a mailing each month except perhaps August and December.

If you mail exactly the same promotional material each time the number of occasions on which you can do the mailing is much lower - perhaps three or four times a year.  For more on this see "New Copy".

However it is possible to re-use copy during the course of the year, and for many firms that is the way forward that allows regular re-mailing through the year.