A Strata YouTube Original Series

Campaign optimization strategies help you paint a full picture of the health of your marketing campaigns and improve upon what is and isn’t working. Whether you’re running digital and print ads or sending out direct mail, it’s important to know how your campaign’s being received. Our newest YouTube video features Strata’s Campaign Coordinator, Mike, answering several frequently asked campaign optimization questions. Here’s a snippet of just a few of them, below.

What exactly is campaign optimization?

“Campaign optimization increases the performance and effectiveness of an advertising campaign to achieve the campaign’s desired results.”

Why is campaign optimization important and what are the main benefits?

“In its early stages, advertising can be a bit of trial-and-error. Monitoring how a campaign is performing can help you and your team identify what’s working and what’s not. For example, if you see one market performing better than another, it may be time to consider re-allocating your budget.”

Can campaign optimization have a negative effect on a campaign? 

“Although you may see the ‘hiccups’ of campaign optimization as negatives, they are positives when you look at the bigger picture. Every failure is just a point along the road to success.”

Mike answers these questions in more depth, as well as several more (below) in our full video, available on YouTube! He also covers:

• How much time should go into campaign optimization?
• What’s a sign that it’s time for a campaign to be optimized? How frequently should campaigns be optimized?
• What are the key steps to campaign optimization? What’s the process?
• What are the most common things within a campaign that need to be altered/changed?
• Which KPIs/metrics are key when it comes to campaign optimization?
• Why is the buyer journey so significant/important to utilize for campaign optimization, and how do you utilize it?
• What are the top tools/tactics used for campaign optimization?

Click the image below to view the full video!

While we cover several key questions surrounding campaign optimization, our team is always available to help with your marketing campaigns. Have a question that we didn’t answer? Or, ready to make smart happen? Contact us today and we’ll help you get started. 

How New Mover Marketing Generates Loyal Customers

With so many options, retail marketing has taken on an entirely consumer-centric approach to sales and has created a battleground for businesses, particularly when it comes to courting and retaining loyal customers.

With so many brands and products to choose from, a campaign to develop a loyal customer base is the primary objective of many businesses.

This is particularly true for grocers, where a single loyal customer shopping for a family of four can equate to thousands of dollars per year in consistent revenue, year after year. Throughout this blog, we’ll discuss the age of consumerism, how new mover marketing acquires loyal customers, and why it’s a tool one should be careful not to overlook.

The Age of Consumerism

When we say “The Age of Consumerism,” we’re referring to the current trend in retail sales that caters to the consumer before the business. The competition is fierce – particularly in our digital world – and consumers are expecting choices (lots of them), all coming from the same retailer.

It makes sense – this is more or less that natural progression that gave rise to grocery stores in the first place, largely doing away with consumers visiting the dairy, the butcher, the bakery, etc.

The key takeaway is that consumers are expecting options – not just in terms of products, but also in terms of accessibility, technology and delivery – and there are plenty of grocers delivering, particularly when we look to retail ecosystems, like Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods.

New Mover Campaigns to Better Target Consumers

A great example of a campaign designed to acquire and retain new loyal customers is our new mover product – SmartMove. It relies on three core elements – targeted outreach, personalization, physical and digital integration.

There’s little more reassuring than going into a stressful event – a first day at a new school, a new job, moving into a new neighborhood – and being greeted by someone instantly and warmly. One of the best ways to develop loyal customers is to simply introduce yourself to new consumers just entering your market.

Let’s look to our SmartMove campaigns.

In our SmartMove campaign, the first step in creating loyal customers focuses on digital methods like geofencing for precision targeting of new movers, then we use variable-data to create advanced personalization campaigns, creating an immediate connection with potential customers.

The next step in creating loyal customers is courting and retention. Reaching out to new movers is good, but reaching out to new movers with attractive offers is even better. Better still? Reaching out in both physical and digital mediums, seamlessly integrating multiple channels to optimize their shopping experience.

Benefits of SmartMove

So now that we’ve gone over the strategy of SmartMove, let’s look to its benefits.

The first benefit is a jump on the competition. In order to effectively compete for business where consumers have nearly unlimited options all offering a similar variety of choices, one of the few concrete advantages a grocer can have in customer acquisition is getting to those potential customers first. Using geofencing and proactive outreach, SmartMove makes this possible.

The second benefit is the level of connectivity SmartMove affords to grocers looking to court new movers. With advanced personalization techniques, coupled with attractive offerings via digital and direct mail outreach, SmartMove allows you to build the connections you need to gain new, loyal customers.

