"We want consumers to say 'That's a hell of a product' instead of 'That's a hell of an ad'."
This week we'll look at one of the most important things you need to consider when creating a successful Direct Mail campaign, namely the product or service that you feature.
Some campaigns will be targeted more around the core brand whilst others will feature a specific product or service as their primary focus. It's particularly easy to pinpoint the product or service when it's a launch campaign, however in other instances the selection process may be more complex. In order to achieve success, you will need to define the aims of your campaign from the outset and tailor the messaging and content so that it helps achieve the outcome.
As an example let's look at a Direct Mail campaign for an online casino. If you want to engage people via direct marketing there's no point in just promoting your brand. For visual enticement, you need to feature one or more of your games in order to demonstrate what's on offer.
So, if the mailer is all about the launch of a new game, you're going to focus on that game. At other times, it might be your most popular or recognised products. Casinos based on the Microgaming platform, for example, will usually focus on the well-known branded games, such as Jurassic Park or Terminator, while with something more traditional, such as roulette, the game itself is more likely to be the core topic.
Generally, when you promote a casino it's safe to presume that the product can have a higher value than, let's say, online bingo or a lottery site, because typical casino players tend to spend more. In fact, according to the UK Gambling Commission, the majority of high-spend gamblers prefer either horse racing betting or casino games.
When creating your Direct Mail campaign, the only definitive piece of advice I can give is that you take time to decide on the product or service focus for your campaign and build everything else from there, taking account of target audience, consumer trends, demographics and price point. With all that established, you should be able to achieve the optimum focus with your campaign.