Previously, we shared 9 ideas on how to find perfect leads for your direct mail services and how to convert them through multiple channels. We also looked at in-built templates that can be easily modified based on your company services, value proposition, and type of audience you’re targeting.

In this article, we will discuss the many ways in which direct mail (DM) service providers (like you!) can take your outreach strategy to the next level and make a memorable impression on your prospects.

1. Draw attention to the prospects’ ongoing campaigns and suggest improvements

When communicating with prospects, it’s important to understand their business goals and convince them, in a language they understand, why your services can be valuable to the company.

By simply looking at their profile on WMW!, you can go through the several direct mail campaigns that they have previously invested in and narrow down common blindspots. For example, companies in the Food & Beverages (F&B) industry have a higher success rate with postcards as opposed to envelopes, or self-mailers.

Now, if you have a prospect in the F&B industry using primarily envelopes for direct mail marketing, you can reach out to them and talk about the many benefits of switching to postcards instead. You can also comment on the length of their copy and mention how the word count in F&B industry postcards has increased by 98.76% between 2010 and 2020.

By sharing relevant and helpful information with your prospects, you are showing them that you did your homework before getting in touch, and are committed to helping them maximize their reach. Regardless of the outreach channels, adding a ‘personal touch’ in your communication can go a long way in establishing credibility and building trust with your prospects.

2. Showcase the most popular campaigns run by the prospects’ competition with an emphasis on what makes them successful

While most prospects are aware of their immediate competition, they can benefit greatly from understanding the specific tricks, tips, and tactics a company is using to get ahead of them. To ensure that your outreach communication is truly impactful, you can include a surface-level analysis of the competitors’ direct mail campaigns, or draw a parallel between the prospect’s and the competitors’ campaigns.

For example, in the last decade, Geico has experimented with a variety of direct mail formats, however, the practice of including customer testimonials in their communication has remained unchanged. It’s safe to assume that their target audience, people interested in insurance, is interested in hearing what the company’s existing customers have to say before making a decision.

Now, consider your prospect is Nationwide, Geico’s competitor, and while comparing their campaigns on WMW!, you discover the company doesn’t rely on customer testimonials to get their point across. When reaching out to Nationwide, you can highlight Geico’s successful use of customer testimonials and how that might be instrumental in driving insurance sales.

Here, you’re basically equipping the prospect with extremely valuable knowledge about what they are up against instead of hard-selling your services. This ‘act of goodwill’ on your part sends a clear, persuasive message to the prospect that says — I care about your interests, and I’m invested in your conquest of defeating your competition.

3. Give account-based marketing a chance

Instead of a broad-outreach approach where you’re talking to anyone who’d listen, account-based marketing (ABM) encourages you to create highly targeted, and personalized campaigns to specifically engage ‘ideal customers’ or prospects who are most likely to convert.

The idea is simple — if you were a fisherman, you can either wait for hundreds of fish to swim in your net in hopes of catching the one you really want, or you can direct all your focus (and efforts!), from the get-go, on the fish you want to catch.

The best ABM campaigns are omnichannel, which means you can run ads in addition to sending emails, calling, and using social networking platforms to engage with several key decision-makers from the same company. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula to ABM; you should find the right combination of outreach channels that your prospects are the most receptive to.

Create different communication templates for each customer profile (or prospect type) to elicit a more favorable response. For example, let’s consider that you offer DM printing services, and are eying prospects in the Retail industry. Most of these companies give hefty seasonal discounts, especially during Christmas, the fourth of July, and/or Pride month. Instead of sending them blanket communication all year long, you’d have much better luck reaching out to them when a public holiday is just around the corner.

Since ABM is more about the quality, rather than quantity, of the leads, ABM campaigns, unlike traditional inbound/outbound marketing campaigns, tend to encourage shorter sales cycles, and higher ROIs. Read more about how you can convert prospects using a multi-channel approach.

4. Leverage WMW! to create and share original content

A good content marketing strategy goes beyond just writing and design; it defines the target audience (to maximise clicks and shareability!), ensures consistent distribution (to increase reach and brand awareness!), and ultimately, drives profitable customer action (to boost sales and revenue!).

Whether you’re a direct mail printer/PSP, vendor, or agency, content is a valuable asset through which you can connect with and nurture your prospects. If you’re looking for ideas to get started, WMW! can be your source of creative, on-brand, original content.

We have an extensive collection of direct mail campaigns (more than ​​134,000 pieces), in addition to the WMW! Newsletter that includes industry insights and best practises, research and reports, guides, and how-tos about direct mail marketing. You have plenty of information to draw inspiration from and create snippets of content for social media, sales presentations, and of course, prospect outreach.

You can share the data-driven blog posts from the WMW! Newsletter to help them boost direct mail response using digital channels or maximize their direct mail for the USPS’ Informed Delivery or write a fundraising letter.

You can also directly reach out to us to request custom co-branded content, and we will make sure you never run out of relevant data, examples or ideas. This especially comes in handy when content creation is not your thing, and you’re exploring ways to engage your prospects with insightful SEO-optimized, direct-mail-focused.

Learn the many other ways you can effectively use WMW! Content to attract and nurture leads.

5. Leave the communication to the professionals

In the early days, people could either be reached by phone or post; today, there are myriad communication and networking platforms to ensure that you are never more than six degrees away from a possible connection.

For example, Linkedin has become the preferred channel for B2B outreach in recent years with people using the platform to strengthen both their personal and professional network. However, engaging with your prospects on Linkedin comes with its own set of unique challenges, and unless you have outreach professionals on your team, pursuing leads can quickly become a tedious, time-consuming task that will prevent you from doing much else.

For the DIY-ers, the market offers an array of automated outreach sequences like SalesFlow and Expandi, however, you can also consult outreach experts, like Impactable.com, and let them do all the legwork. From managing your inbox and tracking prospects to booking demo calls and facilitating ad campaigns, Impactable offers a one-stop-shop for all your Linkedin outreach needs.

You can set up an automated introductory and follow-up message sequence for new prospects. Every week, your prospects are evaluated, organized, and emailed to you so you can get a deeper insight into your outreach campaign performance.

When you outsource prospect outreach to people who know better, you can focus on accomplishing bigger, more important things for your business.

In Conclusion

For an outreach plan to be effective, it must boost your online presence and visibility, give you an opportunity to collaborate with and empower your prospects, and improve your audience engagement and ROI.

In this article, we learned that personalized communication goes a long way in establishing a rapport with prospects (and 56% of the marketers strongly agree!). Luckily, WMW! offers a lot of resources to help you devise multichannel outreach sequences that align with your business goals.

Our comprehensive database is home to thousands of industry and brand-specific DM campaigns that can be filtered based on industry, format, and location. The WMW! Newsletter is a trusted source for insightful content that addresses the many highs and lows of direct mail marketing.

Using the recommendations listed above, we hope you’re able to better structure and evaluate your outreach efforts in the future.