This morning, before heading to work, I opened up the one piece of mail I had from yesterday and it was probably the worst piece of direct marketing I have ever received.
I opened the envelope and saw a haphazardly folded piece of computer paper and a big, flat refrigerator magnet. While the envelope had the name of the real estate company it was from, the letter itself had no distinguishing logos or contact info. Written in Calibri, the letter went right into a paragraph about the Chicago Bears, without actually saying the name ‘Chicago Bears.’
The second paragraph tried to make the connection between the football team and the real estate company’s “team”—a team I didn’t know I was on—and ended with a call to contact the author of the letter. The finishing short paragraph thanked me for my business and referrals—neither of which I have given and, after this letter, do not intend to give. The letter was signed simply with the first names of the two agents who supposedly sent me this letter. Then the rest of the page is blank—no contact info, no company logo, no proof that this wasn’t just written by the kid next door.
The refrigerator magnet has the Chicago Bears’ football schedule, without any official NFL logos or insignia, and, there at the bottom, were pictures, names, and contact info for the agents who sent me the letter.
Here are the simple things that you should learn from this horrendous piece of direct marketing:
Write on Letterhead
A company’s letterhead almost instantaneously validates the letter as being from a professional, legitimate business and instills trust because of it. Without it, your audience will wonder who exactly wrote this letter and be more concerned with that than what’s actually written on the page.
Personalize
In the age of personalization and with personalization tokens being readily available (not just in email, but in Word, too), no letter should be missing a salutation. Even a bland “Hello neighbor” would be better than nothing. There are still certain conventions people expect to see when reading a letter and a greeting is one of them.
Add Contact Info
Another way to instill trust with your audience is to give them a way to contact you. Even scam emails give you a way to contact them. Be better than scammers, though, and provide street address, telephone numbers, and office hours.
Content Over Gift
I suppose the magnet was a nice touch, but it seems to me like more thought went into the gift than the letter. The goal should always be to provide relevant content to your audience—a gift is just a bonus, never the point of the mailing.
It’s really the simple things that make the biggest difference. This letter was really the first official introduction to this real estate company and instead of forming a positive connection with the company, I’m left with a distasteful first impression. If they won’t put the effort into the first interaction, what kind of effort will they put forward when they’re actually working with me? I don’t want to find out.
Don’t treat your leads in the same way. Make sure your company’s marketing always meets a high standard and makes it as simple as possible for the lead to know who the letter is from, why they should care they received it, and know what the next step is. Sparkfactor can help you create a direct marketing campaign that will make your audience feel like they matter to you.
Set up a time to talk about how your direct marketing can avoid this kind of disaster.