Direct mail usually costs more per message delivered and requires more of an up-front investment than online marketing options. There are two primary financial factors you’ll encounter when it comes to direct mail. First, you shouldn’t plan a marketing campaign based on saving money. Instead, focus on your return on investment (ROI). Secondly, if your direct mail campaign breaks the bank, you’re probably doing it wrong. Direct mail done right provides a much better ROI than most digital marketing methods. A well-crafted campaign doesn’t need to exceed your marketing budget limits.
Here are five direct mail cost-saving tips that also don’t compromise on the quality of the campaign.
Target Your Audience
Targeting your audience will readily keep your direct mail costs down. Don’t waste postage and printing costs on prospects who do not need what you offer. Save those investments for the people who are most likely to connect to your mission.
At the same time, it’s essential to know that the more people you send to, the more you will consolidate on production costs. Large batch printing reduces the per-item cost. But you can build your mailing list strategically. Only grow your list within your target market. Every direct mail piece sent outside that group will most likely translate to wasted marketing funds.
One way to target your audience is by using geo-targeting. Geo-targeting allows you to target your audience based on their geographical location, like a person’s city or zip code.
Personalize Your Message
Personalizing your message is an excellent way to encourage recipients to open your mail and read the message. You can include the printed piece’s personalized aspects, including their name, address, age, hair color, or anything you know about them. The personalized piece could be a postcard, poster, envelope, brochure, flyer, or catalog.
In your personalized piece, you can also use variable data printing (VDP). VDP allows you to change background images, colors, artwork, and text-based on different triggers. You can use different pictures on your offer based on the different types of prospects.
Experiment with A/B Testing
Avoid costly marketing mistakes by testing which messages and techniques get the most effective response rates. Consider implementing A/B testing techniques before rolling out a large-scale campaign. With A/B testing, you can experiment and learn from different market segments, offers, and creatives. Choose an appropriate sample size when you conduct the tests. A test that’s too small can produce results that are not statistically meaningful, while a test that’s too large can be more costly. But once you find what works, you can print a campaign in a larger volume, which also helps save on costs.
Print More, Mail More
After analyzing your A/B testing results, you will know what works best. From there, print a large number of mailers based on what you learned from your testing phase. Printing in higher volumes drops your cost-per-piece dramatically. Instead of printing short runs for targeted campaigns, consider printing higher volumes and storing the overages for later mailings.
You should never worry that your next direct mail marketing campaign is too large or too small. Whether your campaign is 5,000 pieces or over 10 million, ensure you’re getting the best value from out of your campaign, including discounts that come with producing large quantities.
Provide Follow-Up Options
On-going engagement can help reduce your the costs you incur down the road when marketing to members. Foster that longterm relationship by sending your audience online for follow-up information. It’s cheaper to store lots of content online than to send extra content out in several printed pieces. But also be aware that if your target audience isn’t tech-savvy, attempting to send them online might yield poor results. Remember that you already paid for a specific weight’s worth of postage, whether or not you are using all of it. If you can stay within your weight limit, adding an extra leaflet or two will most likely only be a minimal expense.
Cost Saving Direct Mail with Valtim
Direct mail is a very cost-effective channel to reach your prospects and members—when it’s done well, that is. You can lower direct mail costs and maximize your ROI by targeting your audience, personalizing your message, testing your data, printing in large volumes, and providing follow-up options.
Valtim can assist with all of the listed cost-saving tips and more. Our primary focus is ensuring your organization maximizes its ROI with all your direct mail projects.
Contact us today to start planning your next direct mail campaign.
