Not because the direct mail campaigns our marketing agency creates require next-day delivery. In most cases, we mail standard class to get lower rates and we factor in the necessary delivery time when crafting a marketing plan.

But I got a sinking feeling when I heard this latest news. I fear that as service delivery levels fall and the costs of using direct mail climb, we may be nearing a tipping point when mail will lose its viability as a marketing channel.

Here’s what I think this news means for smart marketers whose strategies include direct mail marketing.

The Worrisome Implications of This Latest Move

The financial liabilities facing the USPS are staggering. The agency is working hard to find ways to cut costs and it has to consider all options. The most recent plan is to close more than half the nation’s mail processing centers, including ten here in Ohio.

We can probably get used to first-class mail that takes a day longer to get there. We also can probably manage without Saturday delivery, though many catalog marketers could find their call centers quieter on the weekends if the USPS gets approval of five-day-a-week delivery.

But think about the implications – for any service-based organization – of reducing service levels.

When your mission is to deliver a service, the last thing you want to do is deliver less service. The customers you have will leave and the ones you’re trying to attract won’t even consider you.

As old customers find new options – paying more bills electronically, sending e-cards instead of printed cards, using FedEx or UPS to ship packages, or using e-mail or social media instead of direct mail for marketing campaigns – and new customers stay away, a downward spiral can begin that’s hard to stop.

Fewer customers will mean lower revenue and the USPS may be forced to make even deeper service cuts, which will make using the Postal Service even less attractive. Where does it end?

Fuel for the Fire of Direct Mail Naysayers

As a marketing consultant and lifelong direct marketer, I strongly believe in the channel and often recommend it when planning marketing strategies for my clients. But even before this news, more and more of my clients  have been telling me lately that they can’t justify the cost of direct mail compared with e-mail, web marketing, and social media.

If service levels continue to go down and costs continue to go up, even direct mail advocates like me could find it harder to make the case.

Oddly enough, there could be an upside for direct marketers if fewer people use mail. A less crowded mailbox could help your direct mail campaign get more attention. For some direct marketers, continuing to mail – indeed, even mailing more – could be a smart marketing strategy.

But for others, the reasons not to use mail could begin to outnumber the reasons to use it. Unless the USPS can become a healthy service provider, marketers who depend on it now will rely on it less and less.

Why I Hope I’m Wrong

Direct mail is one of the most effective marketing channels ever created. A creative, high-impact direct mail campaign is still among the most powerful ways to capture the attention of prospects and engage them in your marketing message. And while I’m dismayed at what I see happening with the Postal Service, I don’t believe direct mail marketing will end in my lifetime.

But the cost and quality of service could make it an increasingly unattractive option for marketers. That would be a sad outcome for those of us who have always believed in its value.

Do you think I’m wrong? Should I stop worrying? What do you think lies ahead for direct mail marketing, based on this latest news?

Since we’re moving soon to new offices (a new suite in the same building in Cleveland, Ohio), I decided to take the opportunity to weed out our idea file, especially our massive collection of direct mail.

I tossed a lot of old stuff, but I was surprised at how many direct marketing campaigns created five, ten, or even 20 years ago still pack a powerful marketing punch.

I wondered: Why do some direct marketing campaigns stand the test of time? What do these campaigns have in common that makes them so effective?

Here are four things our old idea file taught me about great direct mail that you can apply to your smart marketing strategy.

Proven Principles of Direct Marketing Don’t Change

As a marketing consultant who advises clients on direct marketing strategies, I’m always on the hunt for effective business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) direct mail ideas and techniques.

