In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, more prospects see your mailing envelope than will ever see what is inside. Thats because prospects spend only a few seconds examining your envelope before deciding whether to peruse it or pitch it.

Naturally, this tempts some copywriters to start selling on the envelope, stressing features and benefits, even describing the offer. Which is a mistake, most of the time.

As Herschell Gordon Lewis so well observed, The only purpose of the carrier envelope, other than keeping its contents from spilling out onto the street, is to get itself opened.

This means that, in most cases, you should not spell out your offer when mailing to a cold list (people who do not know you). Instead, you should tease them inside, using envelope teaser copy that is so intriguing and compelling thatprospects simply have to open your envelope to satisfy their curiosity.

Here are some tips for creating envelopes that prospects open:

1. USE VARIETY. People tire of seeing the same envelope month after month. If they have pitched it once, they will pitch it again. So put your sales message inside a different envelope (larger size, different color, for example).

2.BE PERSONAL. Nothing says bulk mail more than an envelope addressed to The Office Manager instead of to a person by name. Whenever possible, address your B2Bdirect mail to a person with a first and last name, and job title.

3. AIM FOR ACCURACY. How do you feel when sales people or telemarketers mispronounce your name? Your prospects feel the same way when your letter arrives with their name or initials misspelled. This tip was brought to you by Alan with one L, Sharpe with an E.

4. TEST YOUR TONE. Financial services companies that generate leads using direct mail have found (through testing) that envelopes that look official are more likely to be opened. If you are selling insurance, mortgages, loans or credit repair services through the mail, experiment with some envelopes that look formal, authoritative and official.

In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, more prospects see your mailing envelope than will ever see what is inside. Thats because prospects spend only a few seconds examining your envelope before deciding whether to peruse it or pitch it.

Naturally, this tempts some copywriters to start selling on the envelope, stressing features and benefits, even describing the offer. Which is a mistake, most of the time.

As Herschell Gordon Lewis so well observed, The only purpose of the carrier envelope, other than keeping its contents from spilling out onto the street, is to get itself opened.

This means that, in most cases, you should not spell out your offer when mailing to a cold list (people who do not know you). Instead, you should tease them inside, using envelope teaser copy that is so intriguing and compelling thatprospects simply have to open your envelope to satisfy their curiosity.

Here are some tips for creating envelopes that prospects open:

1. USE VARIETY. People tire of seeing the same envelope month after month. If they have pitched it once, they will pitch it again. So put your sales message inside a different envelope (larger size, different color, for example).

2.BE PERSONAL. Nothing says bulk mail more than an envelope addressed to The Office Manager instead of to a person by name. Whenever possible, address your B2Bdirect mail to a person with a first and last name, and job title.

3. AIM FOR ACCURACY. How do you feel when sales people or telemarketers mispronounce your name? Your prospects feel the same way when your letter arrives with their name or initials misspelled. This tip was brought to you by Alan with one L, Sharpe with an E.

4. TEST YOUR TONE. Financial services companies that generate leads using direct mail have found (through testing) that envelopes that look official are more likely to be opened. If you are selling insurance, mortgages, loans or credit repair services through the mail, experiment with some envelopes that look formal, authoritative and official.

Every day that I go to work I am asked this same question by our potential clients:

“I need new clients. Should I mail a postcard or a letter?”

They are both effective, however, they both have distinct advantages.

Postcard Advantages:

It is naked mail – You do not have to open it see the contents. No matter how hard you try everyone will see it. If your headline on the postcard is effective, even the postcards that are tossed in the trash immediately will still work; much like a billboard.

Stackability – Large postcards always stick out in the mailbox. It is hard to miss something twice the size of all the other bills and letters.

The WOW factor – Postcards have relatively lax postal restrictions compared to a letter. Postcards can be designed to be big large, bright colorful and LOUD. Whereas, an envelope is restricted on the content that it can contain on the outside.

Envelope Mailing Advantages:

Sensitive Advertising: Advertisements based on credit scores, legal information, and medical scores must be contained inside an envelope based on privacy regulations.

