Make Your Mailing a Home Run, Not a Strike Out!
No one's perfect, but everyone can send and receive mail. We all know that sending something through the mail is reliable, but there are a lot of things you can do to increase your chances of getting a successful result.
You have to get it all right in that first step, when you prepare your mail piece and package it up for delivery.
Here are some things to consider before you dispatch that next letter, postcard, newsletter or catalog:
1. Use a large enough envelope. No matter what the item is that you want mailed, make sure that the mailing envelope is large enough to hold it flat without folding.
2. Use high quality paper stock. If you want someone to really read and think about what you sent them and then possibly buy something from you as a result, make sure your material looks professional. Use high quality paper stock – not cold-pressed or rough but bright white smooth cover stock .
3. Use high quality ink. Choose a quality typeface, color and size for the address. You want a nice looking address label and envelope design. [If you're using business card size paper, you can use one of the many online tools to do this for you.]
4. Get everything right in the first step of preparing your mailpiece - including postcards and even junk mail – by using good inserts , stamps or label stock . No one wants to open up a piece of junk mail and find it's full of holes.
5. Address your letter to: "Name" or "Company" (rather than "To The Person"). This sets off a "should I open this?" moment .
6. Avoid white space, unnecessary line spacing and all the other things that disrupt the eye's ability to scan a page.
7. Use clear type sizes in your typeface . It takes longer to read small type even if it's perfectly readable than it does to read larger type .
8. Use small caps for emphasis rather than all caps in small size.
9. Use consistent paper color (not greens, reds or yellows).
10. Always use a return address label , even if you're sending to a company or individual. This shows that you care.
11. If you have your own name, don't include it as part of the address! If you are writing a personal letter or note to someone, just put their last name and the word "Dear" or "Name" in front of it .
12. Use text and graphics that are readable . No one wants to read junk mail or bills on a monitor with postage already printed on them. It's obvious this was sent before it was read for the first time.
13. Never use a square envelope for any oversize piece. Even if you have to get a larger, non-square envelope and cut down the excess off one side, it's worth it for the extra attention your mail piece will get during shipment.
14. Use an oversized envelope rather than stuffing things in to try to fit it into normal size envelopes . The opposite always works better – like using large bold text instead of small print . It's not just the wording but how it looks that counts, too.
15. Use all lower case or all upper case or both depending on your audience and what works best for your product or service.
16. Double space everything or use larger spacing between blocks of text if you are writing to a group.
17. If you are sending to a large mailing list, including holiday greetings, make sure your materials look like they belong together and not like the result of a computer correction made by a secretary or other person who isn't familiar with your business .
18. Proofread for errors – capitalization, punctuation and grammar before you send even your most important mail pieces.
19. Always put return addresses on envelopes so that recipients can return them to sender . Even if no one ever does!
20. Never use stickers as part of your mailing order . You have to slip them over the envelope before you print on it. They're no good then.
There are so many more bits of business advice for you to consider, and I'll go into them in future articles.
Mailing is a critical part of our business marketing plan because even if we don't get a single response from our mailing, we can usually learn something about our audience and potential customers that will help us make better choices for the next mailings we do.
No one can possibly know what goes into making each mailing – no matter how much time or effort we put into it – so there's not much point in being hard on ourselves when things don't work out as planned.