Looking back through the gems in our idea file, I was reminded again of four proven principles of effective direct mail:

1. Write engaging teaser copy that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go: Teaser copy is the most important message in a direct mail package. Here are four irresistible examples of excellent teaser copy:

• 5 Words You Never Want Your Wife or Husband to Say. Know what they are? See inside. (Life insurance; payoff copy inside: “There wasn’t enough life insurance”)
• What NEVER to eat on an airplane. (Newsletter subscription)
• As it turns out, your mother was wrong. (Software company; payoff copy inside: “You DO know everything”)
• “We need someone with vision, creativity, and great marketing instincts: Someone like Jean Gianfagna.” (Cartoon caption on an Advertising Age subscription mailing that’s still a classic)

2.  Use paper to make the reader want to touch and hold the mailing: Many of the most effective campaigns in our idea file use paper creatively. Translucent or clear carrier envelopes, a brown paper bag, high gloss paper, or a rich, textured stock can transform a direct mail promotion.

3.  Select a creative format to stand out in a cluttered mailbox: Direct mail offers unlimited creative options, especially with formats. Mailings with odd dimensions, interesting folds, string or ribbon ties, very large envelopes, very small envelopes, die cuts, wax or foil seals, and pop-ups are among our keeper campaigns.

4. Deploy dimensional direct mail that screams “open me:” Dimensional direct mail can’t be beat to get attention, especially in B2B marketing. A small, clear plastic bottle holding a note, sand, and a tiny beach umbrella, a piece of wood, a small box with a key inside, an actual metal mailbox, and a lumpy mailing with half a Swiss Army Knife showing through a window (and a great teaser: “Open carefully: Knife inside”) are just a few examples of outstanding dimensional mail we’ve saved.

Keep an Idea File for Education and Inspiration

Truly great marketing campaigns grab your attention, engage you immediately in a relevant message, get your head nodding in agreement, and make you eager to say yes. If you run a marketing agency or a corporate marketing department, an idea file can help educate your team on these principles of effective marketing and get the creative juices flowing when you’re looking for new marketing ideas.

Do you have favorite or classic promotions in your idea file? Please share them!

Like all direct marketing practitioners, I’ve been dismayed to watch the U.S. Postal Service struggle for survival. As the organization tries to right its ship by cutting costs, it’s also trying to grow revenue by drumming up new business from mailers.

That’s the right thing to do, but perhaps not the way the USPS is doing it.

Case in point: The latest USPS direct mail campaign mailed to my marketing firm this week. Here’s where the USPS went wrong and how to avoid this mistake in your smart marketing strategy.

Nice Mailing, Terrible List Prep

The USPS is using direct mail to promote its shipping services to businesses and they’ve done a lot of things right with their latest direct marketing campaign. They’ve selected the right target market and the right service, created an attractive, three-panel selfmailer, and made a good offer: a free shipping kit. There’s a strong call to action, a personalized URL (PURL), and a QR code, many of the elements of effective business-to-business (B2B) direct mail.

So what’s wrong with the mailing? The addressing.

Our marketing agency got five copies of this promotion and all were addressed to us at our old office suite number, though we moved three years ago.

Even worse, only two are correctly addressed to individuals who still work here. Two were sent to me, one correctly addressed and one to Gean Gianfagna, an erroneous spelling of my name from an old, compiled B2B list that never seems to go away.

Two others are addressed to former employees who moved on more than five years ago. One of these former staff members got the mailing in her maiden name and she’s been married for 10 years.

Yes, we received all the mail, so they effectively delivered it, and that’s to their credit. But how effective is the message when it’s sent to the wrong people? Especially people who are no longer at the address?

The Shoemaker’s Children?

What’s most ironic about this direct marketing campaign is that the mailer with the list problem is the organization whose job is to deliver the mail.

Why didn’t their merge/purge pick up the likely duplication between Jean and Gean with the same last name at the exact same address? Why is the suite number wrong on all the mail? And how did they end up using a B2B mailing list with data that’s at least five years out of date – and in our case, 10 years?

Unfortunately, much of their investment in good creative and the postage they spent to send it to us, five times over, is wasted on an outdated list and a bad merge/purge.

The Key Lesson for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

As a marketing consultant, I strongly believe in the value of direct mail in a marketing plan. I also know that every mailing list has errors and B2B lists are notoriously difficult to keep current.

