![]() People still read. Amazing, isn’t it? You’d think—by, say, watching the TV news or listening to the radio—that no one does it anymore. But that’s not true. You read your email. You’re reading this. Not only that, people respond to what they read… if it’s truly compelling and motivating. Your job, then, as a business, is to do just that: Compel, and motivate. In this article, we’re going to take a look at increasing your odds of getting qualified leads and driving in new business by a method as old as the postal system (and as current as email). These methods still work. The trick is optimizing all the variables. Paper or ether? You might think that paper--i.e., postal—mail is dead, dead, dead. Who on earth opens letters anymore? Don’t you simply toss all your junk mail into the recycling bin, unopened? As tempting as it is to say, “Next topic,” we must say that we have some clients who engage us for good old-fashioned mailings, and—brace yourself—they work. These clients have gotten some astonishingly good responses (often by email, interestingly enough), leading to well-qualified leads and, yes, wholly new client engagements. We’re flattered to have helped in the process. But how? This comes back to “all the variables” we’d mentioned above. Here’s how they stack up for postal mailings (we’ll get to email in a minute):
Every one of these is hugely important. You need to maximize every one. Think of them not as variables, but rather links in a chain. One weak link, and the whole chain breaks. Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail:
Emailers First things first: Pay heed to the CAN-SPAM Act. Don’t get yourself in trouble. Bulk email services such as Constant Contact and MailChimp have good online guides for helping you navigate these shoals. That said, many of the best practices for paper apply to email: Your offer and your CTA must be impeccably strong. Your content must be clear and arguably even shorter than what you use on paper. Think of a tiny mobile phone screen. Who wants to scroll through tons of stuff, when they’re already wary of being sold to? As per “contents,” you can’t include, say, a book. But you can include, say, a link to an e-book. An interactive discovery questionnaire. And a big fat “Schedule your free demo now” (or whatever) button, which is de rigeur. Some other nice things about email: It’s effectively free (no paper, no printing, no postage), and it’s, unlike postal mail, instant. So you can time your mailing to an exact day part (think of, say, 8 a.m., when your prospect is transitioning from coffee to work). You can also send follow-ups—judiciously!—with ease. Remember: You want your missives to arrive as “valuable information that could help,” not “another piece of @#$#$$ spam to be trashed.” Need help? We work on projects like these for our clients all the time. The very fact that they keep coming back to us for more is a tacit confirmation of the results they get; done right, this stuff delivers impressive R.O.I. And now for our call to action: Learn how we can help you craft that next business-building mailing for you, whether paper or email. Contact us for a free, friendly consultation.
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