No, you don’t have to make any phone calls.
It’s a mailing. Or, a couple of them.
Shall we begin?
The best possible list of names you can mail to, bar none, is your house list.
These are your present customers. They know you: they’ve already ordered from you, they like your merchandise, and they trust you. The absolute best campaign you can send in the mail is to them. Unfortunately, this isn’t the campaign we’re talking about here. Fortunately, the campaign that follows works for this group, too.
The next best list of names you can mail to are your own hand-picked prospects. You should have 100 of these names on file – in some form or other of readiness to contact. This is your “TOP 100.” The creme de la creme. The big bananas. The… well, you get the idea. These may be a few of the top major industry players you’ve seen listed in a magazine; some big wigs of big firms who have responded to an ad; or an industry leader who called you just to chat. You know who they are. You might have recognized their name or company, or know them from some of the write-ups they’ve received in the industry news.
Perhaps mixed in here are prospects you’ve called on once or twice. Maybe these are hand-picked names from a magazine article or from a list of “very likely volume buyers” you stumbled onto.
You might even have mailed to these folks already. You may have sent them a letter – or a sample – and are waiting for them to call you. (If it’s been more than a few weeks – wake up, baby, they ain’t. Your mailing flopped.) Now you’re wondering what to do next. Keep reading…
Your TOP 100 is a hot list. The key is to make it produce just one order – which in itself would be large enough to make the entire mailing profitable. And that’s what we’re talking about – a list of prospects so valuable that if just one of them orders, it would pay for the entire promotion and then some. It’s like selling 747s: it may cost you a bit in marketing, but if you get one lead, or you sell just one plane from that mailing…
Don’t have a TOP 100 list on hand? Shame on you! Create it. Dig, I mean really dig for the absolute best prospects you can find. Since this program doesn’t entail calling prospects on the phone, include a few really big – if unlikely – accounts you’d like to have. You never know who’s going to call you with an inquiry or ask for a sample — or place that order for 10,000 units.
If you don’t know who your TOP 100 best prospects are, think about it. If you could sell your product to anyone, in any firm, in any position – who would you absolutely want to approach? Where would your best sales most likely come from? I’m talking big sales here – someone who will buy your product in quantity. Put them on the TOP 100 list. Reactivate some of your better, older prospects who had an interest at one time. Never did close them, did you? No matter, today’s a new day.
Now you can activate – or re-activate – this group, without calling them. And without costing a lot of money.
Here’s Exactly How:
Kindly recall from the beginning of this article the best plan of all time is to mail to your house list of current customers. Well, the second best campaign is to mail to your hand-picked prospect list. (If you have more names, all the better! ) The campaign takes place over the next four months. You’re going to mail something to each prospect every three weeks. Six small pieces. That’s the plan. Simple, isn’t it?
And this should make it simpler. The first mailing is a letter. A personalized letter that talks to the recipient, one person at a time. While the mailing may go to 100 people, each recipient thinks he or she is the only one receiving it. Make it personal.
And keep it personal: most of the mailings in this campaign are personalized letters. While you can throw a postcard into the mix if you like, personal letters are one of the most effective selling tools you can use. With a well-written series of six letters, there isn’t much you will have missed. Your audience will either respond to your message – or you can pretty much take them off the list.
I know the hardest part of any letter is getting started. So here’s a few opening lines I’ve scribbled to help you get warmed up:
“I know you’ve never done business with my company, but we manufacture a product I know will be of excellent use to your firm.”
“Your name was mentioned in an article in ____ Magazine as the person who”
“Congratulations. You’ve made it to the top of our list. Of all the businesses in the world, we’d like to do business with yours the most. Here’s what we offer:”
“In my study of our industry, your firm stood above all others”
“Please allow me just a moment – and the privilege – of showing you”
Your letter continues: “Over the next several months I’m going to show you something you hardly ever get to see: a firm that is willing to prove how much your business really means to us. You’re going to see absolute proof of our diligence, and the dedicated attention we show to the smallest detail of caring about each of our customers. And you won’t have to lift a finger to see this.”
Then, every three weeks mail a letter to each prospect on your list. Stay in that same friendly copy platform. Each letter ensures that you draw closer to your objective, whether it’s to gain attention, stay in top-of-mind awareness, set up for a phone call they’ll be getting from you, have them call you, or sell directly. Whatever you want, whatever your objective, each letter should continually point the series of letters in the direction you’d like the campaign to go.
Always encourage a phone call to you or your firm. Set it up so that if your prospects want to opt into an early buy, they can. If you can get an early sale, so much the better. But don’t bet the ranch – larger sales are hard enough to close in person, let alone from a few sheets of paper in your first mailing.
Enclose a postage-paid reply card if possible. Don’t have a reply card permit? Include a postcard with a live stamp on it. This will cost you $25 for 100 post cards but, if they don’t send it back, it’ll drive them nuts trying to figure out what to do with a postcard addressed to you with a live stamp on it.
Primary Objective
Besides successful avoidance of cold phone calls and their accompanying rejections – your letter campaign allows you to establish a different set of objectives for each individual letter.
Face it, any large sale – more likely than not – isn’t going to come from just a single letter. So my first choice for a campaign objective – at least for the early letters of the series – is to simply get the attention of the TOP 100 people and to establish trust and rapport. Entice readers to call in letters that are sent later in the series, where the “sell” becomes a little harder.
“Over the past several months I’ve tried to show you we offer excellent service and a fine product line. I’ve tried to prove we’d be an excellent firm with which to do business. Now, I’d like to ask you the favor of a phone call. While I don’t expect you to buy our products – just yet, anyhow – a little encouragement/feedback to let us know we are in your bidding loop would be appreciated and encouraging.”
If they don’t buy, don’t get discouraged. Even though it’s a thorough campaign, it’s still just a few sheets of paper. It’s your best shot to make a sale without a phone call or a personal visit. Your prospects will get to know your product and why they would benefit from owning one. Through your letters they’ll get to know you, your products, and your firm. This could prove more valuable over time than a quick sale.
Setting a Secondary Objective to the Letter Series
Strangely enough, the objective of your letters doesn’t necessarily have to be to sell anything, it can be just to gain the favorable attention of your TOP 100, to set up a favorable phone call, or to schedule a personal appointment. Imagine your objective is to set up a friendly call. What better way to warm up a cold, cold market than with a friendly and personal series of six letters, one of which your customer receives every three weeks? When you finally get your prospect on the phone, I guarantee you’ll get the warm welcome of an old friend.
The obvious objective of the overall campaign is to secure a sale. While your odds may be somewhat low – say 1 out of 100 – it can happen. The… wait! wait just a gol’ dern moment here. What did I just say? Your chance is 1 out of 100 to make a sale? This letter series is sent to 100 people. If we secure just one sale, just one BIG sale out of 100 letters, can we cover our costs? Let’s see: 6 letters, times 100, times 39¢ postage each = $234. Can you recover $234 if you get just one big sale? For a total cost of about $250, you can reach out and touch your TOP 100 biggest and best prospects six times in a way they’ll remember. Maybe even secure a sale. Nice campaign, eh?
Jeff Dobkin is a fun speaker who has written several books on marketing and direct marketing and one on humor. You should probably buy some of his books right now. Please go to the order page or just call him up – 610-642-1000 – and place an order. You’ll sleep better. He’ll sleep better. Thanks.