But that’s what list hygiene is for—to correct mistakes and get as much of the mail as possible delivered to the right people at the right place. To achieve this, you need to start with the highest quality mailing lists and follow the industry’s best practices for data management.

The most important lesson direct marketers can learn from this example is that no matter how creative your direct marketing campaign is or how valuable your offer, if you mail to the wrong people at the wrong addresses, you’ve wasted your money.

I hope the Postal Service will be able to apply this lesson to future direct mail campaigns with better list selection and preparation. Direct marketers like me are counting on their success.

And guess what? I’ve discovered a simple secret about social media: To achieve success, you need to think like a direct marketer.

Why Social Media Marketing is Like Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is about targeting specific individuals with information and offers relevant to their needs and making a call to action to generate response.

Marketers are using social media to connect with specific individuals who have a high level of interest in their products and services. The goal is to get those individuals to respond in the form of likes, follows, shares, posts, links, check-ins, entries, coupon redemptions, and sales. That sounds a lot like direct marketing to me.

5 Direct Marketing Principles that Apply to Social Media Marketing

Here are five proven principles of effective direct marketing strategy that I think apply to the effective use of social media:

1. Targeting: Sure, half the civilized world is on Facebook and millions are on Twitter, LinkedIn, and other channels. But smart marketers don’t care about reaching billions or even millions of people. Like direct marketing, social media marketing is intended to deliver a targeted message to individuals who are most likely to be interested in a company’s value proposition. Social media makes it easy to find these individuals and to create content and promotions that help them find you.
2. Teasing: Direct marketers use the carrier envelope, catalog cover, or email subject line to tease the audience and get them to pay attention. Social media marketers do the same with Facebook copy and tweets. My most retweeted tweets happen when I tease my followers with a question or an interesting statement that makes them want to click on a link to know more. That’s exactly like writing direct mail teaser copy.
3. Engaging: The most effective direct marketing campaigns use compelling content and a personal, you-oriented copy approach to keep readers engaged in the sales message to the point of asking for the order. Social media’s great value is the ability to have similar one-to-one engagement and conversations with individual followers.
4. Inciting action: Like direct marketing, the best social media marketing campaigns have a call to action that gets followers to respond to a specific request. Look at posts by the most popular brand marketers on Facebook and you’ll see offers, discounts, bonuses, invitations, questions, contests, polls, and quizzes, all designed, like a direct mail offer, to get a response.
5. Testing and measuring: The beauty of direct marketing is the ability to test approaches and measure results. Social media is exactly the same in this regard, with even more measurability and more instant reaction. You’ll know within minutes if your followers or fans are interested in your post.

Target, Engage, and Ask to Achieve Social Media Marketing Success

Direct marketers achieve success by targeting their marketing, focusing on the needs and interests of the prospect, using great content to engage the prospect in the message, and making a compelling offer to generate a response. Applying these same proven principles to social media marketing is a smart marketing strategy.

Do you agree? What other principles of direct marketing do you think are relevant to social media marketing?

But creating a direct mail campaign that makes it past the mailroom and the administrative assistant to the desk of a business decision-maker – and captures the executive’s attention – can be a real marketing challenge.

Here are 13 ideas for creative direct mail formats – some familiar and some you may not have thought of – that can help get your next B2B mailing past the gatekeepers and entice business executives to open your package.

