Tuesday Marketing Notes (Number 28—April 11th, 2006)
A B2B Marketing Newsletter for BMA Members
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B2B Direct Mail Packages: A Mailing Piece for Every B2B Marketing Scenario (Part 2)
by Eric Gagnon
In last week’s TMN, we covered descriptions of the kinds of direct mail pieces to use for mailings to rented mailing lists for your B2B lead acquisition programs, and packages to use for “tactical” sales promotional mailings.
This week, we’ll describe some other important mailing pieces used most frequently in B2B marketing programs to serve your company’s sales team by generating—and responding to—sales leads and new business opportunities.
This direct mail pieces are the mainstays of marketing programs in most companies selling their products in B2B markets, and they’ve been used for years to generate sales response—inquiries, sales leads, and orders. As a marketing manager, agency, or consultant, these are your primary tools for helping your company or client generate sales reponse using direct mail.
Marketing Situation #3: Inquiry Response
The scenario: Inquiry response mailing activities utilize postcard decks and magazine reader service responses to help you build and maintain a large inquiry mailing list, suitable for one or more subsequent re-mailings of a second, “bounceback” mailing piece.
Postcard Decks
Postcard decks are individual postcards, inserted and mailed in a small, polyethylene or mylar bag, to business, professional, trade and industrial mailing lists, by third-party card deck marketing companies. These independent card deck mailers utilize a large number and variety of mailing lists for their mailings—trade publication subscriber lists, association member lists, as well as lower-grade compiled lists put together from telephone directory listings, warranty card lists, and other sources.
There are hundreds of different postcard decks available for business, trade, and consumer marketers in the U.S., and there’s at least one card deck covering every major industry, business, and trade category, including your company’s market or industry. Many trade publications who rent their subscriber mailing lists also offer card deck mailing programs, consisting of one, two, or more card deck mailings each year.
An executive or business professional who receives a card deck gets a thick packet of about 100 or more individual postcards, with each card promoting an advertiser’s product or service targeted to that particular business category or industry.
For example, there are postcard decks for engineers, marketing managers, and computer programmers. Most people who receive postcard decks in their business mail will at least open the packet and shuffle through the stack of cards; very few actually discard the stack unopened, because card decks are perceived as being more substantial than the average piece of “junk mail.”
Postcard decks build big sales inquiry mailing lists—fast: As a business, trade, or industrial marketer, the sole reason to utilize card decks is to build and maintain a steady stream of sales leads to build your company’s own prospect mailing list.
When using a card deck, your goal is to get as many reasonably qualified recipients as possible to fill out your postcard with their name, company, and address information, and to drop this card back in the mail to you. As you build this list, you can then mail your company’s “bounceback” mailing piece to the names on this list, for followup by your company’s sales reps to further qualify each prospect.
Sales inquiries generated by postcard decks tend to be lower-quality sales leads compared to inquiries received from your company’s display advertising or other direct mail projects, because postcard deck leads come from low-quality mailing lists. However, what postcard deck mailings lack in quality is more than compensated for by the large quantity of sales leads they generate.
Postcard decks are an excellent way to “cover a market,” and to build a large mailing list in a short period of time. Despite the low quality of the leads they generate, it’s often worthwhile to send subsequent, additional follow-up promotional mailings to these names on a periodic basis (see below), with follow-up phone calls made by your company’s in-house sales reps, to further qualify prospects after they’ve received the original bounceback mailing.
If your postcard is produced for maximum effect, a postcard deck can often generate a 5-10% response. This means that on a typical postcard deck mailed to 200,000 executives in your industry, you could receive 10,000 to 20,000 returned postcards. That’s a great way to build a big list of prospects in a hurry, and it can be a substantial boost to your marketing program, if your sales reps can efficiently call and qualify these inquiries.
