Direct Mail Marketing Now As Easy As Email
March 12th, 2010 | 
Author: Direct Mail Marketing Now As Easy As Email
Is the United States Postal Service USPS a marketinginnovator? As it turns out the kind folks in the blue shortsare in fact making it easy for even the smallest business toduke it out with their biggest competitors by using the USPS”mailing online MOL” direct mail service check it out athttp://www.usps.com/mailingonline
With MOL you can escape the dreary part of direct mailmarketing the printing the stuffing the stamps etc. MOLusers simply create a document upload it to the MOL websitewith their mailing list and credit card information and press”go”. Within 48 hours the members of your mailing list arereceiving the marketing message in their postal mailboxes.
Speed Price
The best two parts of the MOL service are the speed and theprice. Jobs uploaded early in the business day can be printedand postmarked the following day. The per piece cost is not muchmore than the price of a single stamp since even MOL jobs sentFirst Class get a “presorted” USPS discount.
A 4.24 by 6 inch postcard can be printed and mailed First Classfor just 24 cents. A one and twothirds page business letter orbrochure can be sent “envelope free” the last third is neededfor the address for just 56 cents per piece. And the minimumnumber of pieces you can send per job? One. That’s right whileother direct mail houses turn away customers with minimums underseveral thousand the USPS takes all customers and gives themall equally great service.
Before MOL you had to create your master document drop it offat the printer wait until it was done to figure postage applypostage and addresses and drop it off at the post office. Thiswhole process could take you a whole month to finish. And ifyou’re say mailing from the West Coast… it would be another weekbefore East Coast recipients received their copy. With MOL yourdocument is printed and dropped in the mail from several dozenUSPS distribution points across the country…so everyone getstheir document at the same time no matter where they live in theUS.
As Easy As Typing An Email
MOL users don’t need to know anything more about documentcreation than how to type and save a document on their harddrive. Novice computer users can use their PC “Notepad” utilityand save the document as a text TXT file. Most users willprobably use Microsoft Word and create a slightly more appealingdocument. You may already have access to documents through yourcompany that have a more professional appearance. You could alsoinvest in a copy of Microsoft Publisher as it provides manytemplates to choose from and makes professional documentcreation a snap.
Content Creation Keep It Simple
The biggest challenge will be in generation of content youbelieve is worth the price of postage. The following types ofcontent pieces will get your creative juices flowing…. prettymuch write themselves….and are worth reading:
1. Price Product Postcards Many of you may dream of beingable to instantly contact your customers and tell them wheneveryou come out with a new product or price point. MOL makes that asnap. Simply write a 57 word headline followed by a threesentence description ending with a phone number or web addressfor more information.
2. Personal Postcards Remember your customers birthdayanniversary graduation or other significant occasion. Be sureand include a brief description of some product you want tohighlight…even just a web address.
3. Monthly or Quarterly Newsletter Most of you would lookforward to writing a monthly newsletter with the same excitementas having a monthly root canal…..but the customer retentionbenefits and referral business make it a smart businessdecision. The easy way to do a one or two page newsletter wouldbe to simply include one or more of the following:
Summarize price and product news…simply repeat what you sentout or should have sent out on the postcards. Summarizeindustry headlines related to your business…give your views orif you don’t have a view simply reprint the views of otherswith proper attribution of course. Case Study…write up threeparagraphs on a new or existing customer you helped solve aproblem…or their experience with one of your products. Top 10List….any of you with any experience at all can write a yearsworth of top 10 lists in a day. How about the top 10 benefits ofa particular product? How about the top 10 reasons to inserttopic? Or how about the top 10 mistakes made by insert topic?
Just Ask For Referrals!
If you do nothing else just send out a monthly postcard askingfor referrals. The commitment to a monthly postcard does twoseparately important things for you. It keeps your contactinformation in front of your customer and it reminds them on amonthly basis that they have immediate access to a friend in the”ABC” business. And of course the number one reason you don’tget referrals is you don’t ask for referrals. Well if you’retoo shy to ask in person or on the phone let the postcard dothe talking!
If you haven’t attempted direct mail marketing before becauseyou thought it too costly too time consuming or too muchwork….think again. Things have changed in your favor. The timeis right for you to give it a try.
Chris Burns American Profiles Mailing Telemarketing List company. Providing telemarketing lists to the direct marketing industry since 1996.
A full service mailing telemarketing list company with over 40000 lists available. http://www.americanprofiles.net/.
Online counts and orders 24/7 http://www.mailinglistsusa.com/.
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