No matter which type of media is delivering your message, the content needs to be as long as it needs to be to generate action from your targeted audience. That said, here are some guidelines:

• Lead generation copy is typically shorter than one-step sales or fulfillment kit copy;
• Email content with the job of generating clickthroughs to a website is generally shorter than the page(s) it links to;
• Effective email subject lines can vary in length. When in 
doubt, test.

It depends. Response rates are affected by many variables, including media selection, list segmentation, timing, offers, copy and creative.

While companies with a response-rate history can project response rates fairly accurately, new tests are more difficult to project. If you have no history of doing direct marketing (tracking, measuring and analyzing results), you have no basis for making a projection other than industry standards or results generated by others. But neither is necessarily meaningful nor reliable for 
your situation.

For example, life insurance marketers with high value customers and high renewal rates can live with lower initial response rates, sometimes under 1 percent.

But this may not work for your business model. Track, measure and build a response history to help you make future projections.

Offers are actually much more than just freebies that you throw into your marketing campaign. An offer is a package of elements. It’s everything you’re willing to give your readers in exchange for their response. Your offer is what pushes a fence-sitter off of the fence, adds value to your buying proposition and addresses buyer objections.

So an offer is not just free shipping or a premium. Offers are multi-faceted and include product, pricing, customer service, incentives, and even payment options and terms. Test your offers for the best response, because they’re essential to your direct marketing success.

Direct mail is not dead, but it’s changing. To remain cost-effective, it’s become much more targeted and is now integrated with digital media.

Direct mailers also are testing the use of QR Codes to link their ink-on-paper messages to videos, personalized landing pages and other digital content. If you’ve always used direct mail, don’t jump ship without testing. If you’ve never used direct mail, consider whether or not it may be appropriate.

Even Google has recently used direct mail to reach small and medium size businesses. And insurance and credit card marketers continue using direct mail as a mainstay of their media mix. I repeat: test, test, test.

We will counter this question with another: Is social media appropriate for your audience, your offer and your brand? I once wrote for Kleen Leen, a division of Ralston Purina that sold hog sperm to hog producers for breeding using artificial insemination. If Kleen Leen were still around, I doubt that social media would be the best option for engaging hog producers with their brand. But who knows?

That’s why whether you use social media now, later or never, you need to become informed so you can make smarter, educated decisions about what is appropriate. With social media opportunities, followers and analytics changing almost daily, the best answer is to stay informed, keep an open mind and test for success.

Front-end response and back-end customer satisfaction are what drive everything direct response writers and designers do. No matter how many creative awards our work wins, awards don’t matter if we’re not generating profitable clicks, calls and visits to websites and stores.

The best direct response writers and designers learn from their successes and failures. They appreciate the power of tracking, measuring and analyzing results.

No. Direct mail lists were the original workhorse used by direct marketers, but the two terms are not synonymous. The direct marketing process is channel agnostic and is powered by both traditional (such as direct mail lists) and new digital media. What makes direct marketing unique is that it allows you to track, measure and analyze response/action to the individual level no matter which type of media you are using.

EDDM® is a program created by the United States Postal Service®. The program enables advertisers to reach every address within targeted carrier routes, at reduced rates, without the need for additional mailing services.

EDDM® reduces costs by eliminating the need for mailing lists and additional services such as tabbing, and ink jetting, and data processing.

It also provides discounted postage rates compared to other mail options.

A carrier route is a group of addresses used by the USPS® to deliver mail in a specific area. ZIP CODES™ may contain anywhere from several, to over a dozen carrier routes, depending on the rural or urban nature of the region. Carrier routes are quite similar to what most people consider neighborhoods in general terms.

There are several factors that play into your total cost per piece. Production costs (design, printing, folding, bundling, etc) and postage costs will determine your rates. By mailing larger quantities, you can obtain “all inclusive” rates as low as $0.39 per home, delivered.

The turnaround time varies based on the required creative and production processes associated with each campaign. In general, the entire production and mailing process usually takes from two to four weeks to deliver into mailboxes. The creative process (design) usually plays the largest role in determining total turnaround time.

With our new Demographics (with Heatmap ROI) feature, you can include up to three demographic selects to identify the most relevant carrier routes based on your criteria.

Available demographic selections include:

• Household Income
• Age
• Home Ownership
• Gender
• Presence of Children

The EDDM® program requires you to mail commercial flats. A commercial flat must be more than 6.125″ tall OR longer than 11.5″ wide. The largest size the mail piece can be is 12″x15″ to qualify. The mailers must also be equal to or greater than 0.007 thick. (6.5″ X 9″ is the most popular EDDM Postcard size)