by Catherine Brown, President

Over the Christmas holidays, I was catching up on some of the discussions from the LinkedIn groups that I follow, including the B2B Lead Generation Round Table. Chris Knipper at Kuno Creative posted an article titled, “Is Direct Mail Marketing Dead? Not If You Do It Right.” This topic piqued my interest, as I’ve been tracking Initial Call’s own direct mail successes this last quarter.

 In a world of instant gratification, direct mail is still an art. Letters still work in reaching people, precisely because direct mail is such an old concept, it almost seems new again. “Snail mail” gets attention in a world of e-mail marketing. I love direct mail because it gives the opportunity to do many things: to demonstrate that you’ve specifically chosen to reach out to X company because you have reason to believe they’d be a good fit for your services; to provide a targeted case study with quantitative, measurable results that don’t look sales-y; and finally, now you have a reason to call them since you’ve put a call to action within your letter.

I believe that mass mailings are hard to do well because lists always involve bad names. Sending to the wrong name and title at a company undermines the personal touch you are striving to have. I like to send small batches of letters at a time, where we choose an industry that we want to target because of our success story therein. Then we send personal letters that reflect that we have good reason to be a fit to work with a particular company, including a case study. Finally, we call and set up an appointment to speak further. The final step is essential, as even an interested party may be just busy and not get around to calling you even if they mean to call you. Make it easy for them by telling a strong story about why they should speak with you with quantifiable results, and follow up to schedule a time to speak further.