To get the highest postcard response, send something FREE: To get the largest possible number of inquiries from postcard decks, develop and promote a free offer for a tangible item with perceived value for prospects in your marketplace. A free offer or premium should make it easy to persuade a prospect to fill out the postcard and drop it in his company’s outgoing mail bin back to you. Examples of proven, successful free card deck premium offers include:
• Relevant industry or technical reports, booklets or videos;
• Free product sample;
• Printed premiums, such as wall maps or technical reference charts;
• Printed, specialized data reference and conversion slide charts or reference cards;
• Software on CD-ROM;
• Demonstration or product applications video on DVD
The most successful card deck premium offers are those that are the most relevant to the business, technical or professional interests of the card deck’s audience, items that are only available from your company, and items having a high level of interest to your card deck’s professional audience. If the premium is seen by the recipient as being a unique and interesting item that helps your prospect solve a common problem in their business or profession, the greater the chances are they will fill out and mail the postcard.
Postcard layout for card decks: The single most important word on any postcard in a card deck is: FREE! Print the word “FREE!” as large as possible on the face of your card layout, in the upper left-hand corner of the card, followed by a boldface subhead describing the premium, and its major benefit to the reader.
Below the word “FREE!,” show a picture of the premium, along with a brief, descriptive paragraph that tells more about it, with some brief, descriptive benefits-oriented text on your company and its products. Make sure to print a “Call to action,” along with your company’s toll-free phone number and Web address in bold, readable type along the bottom edge of the card. Below are some examples of successful postcard layouts. . .
Postcard deck “bounceback” mailing piece: Design and execution of an effective card for card decks is just the first step in successful card deck execution. As the “drop date” for the card deck mailing draws near, you should have a sufficient quantity of your “bounceback” response mailing pieces printed and ready to be mailed immediately to the interested prospects who send back cards from the card deck mailing.
A typical card deck sales bounceback package contains the following pieces:
• The premium item;
• Outer envelope, printed with a picture of the premium, along with the headline letting the prospect know what’s inside: “Here’s your free [Item] you requested…” (make sure to let them know they asked for the item);
• A brief, personalized or generic sales cover letter;
• Your company’s standard product brochure;
• Response card with “call to action”
Don’t ever let sales leads from card decks grow cold: Have your bounceback mailing packages printed, assembled, and ready to mail as soon as postcards begin to arrive at your company. The faster you can get the prospect’s name and address entered into your company’s sales database, and the bounceback package mailed back to that prospect, the more favorable your prospect’s first impression of your company and its product will be. Fast response in marketing execution keeps your company’s sales leads “hot.”
When estimating the number of bounceback packages to have on hand, assume a response rate ranging from as low as 1%, to as high as 10% of the total quantity of names being mailed in the card deck. For example, if a card deck is being mailed to 200,000 names, you should have at least 2,000 bounceback pieces (200,000 X 1% = 2,000) ready to go as the card deck is mailed.
Many companies follow the one-two punch of the card deck/bounceback mailing piece with a telephone call from a company sales rep. This should also be done in a timely manner—no more than a week after the prospect has received the bounceback package.
Once you’ve received and entered a prospect’s address information from a card deck mailing, you have “captured” this mailing list name, and it now belongs to your company. Having become part of your company’s sales prospect mailing list, you can send additional, subsequent mailings to this prospect any time in the future, without having to pay additional list rental charges.
Reader Service card inquiries from display advertising: “Reader Service Card” inquiries are another source of mailing list names you’ll receive from publications when you run print display advertising for your company. As a service to their readers, many magazines insert a “Reader Service Card” bound into their publications, that readers can use to receive additional information from advertisers whose products are of interest, by checking off a box next to the advertiser’s name. The publication then forwards this mailing list of respondents to its advertisers on a regular basis, usually monthly, or twice a month.
Reader Service Card inquiries have a well-deserved reputation for being low-quality sales leads, since these readers are less interested in your company’s products than other readers of the publication who already saw your ad, and made the effort to pick up the phone and call your company. After all, how much effort is required to circle a number next to a company on a Reader Service Card?