Want to explore the Strata’s systems for creating and retaining loyal customers? Contact us to see how SmartMove can make a difference for your business today. 

How to Apply the Latest in eCommerce Functionality and UX Design to Increase Adoption

Digital capabilities and payment technologies have changed the way consumers shop; your colleagues are no different. Yet many businesses struggle to keep current internal marketing portals (also commonly referred to as “marketing stores”) that offer some form of ordering/purchasing features. Legacy marketing store systems were often built without scalability in mind, and thus many remain in a form where orders still have to feed through to purchasing departments or internal marketing teams for approval and fulfillment. Not providing a fully self-serve, user-friendly environment makes it harder for marketers to leverage all of the assets they’ve produced, and low self-sufficiency slows down customer-facing functions.

The lack of investment in these systems is understandable; they don’t directly correlate to the bottom line. But if you take the long view, they’re invaluable when it comes to brand and sales enablement. Customer-facing teams are among your best channels for promoting your brand. And with marketing increasingly being held accountable for justifying every expense, it’s critical that what you produce is visible and accessible to stakeholders.

The good news is that big hitters like Amazon and Zappos continue to update and perfect eCommerce, so companies wishing to upgrade internally-facing purchasing systems can capitalize on what is already in existence.

User Experience Is Top Priority

Research is increasingly confirming that one of the most critical determiners of the success of a web application is the user experience.

User Experience (UX) comprises a site’s look and feel, architecture, overall ease of use, shopping cart experience, and more.

You can leverage these very same principles to optimize efficiencies in your brand merchandise and marketing content ordering and purchasing portals. The superior UX and secure, controlled online purchasing available via your favorite websites can now be safely – and more easily – applied to better serve business stakeholders such as sales teams, distributors, and field marketers.

A UX-optimized marketing portal can accelerate many basic sales and marketing functions:

• Increasing adoption and transparency: Pricing and inventory are readily visible and can be updated in real time. Purchasers are better informed, reducing the risk of order changes.
• Improving internal perception of the marketing team: Providing excellent customer service always makes a good impression.
• Speeding up purchasing, fulfillment, and billing: Put merch within users’ reach with features such as frequently purchased items and smart content: similar to what you see in eCommerce sites that feature product recommendations and related products.
• Expediting order submissions and processing: Whether you need to change a ship-to on the fly or quick-ship 50 different pieces of merchandise to 50 different clients, those options are easy to access and process.

One aspect of customer experience that seamless eCommerce functionality does well is convenience. Users want to find what they’re looking for quickly, receive it hassle-free, and pay with their preferred method. While many older systems take in static requests that have to be routed to marketing teams for approval and fulfillment, a more streamlined portal enables automation that empowers users to take care of these processes themselves – easily and quickly.

And importantly, today’s best eCommerce-centric online marketing stores let users upload mailing lists to attach to their orders, rather than offering only a few predefined ship-to address options.

The Personalized Shop…

The level of personalization and ease of use that an eCommerce-style corporate marketing portal provides does well for internal brand perception. Consumers still highly value relationship – strong customer relationships boost loyalty, improve net promoter scores, reduce acquisition costs, and increase the likelihood of conversion, upsells, and expansion. Again, your colleagues are no different. When your tech can support them in every step of their tasks, you are building internal loyalty and teamwork.

Further, because eCommerce is primed to handle large amounts of data with minimal risk, it’s the ideal space to deliver personalized content and services and test new strategies.

…Integrated

If you integrate your internal corporate marketing portal with a robust content management system, you can take your online ordering and purchasing well beyond a more dated inventory library. You can deliver engaging content based on user activity and other data points.

You can also use personalization to move the relationship across channels conversational (chatbot-based) ordering and other purchase-based trigger communications. Such technologies make processes seamless, hassle-free, and scalable into the future.

Ready to talk about taking the best in UX and eCommerce to your online marketing store? Contact us to learn more.

Get the Right Analytics at the Right Time for More Dynamic, Successful Campaigns

When is it time to measure your new mover campaign’s performance – when it’s over? With a multichannel campaign, of course it’s essential to keep track of the many moving parts. But what if you could do even more? A campaign dashboard should give you a detailed, up-to-the-minute view of your campaign’s performance – so you can course correct as necessary, improve cost effectiveness, and leverage successes immediately.