Test these B2B Direct Mail Format Ideas

1. Dimensional mail: A box with a premium inside is a classic B2B direct mail tactic because it’s so effective. Few people can resist opening a box; finding a gift inside is even more engaging, especially if the gift is valuable and there’s a clever creative theme that relates to the executive’s business interests.
2. Hand-addressing: Genuine hand-addressing is so unusual in business mail that it can be a real attention-getter. It’s easy to do internally or via a calligrapher if you’re mailing a small quantity; for larger quantities, use a sophisticated lettershop that offers this service. Autopen is another addressing option worth testing.
3. Green triangles border: The classic border of green “first class mail” triangles along the edge of the envelope isn’t sexy, but it works. This format communicates “real business mail” in a clear, straightforward way and many B2B mailers use it.
4. Mailing in a tube: Using a cardboard or plastic tube as a carrier is almost guaranteed to get your mail opened. People just have to know what’s inside a tube, especially if there’s something loose moving around inside it.
5. An oversized envelope: Mail in an envelope bigger than the typical #10-size or 9” x 12” business envelope, such as a #11 envelope (4.5” x 10 3/8”) or a 10” x 13,” to help your mailing stand apart from the standard-sized pieces in a business in-box.
6. An undersized envelope: A very small mailing can be as attention-getting as a very large one, especially if it looks like a personal note.
7. Stationery-quality or unusual paper stock: Using the highest quality paper stock gives a business mailing a distinctive, high-end look. An unusual paper stock, such as a textured paper, can have a similar effect.
8. Live stamps: Colorful live stamps, especially if you’re mailing first class, can make a business mailing look like important correspondence.
9. Invitation format: A personally addressed invitation that appears to have been sent to a few select individuals is something most mailrooms and administrative assistants will deliver and most executives will open.
10. Lumpy mail: An envelope that should be flat but isn’t because there’s something three-dimensional inside (such as a pen or a key on a key fob) is called lumpy mail. This tactic can be effective and attention-getting if the item inside has high perceived value.
11. Translucent envelope: Being able to almost see what’s inside a mailing that’s in a translucent carrier makes recipients want to open it. Translucent paper also can be an elegant presentation of your message.
12. FedEx or UPS delivery: Nearly every gatekeeper will deliver a package sent via FedEx or UPS. USPS Priority mail works, too. The cost is high, but if your target is a C-suite executive, it’s worth it.
13. Non-box dimensional mail: Besides a box or a tube, almost any container you can think of can be a direct mail carrier if you’re willing to pay the postage. The best B2B mailing I ever got was an actual mailbox. Challenge your creative team to come up with carriers that will demand attention.

The Most Important Recommendation for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

As a marketing consultant who has helped clients plan hundreds of B2B direct mail campaigns, my most important advice is to properly address the mailing. There is almost no excuse for incorrect addressing, especially if you’re mailing to a highly-targeted list of C-level decision-makers that you believe are your best prospects.

Hire a telemarketing team to call each prospect’s office and confirm their name, title, and address before you mail. An incorrectly addressed mailing negates your efforts and almost guarantees that your promotion will be diverted to the trash before it reaches your prospect.

Here’s how a regional painting business in Cleveland, Ohio nailed a prospect direct mail campaign with a simple postcard, while Dell, a huge business-to-business marketer, committed several cardinal sins of direct marketing in a B2B direct mail promotion.

A Simple Message, Driven by Simple Data

Curb Appeal Painting does interior and exterior commercial and residential painting. To get new residential business in Northeast Ohio, the company mails postcards to neighborhoods near its painting projects.

This little mailing works for several reasons. The postcard invites prospects to “come by and see the quality” of a project the company is about to start at a neighbor’s house. The jobsite address is prominently displayed. The call to action is big and bold. The company’s credentials – Better Business Bureau approved, Angie’s List, etc. – help build trust.

The reverse side of the postcard has a photo of a home they’ve painted and their website. The message is short and sweet, and it’s personalized with information relevant to the prospect.

Dell Delivers a Direct Mail Dud

Dell, on the other hand, needs to reboot its B2B direct marketing.

Our marketing agency recently received three identical mailings from Dell on the same day, addressed to three different people. One addressee was our former office manager, who left eight years ago. Another was addressed to a vice president of our firm, but with the wrong suite number. The third mailing was sent to “Geane Gianfagna,” whom I’m assuming is me.

Most of our office PCs are Dells. We are Dell customers. But Dell clearly doesn’t know who we are, or indicate we’re receiving any special treatment as valued business clients, which might be a natural expectation on our part.

The offer is weak and vague. The teaser copy promises “savings inside,” but all you see inside is pricing. Are these discount prices?  It’s hard to tell, because there are no comparisons to the regular prices.

