99% Check Their Mail This Way - And I’d Bet Big Money You Do Too!

Here’s 2 Things You Didn’t Know You Needed for Direct Mail Success

Hi, it’s Jim DuBois with WindowWashingWealth.com. This article will change the way you look at your mail and will radically change how your business sends mail pieces.

But before I go deep into this topic, let me say once again I appreciate your readership. I work hard to contribute good worthy material you can use in your business. And write stuff that gets you thinking and hopefully implementing. In appreciation, I have a FREE Window Cleaning 20 page Business Manual and 1 hour Audio CD package for you – Building A $1,000,000 Window Cleaning Business. You can have it Free. Just go to my website (above), opt-in, and be sure to put your complete mailing address in and I will mail the package to you. Be sure to keep an eye on your physical mailbox for a large white lumpy "billboard" envelope. And by the way, the envelope you receive will be note-worthy to this article.

99% Check Their Mail This Way. And I’d Bet Big Money You Do Too.

On an ordinary Wednesday afternoon, I walk up to the mailbox (like you) and pull out the usual pile of bills, letters, and other correspondence. As I walk back to my house, I slowly flip through the mail one by one seeing if anything is personal or grabs my attention. When I get back to the house, I go to the kitchen table, or probably in your case over the trash can – right? and I proceed to thumb through each piece of mail. But this time I separate them in to two piles. The A-pile and the B-pile. Why? Pile A is mail I want to open and see what it is and pile B is the mail that goes into the trash or the recycling bin without being opened or maybe it is a quick flash glance.

And I bet this is exactly how you go through your mail too! Am I right?

Most everyone in the world divides their mail this way, INCLUDING YOUR CUSTOMERS. Let me say that again, INCLUDING YOUR CUSTOMERS. Hmmmm.

It’s as simple as that. And when you are spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to mail your sales message, you want to make sure that everybody who receives your letter will at least open the envelope.

So, Thing 1 (from the sub-title) is to get your mail opened and seen. In short, here’s what we do at my company to get our direct mail pieces seen.

If you decide to use direct mail in your marketing and I suggest you do, you primarily have two basic choices to make: the "billboard" or the "sneak up" approach.

Thing 1: Many favor the sneak up approach. In this approach there’s nothing on the outside of the envelope that identifies it as business mail (or junk mail). There is no company name in the return address.

There is no teaser copy, no headlines, words or phrases saying what’s inside. It’s really quite simple. You see, A-pile envelopes always look personal like they were a communication from one real person to another real person. For example, the best A-pile envelopes always have a live postage stamp on the envelope. They never have teaser copy. They never immediately reveal in the upper left corner that the material inside contains a commercial message.

Sometimes an odd size envelope rather than a standard number ten business envelope is used. It makes it look personal.

Go Check Your Mail And See For Yourself!

To carry out this sneak up approach to the ultimate extreme there are no labels used. The addressing is either done by hand or an individually typed look (computer generated) and postage stamps are used not postage meter impressions.

This is how you get into the A-pile. And there is almost 100% readership as a result. Can you see how this would work?

A lot of so called junk mail, obvious as B-pile mail gets thrown out unopened or after only a glance. The mail that gets A-pile treatment often is opened immediately and gets read because it looks like personal mail. There’s a letter inside when you open it.

What do B-pile envelopes look like? You already know. You’ve seen them every day for years. They are usually label addressed, have some kind of teaser copy, award winning graphics, pastel colors, windows with a fake check showing through, printed bulk rate indicia or a printed first class indicia (the worst mistake you can make).

Can you guess what happens when a busy person goes to their mailbox and pulls out this beautiful collection of mail? The first thing a person will do with it is sort through it to see if he has any A-pile mail. After that, he throws the rest away!

The object of the sneak attack is to insure ‘A-Pile’ treatment.

Thing 2: If you engage in direct mail you probably use the "billboard" style of marketing, like postcards of various sizes using standard mail or EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) campaigns. This is Option 2. We do a lot of this for our lead generation and customer nurturing. Again, too much to get into in this article but here’s the non-negotiator for billboard mailing success. Turn your postcard into a billboard! Your postcard should be LARGE, VERY LARGE. When we do an EDDM campaign, we go as big as the post office will allow – 8.5x11 with a full color both sides heavy droop. For Option 2 to work optimally, it must become a billboard to ensure it will be seen. And you can do this with EDDM. You can do this large size with regular standard mail postcards too (non-EDDM), but in many cases the postage cost will be cost prohibitive. So we mail a 6x9 size postcard versus an 8.5x11 for non-EDDM mailings. This is the largest size "billboard" style postcard to use to give you the best bang for your buck using a Standard Mail rate.

Why? Because of the larger billboard size, here’s what happens when the prospective customer goes to their mailbox. When they pull the mail out, YOUR postcard will be the first piece of mail seen because the postal people will more than likely "wrap" the mail inside YOUR large mail piece! That’s right, and you will have close to a 100% chance of being seen. And if the stars are aligned and in your favor, meaning the prospect is in need of your services – WHAM, there’s a great chance you will get a phone call or opt-in provided you have done some very important things on your mail piece.

These very important things I will go in to more detail in a future Business Builder article.

Now, the large sealed envelope you will receive if you request my manual and audio (lumpy mail) will have a billboard approach (announcement) on the outside. It will get a 100% open rate regardless and despite the announcement on the outside. Why? Because you requested the information and are looking for it to come in the mail.

In the case of your existing customer base, Option 1 (sneak up approach) or Option 2 (billboard) you will always have a high chance of readership for all of your sales and offers. But there’s one important catch for Option 2 (the billboard approach) to work. This Option 2 approach will only work optimally provided you have branded yourself appropriately with your customer base - meaning they know who your company is without question. If not, you will be lost in the crowd and the mailing will not be as successful as intended.

This is where many window cleaning companies fail. They have not properly branded themselves with their existing customer base. Not exactly on topic, but how many times have you used a vendor, say an electrician and you cannot for the life of you remember who the company was? This is inefficient branding pure and simple. This is why consistent:

• Direct mail
• Outbounding
• Emails

…are very important to keep yourself branded with your existing customer base so they remember who you are. And direct mail leads the list because they SEE your logo, colors, etc. almost 100% of the time when a mailing is received. But all 3 combined, ensure efficient and effective branding if done consistently. Would you agree with that?

Getting back to the Billboard approach…

The object of the Billboard approach is to insure "Attention" and "Interest" In Your Offer!

…then comes Desire, then Action or what we call AIDA.

In the meantime, if you plan to participate in direct mail, I’d suggest you rip this article out and put it on the wall in your office and re-read it every single time you are about to do another mailing. And, if you pay other people to create direct mail for you, I’d also suggest you make a copy of this article and give it to them.

Focusing on making a successful direct mail campaign is important, but it’s only part of what’s needed to get the overall results you need and want.

Phone scripts, training, and tracking on the back end will give your campaigns the support they require in order to soar. Do you have all of these in place for your marketing? Start now by determining what you need to do and start making it happen. That will get you moving in the right direction for marketing that converts! Until next time…