Feedback – Now

New residents make decisions quickly, and you’re delivering a lot of information in a brief period. Give your direct marketing campaign the best chances of achieving optimal response. A campaign dashboard worthy of your marketing strategy should give you feedback in real time. This offers two enormous advantages:

1. Course Correction
   If something isn’t working, you can recover quickly rather than learning only from hindsight. If you initially ran four or five different digital ads, but your dashboard is showing that engagement is coming mainly from just one or two of those, there’s your opportunity to pull the ones that aren’t working and double down on those that are.
2. See What’s Working and Do More of That
   If your campaign is getting response from segments you didn’t anticipate, you can adjust to focus more attention on them. Let’s say you expected to receive responses from an even demographic distribution seeking a primary care physician, but your dashboard shows a surge in responses from women ages 24 to 34 looking for pediatrics. You can adjust your campaign to home in on those people and start building affinity even sooner.

Details, Please

A robust campaign dashboard will give you more than an overview – more than clickthrough rates or total of BRCs received. We now have the technology to quickly parse data to break down responses by age bracket, gender, income screen, neighborhood, and other demographic segments. You can also look at responses according to their interest in your products and services, whether you’re offering office supplies or ongoing healthcare.

In addition, you can learn a lot about which aspects of your campaign are working well. For instance, compare traditional business reply cards with electronic response. (Side note: Traditional BRCs are still highly effective in healthcare, where 69 percent of new-mover responses come through this medium.) Did Jane Smith access your website with the personalized URL on your direct mailer? Is your banner ad getting more clickthroughs than your display ad? All of this should be at your fingertips so that it informs not only your current campaign but future campaigns as well.

Consumers expect personalized service and relevant communications. To offer that you have to know, as soon as possible and in as much detail as possible, who’s engaging with your campaign and how. The sooner you get to know your market, the sooner you can convert prospective buyers into loyal customers.

SmartMove’s personalized campaign dashboard gives you a window into your new mover campaign. Contact us to learn more.

Quick Tips to Help Your New Mover Strategy

Capturing new mover market share depends on immediate outreach using an approach that elevates your business above the rest. This is a receptive audience ready to spend on new products and services.

But retailers face inherent challenges, including a limited window of time and a lot of competition from other businesses. Moreover, evolving consumer purchasing habits demand that retailers adjust traditional marketing approaches.

If you haven’t evaluated the effectiveness of your new mover program recently, it’s time to check that your strategy is up to date.

1. Direct Mail: Timely, Targeted and Action-InspiringDespite skyrocketing consumer preferences for all things digital, direct mail is still the best method as an initial point of contact for reaching new movers. According to a report from Marketingprofs, an industry research and education firm, 40% of consumers try new businesses after receiving a direct mail piece.
   • Precision in-home dates: Timing is everything. Your “welcome” direct mailer has to reach new residents immediately, or you risk falling to the bottom of the mail pile. Retailers can gain an edge by partnering with a direct mail vendor who’s perfected targeted in-home dates.
   • Clean data and list management: By nature, new mover mailing lists are in a constant state of flux and quickly become stale. Select a list vendor that sources from multiple providers and uses extensive hygiene practices to validate the accuracy of data.
   • Personalized: Personalized direct mail commands higher response, agree industry leaders and researchers such as the Association of National Advertisers. Go beyond first names – mine your available data to include variables such as:
     • Closest store
     • Locator map
     • Mileage to your nearest location
   • Compelling offers: Include a strong call to action that’s hard for new movers to resist, and make it easy to for them to act on. Make them feel welcome and valued – present the offer as exclusive to their status as a new resident. For inspiration, check out this Target Marketing article that analyzes several successful direct mail approaches businesses use to market to new movers.
2. Cross-channel Outreach to Crystalize Brand Presence
   For maximum impact and continued engagement, new mover programs need strong follow-up via digital channels.
   • Landing pages and PURLs: Directing new movers to eBRCs helps retailers build in-house email lists and track consumer preferences.
   • Segmented email follow-up: Again, relevance and personalization are key: Consumers welcome emails they perceive as providing valuable information or offers, with open rates for segmented emails averaging 14.32% higher than non-segmented emails. Once you start collecting new mover email addresses and information on interests and preferences, you can send targeted offers and information, promote your customer loyalty program and stay in touch to nurture engagement.
   • Online presence: New movers are using the Internet in ever-growing numbers to research goods and services. Establish a strong online presence with:
     • Targeted digital ads served up to households on your mailing list
     • Strong SEO practices
     • Close monitoring of reviews and ratings

Join the Next Generation of New Mover Marketing

Strata Company, a Greater Philadelphia area marketing services and technology solutions company, has 25 years of experience creating and managing multi-channel new mover marketing campaigns. Our SmartMove program merges the power of physical and digital touchpoints so you can quickly reach the right audience and keep them engaged with your brand. Contact us to learn more.

