direct mail &lead generation Martin Lee on 26 Dec 2006 11:37 am
Why Lead Generation?
Here’s a very good question:
“I have a cold list of 1000 people. Why should I do lead generation by mailing them an offer of a free report? Why can’t I just mail all 1000 of them the sales letter directly?”
If you are not familiar with how a successful direct mail campaign is run, let me explain further.
The first mailing to a cold list should always be the lead generation piece. This piece qualifies the prospects by offering them a free report related to the product or service that you are selling.
The job of the first letter is to “sell” this free report. To tell the prospect that he can benefit by asking for and reading the free report.
Those that respond to your offer are then identified as your “good prospects”. These prospects will then be put into your marketing funnel whereby they will be mailed the free report (which is essentilly a sales letter in disguise 🙂 ), followed up by a second piece a few weeks later, a third piece and so on.
Now back to the question.
Out of the 1000 people in your list, there might be many who will not be interested in what you are going to sell. If you are going to mail them multiple times, you will end up wasting a lot of money. This money could make the difference between a direct mail campaign that is successful and one that is not.
You want to identify your “good prospects” as early as possible and concentrate all your resouces on them. These are people who have “raised up their hand” and requested for information from you.
By having a smaller (but more targeted) group, you can afford to invest more in each mailing and send out more mailings to increase the conversion rate.
Another point is that people who have requested for your information are also more likely to open your letters and read them. The conversion rate will be much higher than trying to make a sale on the first mailing to a cold list.
Why?
Because you are now an “invited guest” providing wanted and useful information, rather than a uninvited salesman knocking on every door trying to pitch his product.
on 29 Dec 2006 at 9:52 am 1.Griffin said …
Great post! By the way, what do you think of Jay Abraham’s book: “Getting Everything…?” What this book fundamental to your business and why?
on 29 Dec 2006 at 9:59 am 2.Martin Lee said …
Hi Griffin,
The book at US$10+ offers great value for money. The first chapter will summarise the content that is covered in the entire book.
Go ahead and download the first chapter to read if you have not done so.