You don’t know how much direct mail your audience receives. You can guess that on an average day, their mailboxes are sparsely filled with a few fliers and envelopes. Other days might see them packed with packages or letters and cards. However, you can’t always predict how much mail your audience will sort through before they see yours.
Custom mail services are no stranger to maximizing the impact of direct mail. When designing flyers, postcards, and other types of mail, the best direct mail marketing companies focus on the call-to-action (CTA).
Stick to one CTA
The CTA is the ultimate goal of your direct mail. It’s the single action you want your audience to take. For a hair salon, that might be scheduling an appointment, while a restaurant would aim for ordering a specific dish or spending a certain amount of money. Whatever the CTA, it should be consistent throughout your mail. Keep your audience focused on one action, rather than scattering it among different ones.
Your custom mail services provider can suggest different CTAs to choose from, informed by the graphic design of their past campaigns. Certain CTAs might draw better responses for different businesses. CTAs to schedule appointments or consultations might not be the best use of budget for a cosmetics retailer with a small hair salon in the back of the store. Rather, a time-sensitive coupon might be a better choice.
Be clear about what you want the audience to do
Can you describe your CTA in a single sentence? If not, it might be too complex. The audience should be clear about what they’re asked to do, and it shouldn’t take too many steps. If you give them a time-sensitive discount, all the information they need to claim it should be on the flyer. Any restrictions should be plainly stated, but too many will turn away the audience. They’re more likely to act on CTAs that are straightforward and simple.
For businesses that require more effort, like custom door or window design, the CTA should still be simple. It could be to schedule a consultation for a custom quote, or to learn about which designs are best for their house. Try to reduce the effort required on the audience’s behalf.
Use quality design
Finally, no CTA is effective without a fitting design that ensures people read your direct mail. This serves two key functions: Hooking your audience’s attention and guiding them to the CTA. A streamlined design will guide the audience through your flyer’s information to the CTA, where they’ll decide whether to follow through. For sample designs to inspire you or your designer, look through your own direct mail stash for fliers that catch your eye. How do the colors and layouts work together? Can you easily identify the CTAs, or do the designs fail in that aspect?
Another key function of design is to make your brand look professional. This could go hand-in-hand with grabbing attention, as you don’t want to grab attention for poor design. In addition to using other flyers as examples, you could work with a graphic designer experienced with direct mail and CTAs.
Custom mail services providing everything from direct mail postcards to database management
Complete Mailing & Printing provides a full range of custom mail services for businesses and nonprofits in the Bay Area and on the Central Coast. Contact us to receive a quote for your direct mail project, including design, digital printing, mail merging, bulk mailing, and database management.