Helpful Tips to Generate Response from Your Next Postcard Mailer

An effectively designed, well-thought out direct mail postcard can net response beyond expectations. Create a postcard that’s going to stand out – rather than get tossed out – with these suggestions. (Note: incorporating some of these tips will depend on your goals and budget).

1. Consider Going Big
   There are a few reasons to consider an oversize postcard format:
   • A larger size naturally attracts more attention.
   • Oversize postcards have been shown to perform better in terms of response rate, according to recent Association of National Advertiser reports.
   • They are less likely to get lost in the shuffle.
   • Extra space means more room for impactful design and messaging.

   However, you’ll want to consult USPS mailing guidelines for postcards. Postcards that exceed 4.25-inches by 6-inches in size are classified as a letter mailing, and will cost more to mail.

2. Design to Draw the Eye
   To have any chance of competing for attention in the mailbox, postcards need eye-catching design that also works to support a campaign’s messaging and goals.
   • Avoid an overly busy design. Rather, design around a focal point using visual design hierarchy principles.
   • If your postcard needs to feature several products (e.g., weekly sale items), use a grid layout to achieve an organized rather than chaotic appearance.
3. Choose the Right Paper
   Paper weight and texture can communicate volumes about the value of your mailing – something to think about investing a little extra in, depending on goals and audience:
   • A thicker weight feels sturdier and more dependable and will stand up to the mailing process.
   • A too-thin paper risks coming across as flimsy and getting damaged in the mailing process.
   • Textured paper adds a tactile element, another way to draw attention.

   (Again, USPS guidelines are a factor: a thickness greater than 0.016-inch will cost more to mail.)

4. Try Unusual Formats and Print Techniques
   As with paper choices, these attention-grabbing features can increase project costs, so ROI will come into play when making these decisions.
   • Try a die-cut format for an unusual, eye-catching shape. Tie the shape into your company’s product or service offerings for added resonance.
   • Perforated tear-off coupons can add sizzle to your offer.
   • Including a simple giveaway (e.g., a magnet) will add noticeability and value.
   • Printing techniques like foil-stamping and embossing can instantly draw the eye. They may be best used for higher-end mailings – think invitations to a new location’s open house, introducing a premium product or service, and other similar promotions.
5. Make Copy Work Hard
   The space constraints of a postcard mean you need to choose words wisely. Write to focus attention on the action message – what you want recipients to do.
   • Craft an attention-commanding headline that builds curiosity.
   • Include very minimal supporting information – just enough to tempt recipients to follow through on the call to action, or take advantage of your offer.
   • Use copywriting “power words” – words that spark interest and action. Check out a list here.
   • Be clear, don’t confuse your readers, and be action-oriented: Tell recipients how to take the next step.
6. Make It Personal
   Relevant mail is far more likely to be saved and acted on. With the depth and breadth of data available today, the sky’s the limit regarding personalization. Here are a few pointers:
   • Personalize with an offer on products you know a recipient likes based on purchasing history, or include an image of a product recently viewed online.
   • Include region-specific maps for your businesses closest retail location of office site.
   • Use personal URLs (PURLs), a form of personalization that incorporates a prospect’s name into the landing page web address, to instantly capture attention.

   Investing in marketing automation software greatly boosts efficiency and accuracy in executing a personalized campaign. Also, make sure to choose a printer with variable data print capabilities.

7. Partner with a Direct Mail Expert That Can Tie It all Together.
   Developing an effective direct mail postcard campaign becomes much simpler when you work with a vendor that provides professional design, printing and mailing services. With expert guidance on the creative points discussed above, plus someone else to handle the print and mailing details, you get more time to focus on big-picture goals and strategy. Plymouth Meeting, PA-based Strata Company specializes in data-driven direct marketing and technologies that help companies create more relevant, personalized marketing. A leader in direct mail marketing for nearly two decades, Strata has experience helping businesses create highly targeted multichannel marketing campaigns. Contact us to learn more.

How PURLs Can Help You Track Your Customer’s Journey

The use of personalized URLs (PURLs) took root about a decade ago. Despite evidence that they can increase campaign effectiveness, PURLs remain an underutilized tactic in direct marketing.

