The first thing that many companies rightly ask is: Does it work? That’s a difficult call to make. However, if you spend four hours creating a mail blast and send it to 10,000 addresses and get a 2% response rate – 200 companies that is a fair return on your labor.
That is 200 prospective clients, and if you can close 10% of them, then you have 20 new customers. However, if you do it badly and annoyingly, then you have potentially turned off 10,000 potential clients!
The rate of return can be relatively low because many companies are dealing with a non-targeted mailing list. And a significant number of firms do not even bother to qualify the firms they are direct mailing to by carrying out a simple check on whether they really are potential clients. If you are sending your mail to people who are not likely to be interested in it, don’t be surprised if they don’t respond and put you on their list of blocked senders.
So:
- Check the firms on your email campaign list are relevant
- Check the address is still current
- Check who the person at the firm you need to send to
- Make sure the text is relevant and timely – Christmas deals in March create a bad impression
Make the text snappy – short and to the point – and then cut it some more. People are busy and need to be attracted in an instant