Worst of all, this “savings” offer is for a limited time – and the expiration date expired two weeks before we received the mailings.

4 Lessons for Direct Mailers

What can direct marketers learn from these examples? Four lessons:

1. Address your mail correctly. This rule is so basic, but it’s absolutely essential to get the addressee’s information right and de-dupe your lists before you mail. When a customer gets multiple copies of the same direct mail campaign with multiple addressing errors, it’s highly likely that all the mail will be discarded and the marketer’s investment will be wasted.
2. Simple formats can make a big impact. Direct mail postcards can be highly effective in delivering a marketer’s message, especially if the marketer can boil the copy down to a few key points and use graphics to get attention. Granted, selling a business PC isn’t as simple as selling painting services, but if the goal of a mailing is to generate web traffic and calls, direct marketers should avoid the temptation to over-complicate the mailing and test simple formats.
3. Use data to deliver a relevant message.  Use your prospect data to personalize the message to prospects’ interests. The painting company has two types of simple data: the location of its painting jobs and rented name and address files of nearby residents. They used this data to highlight the local job with closest proximity to the prospect, creating a personal, “in your neighborhood” feeling.  Meanwhile, Dell, which must have years’ worth of rich customer data on our company’s IT purchases, used none of it to deliver a message targeted to us.
4. Get time-sensitive deadlines right. There’s no excuse for mailing a time-sensitive offer with a due date that occurs BEFORE the mailing lands. Deadlines are great for incenting action, but plan your production schedule to give the respondent time to respond.

More Direct Mail Recommendations

As a marketing consultant who often recommends direct mail, I might suggest a few tweaks to the painter’s direct mail campaign. The postal bar code obscures their website on the address panel. Their free estimate offer could be more attention-getting. And the offer and the phone number should be on both sides of the mailing.

But all in all, especially compared to Dell, this little guy showed the big guys how to use direct mail effectively in a smart marketing strategy.

Business reply cards (BRCs) and reply forms with postpaid envelopes (BREs) have been core elements of direct mail since the medium began. But they’ve been notably absent from some recent direct marketing campaigns I’ve received.

Is this a new trend? A test? A fundamental shift? Here are some insights for your smart marketing strategy. 

5 Possible Factors Driving this Approach

The classic elements of a direct mail package are a carrier envelope, a letter, a brochure or other inserts, a reply form, and, if the reply form is not a prepaid BRC, a reply envelope.

But some direct marketers are beginning to eliminate the printed reply device. What’s behind this new approach to direct marketing? I believe it’s a combination of five factors:

1. Personalized URLs (PURLs):  PURLs have given direct marketers powerful ways to completely personalize the response experience. When you go to a website via a PURL, your response information is pre-populated and the web page may be totally customized to you. It not only feels extremely personal, but it’s also easier; in a click or two, you’ve completed the response transaction.
2. Costs: Another reason to leave out the reply device is costs. Smart direct marketers are always testing ways to shave pennies off production and postage costs. Cutting the reply form, BRE, or BRC not only saves money on the outbound package, but also the reply postage, which the mailer must pay.
3. Sophisticated Audiences: What’s most interesting about this approach is its prevalence in mailings targeting upscale consumers. Exclusive Resorts, a luxury resort membership program, has only a toll-free number and a PURL as the response device in its package. The same is true of Chase’s direct mail campaign for the Marriott Rewards Card, and Chase’s Continental Presidential Plus credit card, which charges a $395 annual fee after the first year. Direct marketers for such high-end offers may believe their sophisticated prospects are savvy enough to know how to reply without a paper response form; such prospects may even prefer it and find it more personal.
4. The Ubiquity of the Web: With lightning speed, the web has transformed modern life. Nearly every type of activity or transaction – from social interaction to financial decisions – now has the web at its core. Responding to direct marketing is just one more way we’re using the web to do things we used to do differently. Web response is much faster than filling out and mailing a written form; it may even be faster than calling a toll-free number.
5. Cross-selling to Customers: Many of the direct mail packages I’ve seen without printed reply devices are from companies I already do business with, such as American Express, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable. When a marketer is cross-selling additional services to customers, a reply form may be unnecessary, since the customer is used to interacting with the marketer via phone or the web.