Envelopes Blend In: Have you ever opened up a “bill” and read it about halfway through only to realize it was another company trying to get you to sign up for another credit card or to extend your car warranty.

A postcard mailing is always recommended as a form of unsolicited direct mail advertising unless the advertisement is based on private information. Doctors, lawyers, and financial using targeted mailing lists should advertise with a letter.

Remember, direct mail is not easy, but it IS very effective.

There are three key things you should know about any direct mail advertising campaign.

Pizza menu direct mail campaigns produce INSTANT results for LESS money.

Pizza menu direct mail campaigns generate sales and increase business growth.

No direct mail distribution is effective without the right flyer design and printing company.

The first two of these points are the reason why so many people are turning to direct mailing and pizza menu flyer printing in order to generate sales and progress their pizza business. Direct mailing is cheap, effective and fast so what’s the catch? Well, essentially there is no catch it’s just a matter of how much effort you put into your advertising campaign. The more seriously you take the campaign the better the results will become!

How to use Pizza Menu Direct Mail Effectively
In order for direct mail to be generating sales fast, it needs to be as effective as it can possibly be. That means putting all of your effort into the advertising campaign and not cutting corners.

Saving Money.
You want to keep your advertising costs down to maximize your profit which is perfectly reasonable from any business point of view. However, make sure you know when you can cut costs down and when you should invest more money. The key is to know what the difference is because if you cut corners to save money on areas that can dramatically affect the effectiveness of your campaign you could end up losing more money because of it rather than saving money. Research how to save money on flyer printing before you get stuck into the economics of the task.

Know your Target Audience.
This doesn’t just mean get friendly with the customers; this means knowing what type of people your business needs to target in order to generate the most sales and ensure customer retention as well as ensuring your flyer design meets these requirements. It also means knowing who you should be targeting when it comes to distribution such as what zip codes you want to deliver your pizza menu direct mail to and what methods may be the most suitable for your business.

Don’t Miss Anyone Out.
It can be very easy to accidentally exclude certain people from your business by forgetting to include extra menus in shared homes, flat accommodations or student apartments. Make sure you know what kind of residency applies to each house in your distribution list and supply enough flyers to meet this need. Just because they share the same front door doesn’t mean they share their menu flyers.

Use Direct Mailing Regularly.
Make sure you take advantage of bulk orders and advance purchases from your flyer printing company to ensure you lots of flyers to hand. This in turn will ensure that you are able to properly and regularly distribute your flyers through direct mail. Regularly distributing pizza menus will ensure that customers who lose or damage their flyers have replacements when they need them.

So you already have the very best flyer design and have chosen the ultimate in distribution methods, direct mailing, but you still find that your flyer advertising campaign is not as effective as it can be. Well this could be for a variety of reasons so before you panic make sure you check out these top 7 essential tips for direct mail flyers to make sure you have complete and effective distribution from start to finish.

Draw up a plan of your local neighborhood ensuring it includes everyone within your delivery area. Make sure you can cover the whole of this neighborhood with your direct mailing distribution. Your flyer advertising strategy will not be as effective as it can be if you miss out houses, streets or whole areas on your distribution list.

Make sure you are aware which houses are family homes and which are flats or student accommodation. This will allow you to leave the correct number of flyers through the door and not miss out on potential customers because there are not enough flyers to share between residents.

Make sure you don’t hold back on flyer printing. Cutting corners with flyer printing will only serve to harm the effectiveness of your advertising design. Creating professional flyer designs and ensuring they are printed to a high standard in full color will make sure you don’t miss out on any of your target audience.

Don’t solely use direct mail for flyer distribution. Using a combination of a variety of different distribution methods will help to make your flyer printing job as effective as possible. Variety is essential to ensuring high success in advertising to gain the maximum possible exposure to your flyers and your business.

Don’t settle for less when it comes to flyer design. Just like you shouldn’t compromise with your flyer printing quality you should also make sure you get the very best out of your flyer design. A poor flyer design can damage your potential business growth and hinder your direct mail distribution. Employing a design company or freelancer to help create your perfect flyer design will ensure you are not missing out or alienating your potential customers. Even though it may cost you a little more up front it will pay you back a thousand times in increased customer sales and customer conversion.