This is not to say that you shouldn’t have Reader Service Card entries entered into your company’s mailing list database. Just make sure they are key-coded to identify them, so they can be eliminated whenever you must filter out inquiries likely to be of lower quality and interest when generating a list from your sales database for a future mailing.
Marketing Situation #4: The Sales Rep’s Sales Kit
The scenario: Every company that employs salespeople has its standard “sales information kit,” usually prepared and mailed out, as a result of your sales rep’s first phone contact with the prospect.
Who receives this mailing: Prospects who have contacted one of your company’s sales reps in response to an ad, a mailing piece, or some other marketing effort executed by your company, or who have been contacted over the phone by one of your company’s salespeople. This marketing scenario is usually the most “personal” form of sales communication, because it involves a direct contact between one of your company’s sales reps and an individual prospect.
Mailing goals: This type of mailing consists of a direct mail package that is usually pre-assembled in small batches by support and administrative staff, and mailed out at the end of each workday, at the sales rep’s request. This package is nearly always combined with a brief note or standard sales cover letter bearing the salesman’s signature.
Speed of response is crucial in any mailing, but it’s especially important that sales kits be mailed (or sent by Fedex) out to prospects on the very same day your prospect has spoken to one of your salespeople. Every day lost in sending your company’s sales information package to an interested prospect is a day the prospect’s interest grows colder. From an execution standpoint, this is largely a matter of good office organization: An ample supply of materials comprising your company’s standard sales kits must always be printed and on hand, and your sales administrative staff must develop standing procedures to insure that sales kit materials are mailed out to interested prospects on the same day as the inquiry is received by your company’s sales staff. It’s your job, along with your company’s sales manager, to impress upon your company’s sales representatives and sales administrative staff the importance of getting sales kits out to interested prospects on the same day they call your company.
Package elements and content: Because any sales contact that involves one of your company’s sales people is usually the most expensive, from a cost-of-sales standpoint, the standard “company sales kit” is also usually a company’s most expensive direct mail piece. Sales kits consist of one or more large format (8-1/2 X 11) four-color brochures usually inserted into a standard, die-cut sales presentation folder, along with other sales collateral material either you or your salesperson includes to meet the prospect’s specific needs, such as price lists or technical spec sheets for certain products. The sales kit should also include a sales letter, signed by your sales rep, and/or a handwritten note from the sales rep, along with his or her business card.
You may also wish to include some type of “response vehicle,” such as a reply card, for the prospect to fill out to indicate their continued level of interest in your company’s product, or to provide your company with additional comments on their product needs or preferences.
Sales kits are usually sent by First Class Mail in your company’s standard 9 X 12 -inch letterhead envelope, with your company’s logo and return address printed on the envelope.
You can—and should—also send all-electronic versions of this sales kit immediately via e-mail to prospects, as Adobe Acrobat .PDF files. This is certainly faster, more efficient, and less costly, but this is often a weak substitute for sending hard-copy printed sales materials.
My advice is to do both: Send sales response kits both by e-mail and regular mail, to make sure you are covering your prospects in both marketing media. Hard-copy printed sales materials are harder for your prospects to ignore, compared to the scores of e-mails they receive—and delete—every day.
Marketing Situation #5: Sales Inquiry Bounceback Package
The scenario: This direct mail piece, usually less expensive than your company’s full-blown sales rep’s “sales kit,” is mailed to prospects who respond (by phone, mail, fax, or e-mail) to your company’s print advertising, or visit your company’s Web site.
Who receives this mailing: Sales inquiry bounceback mailings are usually sent “cold” to larger numbers of prospects compared to those who receive your sales kit, and without the pre-qualification usually done by one of your company’s sales reps during their initial phone contact to the prospect.