Why Deleting the Response Form May be Worth Testing

The ability to test creative approaches and offers is one of the primary reasons I recommend direct marketing campaigns to clients of my marketing agency. Deleting the BRC or reply form with BRE may be worth testing.

Other direct mail formats, such as postcards, don’t have reply forms.  Catalogs, which used to have full-page order forms and bound-in reply envelopes, now often delete both, instructing customers to order by phone, a website, or a retail store. So there’s no reason to believe that direct mail recipients who get a package without a  printed response device won’t know how to respond.

For some direct marketers, however, deleting a reply form may not be a good option. Nonprofits that use direct marketing include reply forms and BREs so donors can mail back checks. In other cases, the printed reply device may be important to increasing the reader’s involvement with the mailing or making a strong call to action.

What do you think? Is it a smart marketing strategy to get rid of the response form in your direct mail package? Is it worth testing?  As a marketing consultant, I’ll be watching the evolution of this new direct marketing approach.

One of the best ways to gauge the value of a customer is to perform a recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) analysis of your customer data.

Here’s how RFM analysis works and seven ways you can use insights from RFM for a smart marketing strategy.

How RFM Analysis is Done

RFM analysis looks at all the transactions in your customer database in a specific time period, usually the last two to three years. The purpose of the database analysis is to determine the value of your customers based on how much they buy from you, how often they buy, and how recently they’ve made a purchase.

With RFM, you assign a value to the recency of the transaction (the more recent, the better); the frequency of transactions in the analysis time period (the more frequent, the better); and the monetary value of those transactions (the higher the monetary value, the better).

Once the analysis is complete, you have a measure of each customer’s profitability, so you can rank cusotmers from most profitable to least. You can then divide this ranked list into ten equal customer groups (deciles).

The top two deciles (top 20%) are your best, most profitable customers, the ones who have bought from you most recently, who buy from you most often, and who purchase at the highest dollar amounts. Deciles 3-7 are your next best customers. Deciles 8-10 are your least valuable customers.

7 Ways to Use RFM for a Smart Marketing Strategy

Here are seven ways to use RFM to target your marketing campaigns more precisely and utilize your marketing resources more effectively:

1. Understand your best customers. Once you’ve identified your best customers, you can create demographic profiles to gain insights into the characteristics they share. You also can append data to their records, such as company size or NAICS code, for an even fuller picture.
2. Find the low-hanging fruit among your next-best customers. Take a careful look at the customers in deciles 3-7 whose demographic profiles are similar to your best customers. This is likely to be your best upselling opportunity.
3. Target the right prospects on rented mailing lists. Armed with information about the characteristics of your best customers, you can be extremely selective about the names you rent on commercial mailing lists, which can cut your costs and increase response.
4. Reallocate sales support. RFM can help you reassess the level of sales support appropriate for each customer based on their value and potential. Your goal should be to deploy your most expensive sales resource – your sales team – on customers who already generate the most profit or have the highest potential to buy more.
5. Develop tiered direct marketing campaigns. Focus high-end direct marketing campaigns on your highest-value customers and mail less expensive campaigns to lower-value customers. You might send best customers a personalized direct mail package with a product sample, for example, while others get a simple selfmailer offering a free product sample on request.
6. Test a high-end marketing campaign to high potential customers. Once you’ve identified customers in deciles 3-7 with the same demographics as your best customers, test a more elaborate direct marketing campaign to these customers to try to increase their profitability.
7. Decide which customers to drop from marketing. Customers in deciles 8-10 probably should be dropped from your mailing lists and marketing campaigns because of their low value. It may be costing you more to sell to them than they’re worth.