On the other hand, marketers who use PURLs successfully know they can be an important component of a comprehensive multichannel strategy. PURLs offer both front-end (recipient experience) and back-end (tracking and evaluation) benefits.

So What Exactly Are PURLs, and Why Use Them?

PURLs involve creating unique web addresses – most typically, incorporating a direct marketing target’s name into the URL. They are ideal for any sort of direct mailer, particularly new mover and box mailer campaigns, as well as email campaigns.

From a recipient experience standpoint, personalized URLs can capture attention and serve to build a better personal connection. Because they include the recipient’s name, they instantly stand out and are more memorable, which can lead to increased page visits.

But their value in terms of back-end tracking and as a lead-nurturing tool are what really make PURLs a valuable touch in outbound marketing campaigns.

The Power of PURLs, from Tracking to Lead Nurturing

Industry experts agree that you can’t depend on the use of PURLs alone to significantly lift response – that is, marketers should not expect that they can simply include a PURL on a direct mailer and then sit back and wait for sales to stream in.

See Who’s Responding … And Who Isn’t

Rather, using personal URLs can supercharge your ability to conduct highly personalized, one-to-one lead nurturing. Using PURLs gives marketers the power to precisely track responses to each unique URL. The added value is the ability to track hits at an individual level – thus, you gain abandonment metrics at the user level in cases where prospects do not complete the online form.

Achieve Conversion with Tailored Follow-Up

Previously, when PURL technology was in its infancy, lead tracking involved little more than generating an Excel document. Now, online capabilities (e.g., dashboards) give marketers instant views of who is visiting their landing page, and who is not, allowing for execution of strategic follow-up.

For example, prospects who have visited their personalized landing page but have not yet completed the call to action (CTA) can be nurtured with specific outreach (e.g., an email drip campaign; a phone call; even a follow-up direct mail piece) to bring them closer to conversion. Marketing automation can help at this stage – for example, by triggering an email alert when a prospect visits a PURL or completes a CTA.

The Advantages of Working with a Data and Technology-driven Marketing Firm

While incorporating personalized URLs into a campaign isn’t difficult, the process does involve some technical steps that may cause many marketers to hesitate. Working with a specialized direct marketing agency with the in-house technology and expertise to create a PURL campaign not only saves time, but also helps ensure correct execution of these steps so that PURLs will render correctly.

Going this route allows marketers to simply hand over a list, and rely on the agency to build landing pages, generate PURLs using specialized software, and handle tracking and analytics.

Next Steps

Strata Company, a Greater Philadelphia area marketing and technology firm, specializes in creative multichannel approaches, including PURLs, that drive lead generation and conversion. With a focus on relevance and personalization, our data-driven programs consistently return higher-than-average results.

Why You Can’t Afford NOT to Automate

When it comes to customer communications, few industries escape the grasp of government regulations. Among the many benefits of automating processes surrounding customer communications is more reliable compliance assurance.

And in the not-so-distant future – indeed, present day for some organizations – is robotic process automation (RPA). The financial services industry is already tapping into the power of RPA in compliance monitoring and testing and improved process effectiveness and efficiency.

Organizations that don’t embrace process automation now risk being left behind competitively. And from a compliance standpoint, organizations without automation will increasingly struggle to keep up with constantly changing and emerging regulatory requirements.

Compliance Challenges Are Inherent in Communications

The risk of noncompliance looms for organizations undertaking mass customer communications – especially when they involve manual processes carried out by multiple employees across multiple departments.

• Human error opens the door to many avenues of noncompliance – inaccurate information, for example, or communications being sent to incorrect recipients.
• Meanwhile, slow, unwieldy processes strain staff resources and IT departments and can result in missed deadlines for time-sensitive regulatory updates.

How Automating the Customer Communication Processes Improves Compliance

Increases Accuracy of Data Output by Reducing Human Error

Process automation helps reduce the risk of human error by instantly processing complex data, preparing it for output into multiple forms of correspondence.

The source of the data and its hygiene are still underlying factors, of course. However, assuming the source data is accurate, robotics controls the integrity of that data and ensures it is intact as it passes through different process points.

For example, without a single central platform to store multiple data points, a customer service representative may have to navigate disparate systems to gather necessary information during a service call. Automated recording and transfer of data in a central location streamlines the entire process, eliminating possible entry points for errors.

Or consider a healthcare system that undertakes enterprise-wide physician announcement mailings. The time sensitive nature of such communications is prime territory for process automation. Or a call center responsible for setting appointments on behalf of hundreds of hospitals.

