Web Marketing Principles From Direct Mail Marketing

A few days back, I got this direct mailer package from Mouth and Foot Painting Artists Pte Ltd in the office mailbox. It contained 8 cards meant for festive seasons and a writeup of their request.

Sample of 2 of the cards

Basically the 8 cards were works of art produced by people through the use of either their mouth or feet, as they have lost their hands due to unfortunate circumstances. And the letter was a request for $17 for the 8 cards if you liked them, with a catalog of other things that you can order if it interests you. Interesting enough, you can send back the cards to them if you are not interested. At the back of the letter are photographs and stories of some of the people creating the art coupled with pictures of Singapore’s Prime Minister and President.

Exact writing of letter reproduced below

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for reading this letter. As I cannot use my hands I wrote this letter by mouth. My fellow artists and I lost the use of our hands through accident, illness or birth defect.

Despite our handicap, we have made a serious endeavour to earn a living for ourselves and in some cases, our families. We strive to gain financial independence by using what God has given us and by becoming members of MFPA which arranges the sales of our artwork in the form of greeting cards, calendar and etc.

Each of the paintings reproduced in this set of eight attractive festive cards was painted by mouth or foot. We hope that you will be interested to buy our selection of cards.

It is difficult to find a method of selling that pleases everyone. However, this method enables us to describe the back-ground story of these cards produced from our original paintings which require hard work, determination and patience. It also gives us the opportunity to examine the quality of our work.

If you decide to purchase this at $17.00 kindly forward your cheque/money order (pay to MFPA PTE LTD) together with the enclosed form and seal them in the endorsed reply envelope. If you should like to order more, please see the enclosed form for further details.

There is no obligation. We are not a charity but a self-help organization. Should you decide not to purchase, you may return the whole package back to us by marking “Return to Sender” outside the package.

We wish you and your family good health, peace and happiness.

Best Wishes,
XXXXXX XXX

Whilst direct mailing is a big thing in the United States, it is not very frequent in Singapore. And in my opinion this was a well crafted out piece and it prodded my mind further on how we can actually modify its elements to use it for our internet based businesses, especially for those which sell physical products online.

I’m not sure what its conversion rates, return rates or pure failure rates are but I am guessing that it should be reasonable.

For this direct mailer:

• It had the elements of creditability/social proof (with the pictures of our country’s Prime Minister and President – Politicians are highly regarded in Singapore)
• It gave the product in advance and was reasonably priced
• You could return the product on their
• There were up sells in the event that you choose to purchase something else from their catalog
• It had the call to action element, though in this instance was guilt (un-intended or not, you bet the majority of receivers would feel it) to either purchase it or return it.

Direct Mailing is definitely an art, but you can definitely employ some offline marketing methods to strengthen your online businesses to add that extra Oomph to it.

Offhand here are some ideas that come to mind.

For physical items that you are already sending to customers, you could:

• Include your catalog of products
• Include discount coupons that they can use online
• Add an extra sample bonus of a related product (if samples are possible)
• Include a general product in advance (something low cost and yet high perceived value) offered at a special price that you think the customer might want and request for payment or a return with you paying postage. While you do not have the guilt factor to pressure their call to action. You can probably add a special bonus that will be delivered/emailed to them upon payment.

For digital product customers (you need their mailing address for this though)

• Include a thank you card with your website to strengthen branding and mind recall of your product. Just like how Aweber sends a letter after you sign up for their affiliate program. Sending something physical builds up the relationship
• Include a surprise bonus item which they can download to build a list of responsive customers. (Your autoresponder can opt them out from your normal list and to this new one) You can then test future promotions with this list and your normal list.
• Include an informative sales letter for a higher priced upsell if you got it. Further reinforces the upsell that you might have online.

For prospects that you want optin-ed into your list (Modify Centerpointe.com’s model accordingly to suit their, check out their website and request for their sample package and you will get what I mean.) Here is a version which the famous Mr X of www.imxfiles.com mentioned in a Warrior Forum thread.

• Offer a “Free sample” (CD or whichever suits you) whereby they pay for shipping and handling
• Survey them when they enroll to target your offer to their stated needs.
• Follow up with a time limited offer after prospect has sampled the goods
• Upsell with backend products
• Utilize your uncoverted prospects for JVs with compatible lists to keep fresh prospects entering your funnel continually.

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