Why Marketing Strategists Can’t Live by RFM Alone

Knowing your best (and worst) customers can give you important insights for a smart marketing strategy. As a marketing consultant, I’ve used RFM analysis for several business-to-business marketing clients, including a large bank in Ohio and a major retail merchandising company near Cleveland.

But although RFM is a great tool, smart marketers know not to rely on RFM alone when developing a marketing plan. You also need to consider input from your sales team, feedback from your customers, and the results of prior marketing initiatives to decide how best to market to your current customers and targeted prospects.

But when a direct marketer gets it right, with a highly personalized, data-driven message, a compelling offer, and a warm invitation to re-engage, it’s a thing of marketing beauty.

Here’s how a major women’s retailer – Chico’s – nailed it with their customer win-back direct mail campaign, and six lessons from their direct marketing success story that you can apply to your smart marketing strategy.

Come On Back!

Chico’s is a specialty retailer that sells sophisticated, casual-to-dressy clothing to women via catalogs, the web, and more than 1,000 retail stores. Like most retailers, Chico’s has a customer loyalty program to track buying behavior and spur additional sales.

I’ve shopped a lot at Chico’s, but not much lately. To win me back, Chico’s sent me this direct mail package.

It’s an 8-3/8”x 10-7/8” package with simple mail panel copy: We’ve missed you. On the back of the envelope is a short message that succeeds both in positioning Chico’s as a fashion leader and acknowledging my absence from their store: 

“We’ve been seen in Harper’s Bazaar, Redbook, Real Simple. We’ve been seen online at Vogue.com. But we haven’t seen you in awhile. Look inside for a few welcome-back offers…and come back to see us soon.”

A Friendly, Flattering Message Driven by Customer Data

Inside the envelope are the latest catalog and a brief letter from Cinny Murray, the company president.

This letter is a case study in how to use a customer’s purchasing data to create a high-impact, one-to-one message. Here’s the friendly, engaging lead sentence:

“I love our new spring collection and thought it was the perfect time to connect with you.”

The letter then pivots brilliantly to my individual interests by talking about what I’ve purchased at Chico’s in the past:

“I remember that you love our Travelers collection,” the letter reads, describing the current Travelers line as being “reinvented as a chicer-than-ever collection.”

The letter invites me to meet with a “Style Expert” who is “always on hand to help you look and feel fabulous” and concludes with an invitation to come back: “Please come back into our boutique soon to see our latest Travelers styles and the rest of the new spring collection…”  The president also provides her email address and “personal customer hotline.”

The Icing on the Cake: Customized Offers

This is a great letter: Brief, sincere, and highly personal. But where this direct mail package really shines is the offer.

Attached to the letter is a second page with three lasered coupons: 15-30% off on the Travelers collection, $10 off on a necklace, and 50% off the highest price item when I spend over $100.

This offer is exactly what smart direct marketing is about:

• It’s tailored specifically to my previous purchases (the Travelers collection and jewelry);
• It’s designed to get me to spend at least $100;
• And it has a short deadline to get me to act now.

Six Lessons for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

Here are six takeaways from this direct marketing success story that you can use to reactivate your lapsed customers with direct mail.

1. Write warm, engaging copy with a sincere, “me-to-you” message from a real person.
2. Show the customer what they’ve been missing and get them excited about what they’ll experience when they return to you.
3. Tailor the copy to the customer’s buying habits by using transactional data.
4. Treat the customer like someone special by making multiple, high-value offers, including offers tailored to their prior purchases.
5. Place a deadline on the offer to spur the customer to act now.
6. Make the customer feel important by using the company president as the letter author.

My Free Marketing Advice to Chico’s

Since I often advise clients of my marketing consulting firm on how to create effective direct mail, I’d advise Chico’s to add two things to this package: A reminder of the location of my local store in Cleveland, Ohio, with a map, and a P.S. The P.S. is still one of the most-read parts of any direct mail package and they missed an opportunity to remind me that the offers expire soon.

But these are minor quibbles. Compared to most retail direct mail, which is written for the masses with generic coupons full of redemption restrictions, Chico’s and its marketing agency deserve praise for a smart marketing strategy and direct marketing effectiveness.

