You can download this podcast in audio format at the iTunes Music Store by clicking here.


Hello and welcome to Tactical Execution, an information series exploring innovative marketing and strategic business positioning for entrepreneurs and small businesses in an increasingly competitive world.  My name is Patrick and I’m your host.  You can find written versions of these podcasts at TacticalExecution.com and I encourage your candid feedback at the same location.  Today, we’ll be talking about good old fashioned direct mail campaigns so let’s get started.


So far in this series, we’ve been talking about online marketing.  Actually, that’s not entirely true.  The first two chapters were about becoming a recognized expert in your field and acquiring the necessary knowledge.  But ever since then, we’ve talked about websites and different ways of driving traffic and building usage.  Well, today, that ends – at least for now.


We’ll be using the next 10 chapters or so looking at a variety of offline marketing strategies but it’s important to understand these offline techniques are far from passé.  They can play a MAJOR role in your overall marketing strategy and one of the most effective things you can do is to integrate your OFFLINE tactics with your ONLINE tactics.  In doing so, you connect your real live business with the often-ethereal internet world.  You give your business dimension and depth.  You add a physical component to your business identity.  You give your business a personality.


Now, as far as statistics go, direct mail remains one of the most effective forms of marketing in existence.  Surprised?  You shouldn’t be!  Just look in your mail slot and you’ll see for yourself.  You probably get a dozen junk mail pieces everyday, if not more, and the reason is that it works.  There’s no question that it works.  It’s been proven time and again.  But there’s a science to those results and we’ll be touching on that today.


First things first.  Have you ever heard of the “rule of 7”?  If not, here’s what it says.  In order for a person to recognize that your business EXISTS, they have to see your marketing message at least 7 times.  Yes, there will be SOME people who might take notice earlier but the AVERAGE person won’t even recognize the name of your business before they’ve seen your marketing at least 7 times.


Within the context of direct mail, that means you HAVE to send out 7 pieces of mail before you can expect to get any response at all.  Think about that.  You have to send out 7 mass mailings to the SAME audience before you can expect to get a response.  That’s probably the biggest point right there.  Direct mail works – no question.  But it ain’t cheap!  Direct mail can cost a bundle because you have to budget 7 full mailings before you can expect to see any revenue from the campaign.


The vast majority of people give direct mail a try by getting a list of potential clients and sending out a huge mailing.  Then, they sit back and wait for the phone to ring.  And they get NOTHING.  And they get disappointed.  Or they even get angry.  And they give up.  Well, that’s not a fair analysis.  There’s almost no way for ONE mailing to be profitable because the vast majority of recipients won’t even know you EXIST from one mailing.  You can’t give up on a direct mail campaign after just ONE mailing!  You have to give it a CHANCE to work.  And in order to do that, you have to plan for 7 full mailings before you expect results.  And you better make sure you’ve got a BUDGET for 7 mailings before you even bother.


If you only have the money to send out ONE mailing, don’t even bother.  It’s not worth it.  It would be a TOTAL waste of time.  OR, take one seventh of your list and mail to those recipients 7 times.  You’ll get better results sending 7 mailers to 1000 people than you will sending ONE mailing to 7000 people.  Don’t waste your time.  Don’t get hypnotized by those big numbers.  You could probably send a mailer to 100,000 people and STILL get nothing!  Bottom line, there’s absolutely NO reason to do direct mail unless you can afford to send something out to the SAME audience at least 7 times.


Last year, as a Mortgage Broker, I got a list of 5000 homeowners and sent a large postcard to each one.  I really shopped around for the best prices and the mailer cost me $1800 including everything.  Soup to nuts, $1800.  That’s actually a really good deal.  But I didn’t get ONE call.  Nothing.  I couldn’t believe it.  I thought for sure I’d get maybe 1% or ½%.  1% would be 50 calls.  ½% would be 25.  But no.  I got absolutely nothing.  Not even one call.  I was miserable.  I had completely wasted $1800.


Now, had I done the same mailing 7 times, there’s no question I would’ve gotten results.  But a campaign like that would’ve cost me $12,600 and it would’ve taken 7 months to execute – if I sent out one mailer each month, that is.  And that’s only when the campaign would’ve STARTED to work.  I would’ve had to keep the campaign going for an 8th and 9th month, and beyond, to start seeing the results direct mail can provide.


THIS is the reason very few people do direct mail.  It’s also the reason the people who DO direct mail have been doing it for a LONG time and are usually sending out thousands and thousands of pieces each month.  The cost of the first 7 mailers is essentially a sunk cost.  You just have to eat it.  Don’t expect to get it back.  It’s the cost of getting into business.  But after that, you should start seeing results and the cost of keeping the campaign going should then start to make the investment worthwhile.


A good friend of mine did a lot of direct mail down in