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DAJ
DIRECT SPECIALIZES IN OPPORTUNITY BUYER LISTS. CONTACT US. WE OFFER THE
SAME LEVEL OF SERVICE TO ALL OF OUR CUSTOMERS.
11
Things You Should Know Before Mailing Anything
1.
Know Your Target Market. Who
are you selling to?
Are they going to be interested
in your product? What benefits does your offer provide? A targeted list
will probably do better then a non-targeted list. All things being equal,
it makes sense that people who have purchased items like yours before,
will be your best marketing bet.
2.
Know Your List Broker.
There are list brokers and then
there are List Brokers. At the least, your broker should be a professional
listed in Standard Rates and Data. Your list broker should be willing
to take the time to match your offer, as best as is possible, to
a specific list he believes will do the best for you. Anyone can call
themselves a list broker and rent you names from the phone book. A professional
broker, such as DAJ Direct, cares about your business. We know
that if you do well working with us, you will keep coming back.
3.
Know Your Break Even Point on Your Mail Piece.
How many sales must you make
to cover your costs of mailing? Figure the cost of the list, the stock
used for the mail piece and the postage. You should also figure in your
cost of labor, though many marketers discount this cost when first starting
out. Quite often, a more expensive product sold to fewer customers, will
work out much better for you than an inexpensive product that must be
sold to many customers in order to reach that same break even point. There
are exacting formulas available to figure this out.
4.
While in the early stages of a Direct Mail campaign...
you might make a profit mailing
to a list of prospects who are not already your customers. Ultimately
though, even a well run mail order company can lose money on "The Front
End". What you want is to generate a maximum number of new customers.
Once you have these new customers, you supply "back end offers" to them.
Again and again. You may also, eventually, rent or sell your mail
list. Your current customers are always your best customers. Continue
to sell to them. If you only have a front end offer, programs like "The
Money Doctor" or "People Helping People", etc, you will
have a much more difficult time getting anywhere. Specially for high end
offers. You have one shot and if that does not work, kiss your money goodby.
There are no guarantees and this type of program is more like gambling.
5.
You will always get a higher response to a mailing...
from those who have responded
before.. Always re-mail new offers or add-ons to your responders. Once
you have a customer or potential customer, hold on to them. Provide them
with the product and service necessary to keep them doing business with
you instead of someone else. Keep those "back end offers" flowing. Collect
a lot of buyer's names, and we will put your list up for rent.
6.
Most of what you have heard as being mail order gospel is wrong.
How to do it and what your return
will be? No one knows, and that’s a fact. No one can tell you what
you will do on any mailing. All they may be able to tell you is what they
have done, and they may be stretching the truth. TEST! TEST! TEST!
You have to test it yourself by doing the mailings and trying the lists
and keeping track of what works and what doesn’t. Once you find a list
that works, make sure any additional names you rent from the same list
are really from the same list and just as fresh, then run with it. YOU
NEED A BROKER YOU CAN TRUST TO HELP YOU.
7.
Believe it or not, what you are doing, what this is, is a business.
Treat it like a business. So
many mail order marketers treat what they are doing as if it were a hobby,
or that "if you MAIL IT, they will come". These folks are in for
a big surprise and disappointment. Doing mail order right requires just
as much effort as doing any other kind of business. Research it. The library,
local bookstores and a competent List Broker, are your best friends.
8.
Carefully consider if you really want to send bulk mail as opposed to
first class.
While bulk mail is less expensive,
there are some things to consider:
A. If you send bulk mail, your letters will not be forwarded.
B. Bulk mail may be less likely to be opened.
C. From what we’ve been told, bulk mail often languishes out of
the way in some dark corner of your postoffice. We have also heard, though
we don’t know for sure, that bulk mail is often given the old heave-ho,
instead of being delivered.
If you really want to do bulk
mail, YOU WILL
NEED TO TEST. Only mail from a central postal station that handles bulk
mail, not your local post office.
9.
Your mail piece can be a letter, or a postcard or a booklet.
The chances of someone actually
looking at your mail piece can be better if it has a personal look, or
has an appearance that says, " Open Me". Of course, that mail
piece has to be good copy in order to get a response. Post cards can work
for generating leads or inquiries, but they don't have the space needed
for the length of copy usually used to sell a product. If you print "Please
Forward" on the envelope, the mail piece will be forwarded if there
is a forward address. Otherwise, if it is not deliverable to the address
on the envelope, it will probably be returned to you. We have found that
a two page or longer letter, if well written, provides superior response.
There is no such thing as too long a mail piece. There are only mail
pieces that your prospects open and read, or do not open and do not read.
10.
If you are doing an Opportunity Mailing, use a Buyer's list or a Responsive
Seeker's list from a reliable company that will work with you to improve
your chances for success.
A "Buyer's List", the type of list that DAJ Direct specializes
in, is made up of people who have already responded to an opportunity
or product like yours, and/or have paid out money for that product or
opportunity. A "Seeker's List" may not do it for you
if you need a front end sale immediately. Seekers want information and
they don't want to pay for it. A Seekers list will work if you are looking
for some sort of response such as a phone call, or a returned coupon,
without a front end sale. The type of marketer who uses a seeker list,
depends on his ability to close a prospect over the phone once they call,
or the ability to close a prospect by sending additional information.
Saying this, DAJ Direct manages several all seeker lists that act just
like buyer's lists. Trust your list broker to find a proper list for
you. If he can't do it, find another broker.
11.
Be prepared for returns (nixies) and hearing people tell you that they
have received several offers just like the one you are sending.
When DAJ receives lists from their list owners, the lists are gone over
by our fulfillment house. Bad data is looked for and if found, the name
is removed. The list is run through the US Post Office's Change of Address
data base. This scrubs out a lot of names on a list that may not be mailable
because the prospect has moved. Not all bad names and bad
data can be removed. Also, older people make up a large part of
these lists. People do die between the time they bought a program and
the time the list is delivered to you. Do not think that because you receive
some returns that say the recipient is deceased, that this is a bogus
name. The techniques available are just not perfect. Bad names will slip
through. Though DAJ Direct prides itself on having the cleanest lists
in the biz op community, you will probably receive nixies. How many you
receive depends on a lot of things. But you should be prepared to receive
them. Anything under 10% returns is considered normal in this business.
Do not ask for a refund. If there are a lot more then that, hold on to
the returns and let us know. Without the returns, all of them, we cannot
help you, as we will need proof. Sometimes you may receive a lot of nixies
and no sales. This can happen for a number of reasons. We provide targeted
responsive lists that work for 80% to 90% of our mailers who mail them.
They do not work for everyone every time. If this bothers you, don't
mail.
Prospects receiving duplicates.
Most people who make up our various targeted buyers and responders lists,
are multi buyers. They have purchased or inquired about more then one
program in a given quarter. They will be on several lists. Large mailers
rent most of their lists at once and them merge all lists and purge out
the duplicates. Small mailers cannot do this. If this bothers you,
don't mail
For additional information,
see our Questions
page.
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