Mailing goals: The goal of your company’s marketing and sales department should be to personally contact any prospect who wants to learn more about your company’s products, and on a timely basis. However, if your company’s advertising programs generate a larger number of inquiries than those that can be handled by your company’s sales reps, or if you execute any other type of marketing project that generates many hundreds (or thousands) of prospect inquiries, the bounceback package gives these prospects the information they need on your company’s products, while buying your sales staff the time they need to enter them into your company’s sales contact database and give them further attention.
Some marketing activities, such as the large number of inquiries typically generated by postcard deck mailings, require a bounceback mailing as an additional step to further qualify the prospect, since a typical postcard deck mailing may generate many lower-quality sales leads.
Package elements and contents: Bounceback direct mail packages are usually sized in either a larger, 9 X 12 inch format, or the smaller, letter-size version. The size you select depends on your budget, the amount of space required to tell your product’s story and sell your product, and the number of pieces you are mailing.
Outer envelopes on bounceback packages should display some type of promotional tagline or other “teaser,” such as: “Here’s the information you requested…” It’s very important to remind the prospect that the mailing piece is information they requested, as opposed to unsolicited business “junk mail.”
Bounceback packages should also contain a sales cover letter introducing your company, its products, and their benefits. Wherever possible, this sales letter should be personalized with the prospect’s name, address and salutation. However, depending on your budget, logistics, and quantity, a more generic sales letter salutation, such as “Dear Fellow Industry Professional:” is also acceptable.
In addition to a sales letter, bounceback direct mail packages contain a smaller, lower production-quality version of your company’s standard product brochure, and a reply/response card for the prospect to complete and drop in the mail. To save on printing expense, this reply card is often printed as a perforated attachment to the brochure.
Self-mailer options: One-piece “self-mailer” mailing pieces are now being used with greater frequency as bounceback mailing packages, replacing the traditional “three pieces in an envelope” letter-size mailing package.
Self-mailer formats used as bounceback packages are sized so they can be folded down to either 8-1/2 X 11-inch, 5-1/2 X 8-1/2-inch, or standard letter size (approximately 4 X 9-1/4 inches). When folded down to any of these mailable sizes, one side of the self-mailer will display the required postage, address label (or address imprint), and your company’s return address. The added advantage of a self-mailer over the traditional letter-oriented bounceback mailing package is the fact that a self-mailer allows you to place a sales headline or promotional message on both sides of the piece, effectively doubling the chance your prospect will see it.
Typically, the address side contains a message that alerts the prospect that this piece contains information they requested: “Here’s the information you requested on [your product],” with the reverse side of the piece listing your company’s best benefit-oriented sales headline, product photo, and other sales text—essentially, you can set up the other side of the self-mailer to look like the front of your company’s existing sales brochure.
Another feature that works very well in self-mailers is a postage-paid reply card perforated on the edge of the self-mailer. Like all reply cards, this tear-off reply card provides your prospects with a convenient way to respond to your company. For example, you can include a check-off box and option line (Such as: “Yes—Please have one of your sales reps call me”) on a reply card to allow your prospect to easily indicate if they want one of your company’s sales representatives to follow up with them by phone. Additionally, you can provide a number of check-off boxes to allow prospects to specify the types or individual models of your company’s products of interest to them.
Direct mail in all of its forms is a very important part of your B2B marketing program. Stick to the basics of form and execution for these mainstay direct mailing pieces, and they will serve you well in most any marketing project you execute for your company or client.
Comments? Questions? Send them to me at: eric@realmarkets.net
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Eric Gagnon (eric@realmarkets.net), is president of GAA (www.realmarkets.net), a sales and business development consulting firm, and is the author of The Marketing Manager’s Handbook, the master study guide for the Business Marketing Association’s Marketing Skills Assessment, Skill Builder, and Certification (MSA/B/C) programs.
For more information on The Marketing Manager’s Handbook, available to BMA members at a special discount, link to:
http://www.businessmarketinginstitute.com/book.html
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