Before the launch of any direct mail campaign, it is crucial to have a structured, clear, and concise brief in place for those who are involved, and creating it can be a challenging task. There are many factors to consider, from the target audience to the content and message. Whether this is your team or an external agency, if there’s even one person who is not on the same page because of a poor campaign brief, then the whole campaign will collapse.
Without an effective brief in place that includes all essential components, you will be missing out on potential clients and sales. A great brief can provide the focus and clarity needed to create an effective direct mail campaign that achieves the desired results.
There are several direct mail printing companies who can help you provide these. This will help marketers save time and money by ensuring that all the key elements are included, and the important components are all tailored to the target audience.
There are several key components that must be included for a successful campaign, and it can be difficult to know where to start. Here include the details to help you identify what are the advantages of running a successful direct mail campaign, what elements to include in a direct mail brief, and how you can create one.
Why Are Direct Mail Campaigns Important in the First Place?
- Direct Mail makes a lasting impression
Research shows that mail has a powerful impact on long-term memory encoding, 49% stronger than email and 35% stronger than the social media ads you run. One of the reasons why mailing companies in the USA prefer direct mail instead of emails. It is also shown that 31% of all addressed advertising mail convinced recipients to take action, such as visiting a website or making a purchase.
- Direct Mail boost engagement
Direct mail has a strong impact on engagement or personal relevance. It has 33% stronger brain response than email and 35% more engaging than social media advertising. It reaches people directly at their homes and gains their full attention. Data shows 94% of mail is engaging, while the addressed advertising mail is interacted with four times on average.
- Direct Mail boosts other channels
Prospects who saw social media advertising before mail have relatively low memory encoding, but high visual attention to the social ads. Your prospects who saw mail first had 30% more stay time on social media advertisements. Memory encoding to social media advertising was 44% more when people had seen mail first. With these stats, direct mail campaign companies identified that people who received mail first remembered the brand more from social media ads.
Tips to Write a Brief for Direct Mail Campaign
The mentioned tips will give you a steer on what you should include in your brief, but be sure to tailor these to reflect the requirements of your business.
- Collect background information:
Include all relevant information here to build a better picture by providing a complete and accurate understanding of the subject or topic at hand. Provide information that could include details about your business, products or services, your target audience, current goals, and other relevant factors.
Having knowledge of these elements will enable you to create more effective strategies, identify potential challenges and proactively address them. Further, document the current state of play to guide-decision making, set priorities, and create a roadmap for moving forward. You can also look for direct mail campaign services that can help you plan better, collect detailed information, and get the best out of the campaign.
To do so, ask yourself:
- How do you want your client or customer to describe your business?
- What were the results from previous campaigns?
- What you should know to influence this current campaign?
- Define objectives:
A brief helps ensure that your campaign has clear and measurable objectives that are aligned with your overall marketing strategy. This makes it easier to measure the success of the campaign. Clearly define your goals here, as they will impact all decisions made throughout the campaign. Having a clear objective in place will provide a focus for the rest of the project.
Collect answers to the points:
- Do you want to sell more products, promote services, increase brand awareness, or attract new leads?
- What’s your call to action?
- How will you measure success?
- Identify your target audience:
Determine details of your target audience, what their needs and interests are. Painting a picture of the audience will make execution easier, and knowing your audience will help to shape the style and messaging of your direct mail campaign.
To identify target audience, find answers:
- Who is your audience?
- What’s their age? Male, Female?
- What’s their location?
- What’s their level of education, what’s their income?
- Plan a Message
Identify the key message you want to put in the campaign. What message do you want your audience to know about, is it motivational, informational, or promotional?
Ask yourself these:
- What are the key points that you want to say?
- What message do you want to reach to your target audience?
- What’s the best possible way to deliver it?
- Define the Look and feel of campaign
Within your brand guidelines, address what style do you prefer, how you want the campaign to look? If you have to send the brief externally, then make sure to attach your brand guidelines.
Answer these for clarity:
- What is the tone or persona that suits the campaign message?
- Are there certain colours or fonts to communicate this?
- Are there any buzz words to spark ideas such as fun, bold, or sophisticated?
- Find your competitors
Understanding your competition will provide you a clearer picture of where you stand in the market and whom you have to leave behind. This will help you shape your campaign strategically.
To find competitors:
- Research on who offers the same service as yours and what they offer?
- What’s their pain point, and what makes your offering unique?
- Define the timeline
Before posting any campaign, it is essential that you have a timeline in place. Having a timeline is critical for project planning. Find out if there’s an advertising or publishing schedule you need to track and solidify your deadlines for each deliverable you hold.
To set a timeline, answer these:
- Are there any key dates or milestones we need to be aware of?
- How often should we review and update the timeline?
- What tools to use to manage and track and track the deadlines?
- Planning a budget
The budget will help you identify the scale of the campaign, how much time you have to work with, and what ways you can afford? Collect a detailed understanding of what costs are included in the budget.
Plan these answers:
- What is the total budget for your campaign?
- How will you track and report on budget spend and ROI?
- Who offers the best print and mail services that can help you run campaigns within your budget?
- If the budget exceeds, how can we plan for contingencies?
Final Thoughts
Creating a great direct mail brief can be a daunting task, but with a thorough understanding of the necessary components and the guidance of a direct mail marketing company in the USA, marketers can be sure that their campaigns are successful and achieve their marketing goals.
There’s no doubt that your direct mail campaign will be a huge success as long as all essential elements are included and the focus remains on the target audience. With the best campaign brief in place, marketers can be confident that their campaigns will bring the desired results, the prospects, leads, and sales will be maximised.