5 Direct Mail Tips for Driving New Business

Direct mail marketing is an efficient and effective method for driving new business to your establishment. Our Town America, the nation’s leading new mover marketing company, compiled a list of the top five direct mail tips to ensure your strategy adds customers from your local community and generates profits.

Small business owners wear many hats, from customer service providers to back-office supervisors and visionaries. It’s inevitable that small business owners will face unexpected challenges as their venture grows. Lately, labor shortages are creating headaches for many small businesses. There are more job openings in the United States than people looking for work. Employers are trying to fill nearly 10 million job openings, but there are only 8.6 million people out of work, which puts a crunch on small businesses searching for workers. 

In an effort to attract valuable talent, some small business owners may be neglecting their marketing efforts. Rather than experiment with new advertising trends and techniques, small business owners should rely on proven marketing strategies to get the job done and free up time to train and develop new employees. Direct mail marketing provides an interactive advertising tool that offers a tangible touchpoint for customers to learn about your business. Nearly 70 percent of people prefer receiving information about new businesses via snail mail, and 67 percent feel mail is more personal, the United States Postal Service reported. Taking a tried-and-true approach will help your business flourish during this difficult season.

Tips to Plan a Successful Direct Mail Campaign

Here are five direct mail tips to help drive new business.

1. Personalize Your Message. Direct mail can be personalized to help create relationships with new customers. People are more inclined to respond to one-on-one communication and personalization can lead to better engagement and enhanced success.
   
2. Send Your Mail to the Right People. Your direct mail message might be eye-catching and personalized, but if it doesn’t reach the right audience, it will not be effective. Businesses need to make sure they are using direct mail marketing lists that convert. Our Town America specializes in new mover marketing and has 50 years of experience reaching new residents. Our Town America gets lists of every individual who has filed an address change in the past 30 days and filters out the duplicates resulting in 95 percent accuracy. This is very important as a clean list means less wasted advertising dollars.
3. Include a Special Offer. People love a good deal. Providing new customers with an introductory offer will encourage them to visit your business and put them on the path to becoming loyal customers. Direct mailers with eye-popping promotions will generate better results. You can also use codes on your direct mail to track results when customers visit to redeem a special offer. Tracking the success of your initial direct mail piece will allow you to produce even better results in the future.
4. Reach New Movers. One way businesses can make the most out of direct mail is by reaching out to customers before they form loyalties to other businesses - specifically your competitors. Nearly 20 percent of the United States population moves each year, and new movers are big spenders. New residents spend more during their first year in a new home than existing residents, the National Association of Home Builders reported. While new residents are busy turning their house into a home, Our Town America welcomes them to the community by sending them a Welcome Package filled with proven offers from local businesses. The upscale welcome gift offers exclusivity for your business by only partnering with one business of each type per zip code. We offer an innovative tracking system that allows you to see your return on investment from your smartphone when customers come in to redeem their proven offer.
5. Follow-up. The best time to make a sale is 7-10 days after a potential customer reads your direct mail piece, according to the USPS. Make sure to have follow-up strategies in place to add customers. Our Town America makes it a priority to send a follow-up mailing to new residents who redeem your initial Welcome Package offer.

Learn More About Our Town America

To learn more about how Our Town America’s New Mover Marketing program and direct mail marketing services can help your small business add new customers, click here: www.ourtownamerica.com.