Keep your direct mail distribution regular. People often lose or damage flyers left around for too long. Make sure you keep mailing your flyers on a regular and fairly frequent basis to ensure your potential customers always have your flyer to hand when they need it.

Always remember to order your flyer printing jobs in bulk and well in advance of needing them. This ensures you will always have enough flyers to complete your direct mail distribution and you will never be left hanging or with only half the houses done in your area because of late ordering, delays or simply not having enough flyers. Always make sure you reach 100% of your potential customers.

A survey conducted recently found that 87% of the people who bought products through Direct Mail Advertising were satisfied with the ease of buying and convenience as well as the value of the product.

Why is Direct Mail advertising so successful?

The main reasons for the huge success in this field include targeted address lists, flexible options, high quality inserts and efficient use of advertising dollars. The Return on Investment (ROI) can be easily predicted based on previous results so that the criteria of targeting can be further optimized. With each success, marketers can learn about ways to measure response and reduce their costs while increasing profits.

The advantages of Direct Mail Advertising

1. Generates more sales as it is sent to a target audience who has some interest in this product.

2. Acquires new customers with every product

3. Reaches a vast area of land compared to other forms of marketing

4. Enables people in the countryside or isolated areas to browse, select and buy products they need

5. Allow people who are disabled (handicapped) to buy products they love

6. People who love to get mail are fascinated by the inserts and may need a product that is advertised.

7. Allows information exchange from customer to customer via friends, families or other groups that share one address.

8. Products may be introduced through the mail and then be the subject of cold telephone or in-person calls to the customer.

9. May be used as a test for the introduction to new products.

10. Added familiarity with product can stimulate larger purchases in the future.

The advertising insert is one of the most important and pivotal item in this method of advertisement. Some customers may just toss the envelope out if it looks like yet another piece of “junk mail”. The way to get people’s attention is to mark the offer on the envelope itself along with some advantages to the offer if they open it; free sticker, free stamps, free coupon for takeout, anything. Items such as bookmarks, postcards, savings coupon, percentage off coupons, free CD or DVDs and even free books on gardening, etc are instant attractions which are grabbed by the customer who is being encouraged to open the envelope.

Now that we have the attention of the target audience, how do we make the sale?

It is better to send two mailers to a thousand customers than send one mailer to two thousand customers. Another way to grab their attention is to send parts of offers in separate envelopes so that you can add more advertisements or fillers in each of the envelopes.

Postcards are always attractive and reusable by the customer, but they do not hold much information. The next best choice is a flyer with coupons and other information. It is not a good idea to put too much information but a colourful insert with a small coupon or a colourful bookmark that can have the link to your website on the backside.

One of the best ways to create the insert is to use self-mailers. These are similar to the old Aerogramme which was a piece of paper with sticky edges that could be shaped and folded into a mailer. Some of the latest Direct Mail Advertising strategies also include plastic or clear envelopes through which the potential consumer can see the attractive contents, envelopes that look like personal mail or postcards with handwritten style of printing which would imitate a far away relative’s mail.

Direct Mail Advertising is a great stretch from the days of handing out leaflets at store corners. This method enables us to pre-determine the consumers who may be interested in a product and then to get the information directly to them to ensure maximum success.

Do you want to cure the high cost of your direct mail marketing campaign? Well the solution to this is to use cheap postcards. Yes! Cheap postcards can be easily deployed for a direct mail marketing campaign. Using such things as postcard templates as well as a little creative postcard designing, you can match the impact and power of your marketing mails for a considerably lower cost. Below are a few tips on how to work this all out for your campaign.

Using cheap postcards – Of course , you must realize that there are cheap postcards and there are expensive postcards. The cost depends on the material and the quality of the ink involved in postcard printing. To produce affordable direct mail postcards for your campaign, you can try to stick to non-glossy postcards in standard dimensions. Don’t choose those special coatings with UV protection as well as Aqueous coating. Plain postcard paper stocks will do for your postcards to be cheap.

Spend the little money instead on full color inks, so that at least, you can still impress people with your cover picture. Remember though to tell your printer to print only full color on one side. This should decrease the printing cost even further since only one side will have the full color spread.