One way to find out is to conduct a top-to-bottom review of your entire marketing plan to determine what’s working and what isn’t.

This process is sometimes called a marketing audit. I’m often asked to guide audits as an independent marketing consultant and I recently shared advice on how to do an audit effectively.

What specific factors should you assess in a marketing audit?

Here are 40 questions I recommend for evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing and developing a smarter marketing strategy.

Brand

1. Does your brand clearly communicate what you are about and convey the highest value you deliver?

2. Does your brand effectively differentiate you from every other supplier in your marketplace?

3. Is your brand promise well understood and consistently executed at all levels of your organization?

4. Is your brand identity being properly used in all media?

Market

5. Do you know your most profitable customers and are you targeting prospects that look just like your best customers?

6. Do you understand the factors buyers consider when selecting your product or service and are you focusing your marketing campaigns on those factors?

7. Have your customers changed the way they find, buy, or use your product or service and have you adjusted your marketing plan accordingly?

8. Are you actively upselling and cross-selling products and services to your current customers?

Messages

9. Do you have three to five key marketing messages that you’re consistently delivering in all media?

10. Do your marketing messages resonate with your target audience? Are you talking about the things your customers and prospects care about?

11.  Do these messages match the experience customers have when they interact with your staff?

12.  Are you tailoring messages to specific market segments when you have the opportunity to do so?

Marketing Channels

13.  Are traditional marketing channels – such as advertising, direct marketing, and public relations – still delivering enough value to warrant the investment they require?

14.  Is it time to shift some – or more – of your marketing to new channels such as social media and mobile marketing?

15.  Are you maximizing the value of the proprietary channels you control, such as newsletters, invoices, product packaging and inserts, vehicles, and buildings?

Marketing Tactics

16.  Do you know which marketing tactics are generating the best results – leads, conversions, or sales – at the lowest cost?

17.  Can you cut the cost of any of your tactics by changing formats?

18.  Are you integrating social media into traditional marketing tactics like direct mail and advertising?

19.  Can you create a mobile app to promote your product or connect with your audience?

Creative Approaches

20.  Is your creative attention-getting? Does it stand out in a crowded marketplace?

21.  Does your creative engage the prospect immediately in your sales message and enhance the delivery of the message?

22.  Is the call to action loud and clear? Does the prospect know exactly what to do next after reviewing your marketing materials?

23.  What will people remember most after seeing your marketing: your clever creative approach or your product?

Offers

24.  Is your offer resonating with prospects? Are more and more people saying yes?

25.  Does your offer showcase your product?

26.  Does your offer deliver real value to the prospect?

27.  Are you tailoring offers to specific market segments or types of buyers?

Collateral and Sales Tools

28.  Are your sales brochures, displays, and sales demonstration tools accurate, complete, and up to date?

29.  Are your sales tools integrated with your brand and your marketing campaigns?

30.  Do you need new tools to educate prospects about your industry or product?

Data

31.  Are you capturing customer and prospect data to build a robust marketing database?

32.  Are you compiling email addresses for an ongoing sales dialogue?

33.  Are you tracking and recording response and transactional data to create full profiles of your customers and their behavior so you can target future promotions?

34.  Is your customer and prospect addressing data accurate and complete and ready for the new USPS standards for mail deliverability?

Website

35.  Is your website built around the needs and interests of your visitors?

36.  Is your site easy to navigate, with most information available in three clicks or less?

37.  Are you delivering high-value content that establishes your credibility?

38.  Are you inviting visitors to engage with you via blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, and social media?

39.  Is your site fully optimized for search engines?

40.  Are you regularly adding new content and inbound links to increase your SEO rankings?

After You’ve Answered the Questions

Once you’ve completed your marketing audit, you should have a better understanding of how your marketing is working and what you need to do to achieve your objectives. Use this knowledge to craft a smart marketing strategy that delivers a higher return on your investment.

Here’s more advice on how to conduct an effective marketing audit.