Chapter 13: Getting The Envelope Opened
In times past, getting a letter was an important event, something the whole family celebrated. These days, consumers are not nearly as enthusiastic about the mail they receive. In fact, many make it a practice to simply discard what they perceive as unsolicited sales letters.
To succeed as a direct mail marketer, your sales letter must be opened and read by your customer. If your letter ends up unopened in the trash, everything is lost. Here are some tips to increasing the odds of getting your letter opened.
- Most people sort their mail into two stacks. In one stack is mail they open immediately, and in the other is mail they regard as unimportant. Strive to get your mail into the ‘open immediately’ pile.
- If your sales letter is your salesman, the envelope is his clothing. Dress him fittingly.
- One way to get your mail opened... don’t reveal on the outside what the letter is about. Make the reader open it to find out.
- Raise reader curiosity by using a blind return address. Give your address but not the company name. This makes the recipient wonder who is sending the letter and what’s in it.
- Use real stamps on your envelopes, even on bulk mail. Real stamps make the envelope look like a personal letter.
- Use an ‘teaser’ line on the envelope only when you are certain that the teaser will cause the reader to open the envelope. in too many cases, a teaser clearly identifies the letter as a sales letter, and causes the recipient to throw it away unopened.
- Typed addresses... letters that look like they were addressed with a typewriter stand out over envelopes with computer labels.
- Even more powerful than typed addresses are envelopes that look like the address was handwritten. This gives the letter an extremely personal look, and the more personal the mail looks, the more likely it is to be opened.
- To get the hand-addressed look without all the work, find a printer or letter shop that can use their computer to apply hand-addressed looking fonts.
- If you use a computer to hand address your envelopes, be careful about using bar codes or anything else on the envelope that will take away from the personal look.
- For maximum effect, hand address the envelopes using a blue ink. The blue ink makes it look like actual handwriting.
- Avoid using computer printed labels to address your envelope when trying to create a personal appeal. A computer generated mailing label clearly identifies your mail piece as a mass mailed sales letter, and will quite often cause your letter to get thrown away unopened.
- Avoid addresses in all upper case. These clearly identify your mailing as ‘junk mail.’
- Consider using a window envelope. This allows you to personalize the mailing inside and out in one single step.
Source: 301 Direct Mail Tips, Techniques & Secrets |
| Category: My articles | Added by: Marsipan (04.12.2012)
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