Increases Agility in Achieving Compliance with Regulatory Changes

Requirements under regulatory mandates can shift at any time, and businesses typically have a narrow window in which to adapt and ensure that business actions falling underneath it are compliant.

Process automation improves the speed and agility of compliance activity by:

• Facilitating quick, easy document retrieval
• Eliminating time-consuming hard file searches
• Better equipping leadership during audits with compliance status reports

For Large Businesses: Unify and Streamline Compliance Efforts
In large businesses and enterprises or matrixed organizations with many stakeholders, adapting to meet regulatory changes can be can be a slow-moving beast. Automation can help implement changes quickly so that new required procedures/communications are executed with more immediacy.

For Mid-Size Businesses: Proactively Address Compliance
For mid-size businesses, automation can be well worth the investment too. In some cases, a lack of compliance can be the death knell for a newer or less established large business with deep pockets. Mid-size businesses skittish about moving to automation should review the integrity of their quality control measures and perform a cost-benefit analysis. They may be surprised to learn how affordable a customer communications management system could be.

Boosts Customer Satisfaction – And Lowers the Incidence of Complaints

Customer satisfaction goes hand in hand with improved compliance. For example, in the healthcare industry, process automation surrounding patient communications increases ease of contact; better access to accurate, up-to-date information; faster service by call centers – all factors that, in turn, increase patient satisfaction. More satisfied patients mean fewer complaints – and reduced risk of audits by agencies like CMS.

Make Process Automation Work for You

Automated compliance-enabling functions that cater to industry- and organization-specific needs can be built into CCM systems, and should be considered from the outset. Work with a process automation technology partner that will take a collaborative approach and has the expertise to design automated processes that will support proactive and complete compliance.

Plymouth Meeting, PA-based Strata Company provides CCM solutions to clients in regulated industries where compliance, accuracy and timeliness are a must. Our correspondence management systems integrate seamlessly with a variety of systems to allow for the secure, seamless transition of data and output. Contact us to learn how compliant communications technologies can benefit you, your business, and your customers.

470,000: the approximate number of words in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Your direct mail copy challenge: Find the magic combination that will command the reader’s attention (i.e., dodge the recycle bin) and compel action.

Yes, direct mail writing can be intimidating. But the following steps can help you write direct mail copy that will get noticed – and get your prospects motivated.

1. Grab Attention with Your Headline
   Many leading copywriters believe in the rule of 80/20 – that writing the headline should take 80% of your effort, and the copy below should take 20%. Why? The headline has to work really, really hard to hook readers. If it falls flat, no one will read past it.
   • Focus the headline around a leading benefit.
   • Build intrigue – tease with just enough information so that it’s impossible to ignore what follows.
2. Expand (a little) on the Most Important Benefits
   Your body content needs to strike a balance between being informative and being concise. Again, stay benefits-focused, and give readers information that will convince them they need to act on your offer.
   • Tell readers how the product or service will improve their lives.
   • Present information in a logical order.
3. Be Brief and Readable
   Your words are not the star of the piece. Rather, the recipient should be kept front and center. Copy should focus on their needs, and never compromise readability.
   • Limit the amount of copy in your mailer.
   • Save longer, more detailed explanations for product/service websites, landing pages or brochures.
   • Break up blocks of copy with subheads.
4. Write for a Persona
   Writing for a persona can help you key in on the needs and motivations of your target audience.
   • Address their specific concerns.
   • Craft copy that connects on an emotional level.
5. Craft an Irresistible Call to Action
   Finally, you need to ask for the reader’s business with your call to action (CTA).
   • Give the reader direct, specific instruction on how to take the next step.
   • Use active verbs.
   • Imply urgency – the offer will expire; they can’t afford to delay; time is running out; be one of the first, etc.
6. Test to Find Out What Works Best
   A simple A/B test – where a control group receives a version with one varying element – can help you uncover the most effective copywriting approaches for your audience.
   • A/B test elements such as headlines, CTAs and envelope teasers.
   • Track results, and refine future mailings accordingly.

Going Multichannel?

Ensure you align your direct mail copy with other pieces of the campaign – emails, landing pages, digital ads, broadcast media. The message needs to be cohesive, or you’ll confuse your audience.

Strata Company, a Plymouth Meeting, PA-based marketing services and technology solutions company, has been a leader in direct mail marketing for 25 years. Our multichannel marketing programs combine award-winning creative with superior data practices to attract the right prospects and keep them engaged. Contact us to speak with one of our direct marketing experts.