Maximizing the impact of postcard templates – Now, to cut cost even further, you can maximize the impact of your postcards with the use of postcard templates. You do not have to hire a graphic artist to create the postcard design for you. You can just download a postcard template and add in your images and text yourself. Postcards are pretty straightforward and you can create a pretty convincing design as long as you have a healthy curiosity for desktop publishing software. Make sure you enhance the design quite a bit so that at least the postcard looks professional.

Targeting only high yield addresses and locations – Also, you do not have to print a lot of marketing postcards if you do not want to. You can save on costs for your marketing postcards, by printing only for the high yield addresses and locations. You do not have to send your postcards to everyone in your city or state. Just send them to the households that are more interested in what you have to offer. So research on your target demographics and see where they live. Send postcards only to those locations. This should get you the results you need, without having to spend a lot of money in postcard printing.

Low cost distribution: Finally, to cut cost in terms of distribution, you have the option of sending some of your custom postcards yourself. For example, if you plan on marketing only on a small community in your city, then you can just go door to door, mailbox to mailbox and slide the postcards yourself. For a larger marketing campaign, you can try using cheaper couriers the offer bulk discounts for this kind of distribution. You’ll be able to save money in terms of postage stamps and labor by doing this.

So with your cheap postcards ready for direct mail marketing, your marketing budget should be well on the green. You don’t have to worry about the high cost of direct mail marketing anymore.

Mail Lists & Mailing List Databases

Do you want us for our quality mailing lists? If so, Mango Solutions can provide not only lists of qualified prospects but a complete direct marketing service customized to meet your specific needs. Whether you need us to put together a traditional direct marketing campaign, wish to send out bulk brochures, we can supply you with a list of suitable marketing leads to. Our marketing databases cover thousands of different businesses and people in Auz and NZ!

We can mail out information on your behalf, locally and internationally companies have used our services all over Australia and New Zealand for many years now and have found us to be professional and we are always able to meet and reach targets as we go that’s extra mile.

Mail-outs are an effective way to advertise your services and generate interest from suitably qualified candidates. Additionally, they can be used to create prospects to phone or contact you instead of chasing for business.

You supply Mango Solutions with all the information and we do the rest, guaranteeing to meet your timeframes and manage the send so that all recipients are reached at the same time if you prefer.

With thousands of mail lists to choose from, Mango Solutions can help you find the best mailing list by working with you to define your target market. The chances are if you have specific details for the list that you want, we can find it for you. We can work with you to closely define the type of business you are trying to market to.

Some mailing list brokers simply supply you with a list rental agreement and collect their fees. But not us. We suit your mailing needs using a few different strategies.

Don’t wait. Don’t Hesitate. Enquire today www.mangosolutions.org

or p:07 5553 4178

Many Internet marketers have deduced that email marketing faces the worst crisis since its discovery. They ground this conclusion on the massive increase of unsolicited emails known better as SPAM. Recent Research has proved that the clicks of every email campaign have been reduced to the lowest point. Before few years email campaigns were very productive with click percentage of 15%-25%. Unfortunately this ratio has dropped to 2% today.

Since every internet user receives a huge amount of spam email messages, the time for distinguishing the legal opt-in subscriptions messages from spam has increased considerably. Therefore it’s highly possible for the user to erase the genuine messages with the spam messages.

Although these facts are true, the “Death of email marketing” as some internet marketers call it, will not happen. Solid proofs for that are the many corporations, small businesses, and home business entrepreneurs running successful and profitable email campaigns.

All these successful email marketing campaigns do have something in common, some specific principals that any online business entrepreneurs should incorporate into their marketing plans.

1. Personalization. Research has proven that when Personalization is used the click through rate of the email increases dramatically. The friendly tone is the key to build rapport with the subscriber. Most of the autoresponder services and email software contain this feature. One thing must be specified though. There must be no exaggeration in the personalization otherwise the results will be reversed.

2. Email marketing schedules. The frequency of the mailings is extremely important. Although it seems tempting to send emails daily, with that strategy many of the subscribers will unsubscribe, especially if the mails contain advertisements most of the times and not useful information. One of the best email marketing tactics is to broadcast one time per week and not exceed two times per week maximum.

