Mailer’s Tip Tuesday! Case Study for Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and the Case for Using Direct Mail for Customer Retention Yes, sending ongoing direct mail to existing customers is expensive, but the acquisition cost for new customers is way more expensive. First, you need to have a realistic discussion about Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). CAC…

Mailer’s Tip Tuesday!   Make Your Appeal Letters and Messaging Resonate in the First Person Effective artistic creation — whether literature, music, film, or painting — is most effective when it allows an individual to experience, to communicate its message in the first person. That is, the artistic medium allows the audience member (reader, viewer,…

Mailer’s Tip Tuesday!   On occasion, not-for-profit organizations that do recurring saturation mailings may receive complaints such as these after using (renting, technically) what is called Occupant-Resident saturation names/addresses: Complaint Example 1: “You misspelled my name! You need to fix this!” Complaint Example 2: “There’s no one here by that name! And I’ve lived here…

Mailer’s Tip Tuesday!   If you’re a non-profit running a fundraising auction by mailing raffle tickets to your active adherents and/or members of the community, nothing is more of a killjoy than hearing the words “you can’t mail that!” Here are some very simple tips to stay on the level with USPS regulations regarding using…

Mailers Tip Tuesday! Amortize Your Direct Mail Outcome by Hedging Your Mailing using Multiple Data lists   When mailing with a new consumer or business list, don’t put all chips on black — comingle your unsolicited direct mail approach without sacrificing returns. It’s tempting when you have a marketing budget to “buy a list” and…

Mailer’s Tip Tuesday! There are USPS Forever stamps, but you can use US postage stamps for Forever. As long as you can “do the math” and add up the correct postage, stamps from the 20th Century are just as usable as the retail Forever stamps you can get today. In marketing, if you are trying…

Mailers Tip Tuesday: Return to Sender Odd as it may seem, most clients don’t put their names/addresses in their mailings. We want them to do so. First, it helps answer the perennial question “Did the mailing go out yet?” Also, you get an informal audit check on what you have in your own mail, just…

MAILERS TIP TUESDAY!  MARKING RETURN ENVELOPES TO SEGMENT RECIPIENT RESPONSES You may wish to gauge responses to your mailings for different reasons. You might have different versions of an appeal letter. Or, perhaps you just want to see if there are differences between ZIP Codes for an anonymous survey. An easy, inexpensive way is get…

MAILERS TIP TUESDAY – USING REAL IMAGES OF REAL PEOPLE (LIKE YOU) If you must keep up appearances, it’s going to take work and work, but it might not. In direct mail advertising, appearing too polished takes the shine off what you’re promoting (even if it is just you) because you are not relatable to…

Mailer’s Tip Tuesday: The 10% Growth Solution for Your Donor List   Keeping your mailing list healthy requires consistent growth. Did you know that each year, about 10% of contacts on any mailing list naturally “fall off” due to relocations, loss of interest, or other factors? To stay ahead, make it your goal to add 10%…