3. Which is the Best Day for campaigns? The answer is simple, Friday. The internet user has the whole weekend to check his email and distinguish the spam with the luxury of time, something not possible in other days of the week.

4. Use of double opt-in. The subscribers who signed double opt-in are extremely targeted, because they verified their interest for the newsletter and they are more disposed to buy the products or services the email list owner recommends. Plus, this feature provides maximum safety to newsletter owner from spam complaints and the relevant consequences.

5. Recommend not sell, plus unique content. The internet user searches for information on the internet. The same happens with the user’s email. The subscription happens for that reason for over 95% of the times. The messages must contain a combination of useful information and personal recommendations of tested and proven products or services.

6. No Co-Registrations. This is the easy way to boost the number of the subscribers on the email list. Co-Registrations offer forms to users with many other email list owners with different fields of interest. The danger of spam accusations relies on that method and the effectiveness is questionable.

7. Buying leads to send emails. Another hyped email marketing technique. The list owner who bought the leads will not be clearly informed how the “subscriber’s” emails have been acquired. Have they been gathered with ethical opt-in methods or email script crawler has been used? There is no control on that tactic and here too relies the danger of spam accusations.

8. No Red flag words. Words and phrases like free, discount, bonus, make money, opportunity, income .e.t.c. lead the email to spam folders. These phrases should be avoided at all costs.

If you ever wanted the perfect template on how to ruin a company I think Yahoo! can provide it for you. The Yahoo! Management Team must meet every morning, after partying until 4:00AM, and say “Ok boys, lets see what we can do to really screw things up today.” I could go on and on about the Yahoo! Publisher Network, which has been in beta for years. Or maybe I should mention Yahoo! Chat which is nothing more than a war of “bots”. But instead I want to talk about the latest Yahoo! debacle known as Yahoo! Mail.

Yahoo! Spam Mail

Could it be that Yahoo! Mail has the spam email and real email detection reversed? I have received so many “Lottery Winning Notifications” and invites to join porn related Yahoo! Groups I am beginning to wonder. When I click the spam button Yahoo! thanks me for helping their spam guard work harder. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside to help Yahoo! in anyway I can. But then I receive about 100 more similar emails the next day and that warm fuzzy feeling leaves my body.

But things get even better when I sign up for legitimate sites and need to activate my account. Sometimes I wait for hours and the activation email never comes. Ocassionaly they do come with in a few minutes, but usually I just get tired of waiting and move on to something else. What usually ends up happening is that Yahoo! Mail detects my registration email as spam and sends it to my bulk folder. Thanks Yahoo! Mail for protecting me from the emails I really want to receive.

Broken Links

For the past few months getting to my Yahoo! Mail account has been challenging. How is it that Yahoo! Mail cannot keep the links to my email working? I click the email link and Google redirects me to a message which indicates the links are broken. Can someone send Yahoo! Mail a broken link checker and give them a hand? If their staff is reading this article, you can do a search on Google and find hundreds of these free broken link checkers. Really, this is like Webmaster 101 stuff, but maybe Yahoo! Mail needs some basic website managment training.

Have no fear Yahoo! Mail I have developed a system to work around this irritating problem. I just madly click Yahoo! Mail links wherever I can find them and eventually I trick the links into working. So while you guys continue to wrap your head around this one I can offer this tip to all Yahoo! Mail users. Just keep clicking the links over and over and eventually one might work. 

Pop Ups and More Pop Ups

I think this one is my favorite. Once I have managed to access Yahoo! Mail I start getting bombarded with Yahoo! Chat and Yahoo! Connection requests from people I do not know. These pop ups start invading my screen which sends Internet Explorer into a fit. Eventually it just freezes or crashes and I get to start over again. Wow, this is such a treat when I want to read my email.

Also, lets not forget the ads which expand as I am trying to read my email so that I can no longer see the text. The trick is to find a way to close the ad without clicking it and ending up on Match.com.  This is such a pleasant experience and I am sure it drives more and more Yahoo! Mail users to other email providers daily.