Snail-mail marketing campaigns can be a real asset to your brand, and one of the most important parts of any marketing campaign is an enticing call to action. A call to action is a sentence or phrase that asks the reader to take some form of action—whether it is buying a product, visiting your business, subscribing to a newsletter, or submitting information. This is a very small piece of content, but it has a big impact. Here are 5 key elements of a successful call to action and how to implement them in your next marketing campaign.

Add Incentive

Give your reader some incentive to do what you’re asking them to do. Give them a coupon, freebie, or discount. Make the reader feel like they are part of something exclusive by telling them that this deal is only available to people who have received your letter (not in store or online). If people feel like they are being given exclusive access to something that others do not have, they are more likely to take advantage.

Make FOMO Work for You

People’s natural fear of missing out, or FOMO, can work to your advantage as a marketer. Tell readers what they’ll miss out on if they don’t act right away. Use phrases like “while supplies last,” “before time runs out,” and “don’t miss.” This creates a sense of urgency that will make people more likely to act quickly as opposed to filing your campaign away for later and forgetting about it altogether.

Keep it Professional

Don’t use all caps, make everything bold and red, or add a bunch of exclamation marks (one at the end of your sentence is great, but don’t go overboard). These things may catch the eye, but they come off as spammy and make your business seem desperate. This will make people more likely to disregard your content without even reading it. You want your call to action to stand out, but still look polished and professional.

Make it Stand Out

You want your CTA to stand out visually from the rest of your copy. Give it its own paragraph, change font color, bold it—anything that sets it apart visually without making it look gimmicky (see the above point on keeping it professional). Additionally, you can have more than one call to action in one piece of mail, but don’t go overboard. One or two is all you need, and if you pepper your entire document with CTAs, they will lose all meaning.

Tell Readers What to Do

Make it really obvious what you want your readers to do in your call to action. People respond best to clear instruction when you want them to do something. Do you want your readers to buy a specific product? Tell them! A simple “buy your (name of product) now” can make all the difference. Begin with a strong verb like “buy,” “shop,” “discover,” or “join.”

Have you ever glanced over at a friend or colleagues’ phone and noticed that they have thousands of unread email notifications? It’s a problem that many people face – some people even have special email addresses just to deal with it.

What exactly is this problem you may ask? Well, it is the problem of too many promotional emails. Online retailers pull us in with the promise of future coupon codes and discounts and before you know it, your inbox is filled with countless email marketing campaigns.

Business owners often think that email marketing is an easy decision that requires no further discussion – but when your consumers are being inundated with “junk” emails from hundreds of your competitors do you even have a chance to stand out from the crowd?

How, then, is a business going to capture the attention of current and potential customers if email marketing is not the answer?

We’ve rounded up our top four reasons why your business should use direct mail marketing instead of email marketing.

1. Direct mail marketing has come a long way from the traditional, postcards and flyers. With technology such as variable data printing and things like QR codes, direct mail can be engaged on a completely different level than before. Adding in technological touches can help bridge the gap between offline consumers and those who primarily shop online.
2. Direct mail marketing is way more personal than email marketing – When people receive a physical piece of mail they often feel as if you went to much more effort than if you were to just send them an email. This personalized touch helps to build a stronger bond with your customers.
3. Email marketing campaigns always look so good when you are designing them, but the fact of the matter is that everyone uses different email service providers and the beauty of your campaign can be lost when it does not display well across all platforms and devices. Direct mail marketing, however, always looks consistent and properly conveys your message!
4. Direct mail marketing allows for more copy. With email marketing, less is more and while this could be aesthetically pleasing, often, it will be harder for your business to adequately convey your message to your customers. With direct mail marketing, you have more room for things like customer testimonials, product descriptions, promotional deals, and more.

Direct mail marketing can surpass the effectiveness of email marketing – consumers are much more likely to interact with a direct mail marketing piece than they are with an email. Don’t miss out on the potential of direct mail marketing and its personal experience!

Mail-O-Matic has worked with businesses and associations across Canada and the United States for over 50 years delivering high-quality direct mail marketing campaigns to current and potential customers. We work with each business to create a clearly defined direct mail strategy that focuses on you and your target audience.

Once you begin to see success exuding from your direct mail campaigns, it will be generated in forms of higher sales revenue. However, if your campaigns are being accurately measured in terms of performance, your campaigns could bring more return than you’d expect.

If you’re not sure how to accurately gauge response rates or you’re tired of wondering what the ROI (return on investment) on your direct mail is, this guide is for you. Follow the steps below to learn how to set up reliable tracking methods, determine your success metrics and record the results of your campaign.

Choose Your Direct Mail Tracking Method

The golden rule when setting up tracking for your direct mail campaign is to make sure any point of contact listed on your direct mail piece is trackable. Otherwise, your customers will have no way of attributing sales or leads to your campaign.

Trackable Phone Number

You can easily measure the response rate from your direct mail campaign using call tracking, just by making sure you have a unique number for each mail campaign you send out. Try tracking phone calls in one of the following ways:

1. Set up a dedicated toll-free phone number that automatically forwards to your business line.
2. Enlist the services of a call tracking software company. Often, they’ll provide you with the ability to play back the calls you receive.
3. If you just want to use your regular business line on your direct mail piece, make sure your staff keeps track of each coupon redemption and the direct mail piece it appeared on.

Trackable URL

Include a campaign-specific URL on your direct mail piece that leads to a custom landing page on your website, for example, something like: www.coffee.com/free-coffee. By creating a URL that’s unique to your campaign, you’ll be able to use your site’s analytics tools to determine the number of people who visited the page. You can use Google’s Campaign URL Builder to create a URL that will be easy to track in your Analytics account.

Coupon Codes

Include a coupon code on your mailer that recipients can redeem in your store, on your website, or over the phone. If you accept codes over the phone, just make sure your staff is asking for the code each time they take an order.

QR Codes

You can add a QR code to your mail piece that goes to a custom landing page on your website whenever someone scans it. You can then track how many people visited that unique landing page in your website analytics account to measure response.

Direct mail can be a great marketing tool for any business. Ensure you take all the steps to track your campaigns and measure your results. By choosing tracking methods for every point of contact on your direct mail piece, you’ll be able to accurately measure the response to your direct mail marketing.

Using all of these tips will help create a campaign that really speaks to your customers on a personal level. It will also make you more memorable and create returning and happy customers. Choose Mail-O-Matic as a part of your next direct mail success story, contact us for a quote!

If you haven’t recently been affected by the issues Canada Post faced over the last few months, it may have been difficult to stay on track with the updates that 2019 will bring along. Canada Post has recently announced that postal rates for all classes and sizes of letters will increase for both paper stamps, meter and postal indicia effective as of Monday, 14 January 2019.

The rate will on average increase by 4.1 percent for domestic parcel services and 2 percent for US and International parcel services.

Some key changes that will take effect will go as following:
• Meter price for domestic standard letter 0-30 g changes to $0.87 from $0.84
• Meter price increase to other domestic, USA and international classes and weights.
• Meter price increase for Incentive Lettermail and Canada Post Personalized Mail™.
• Fee for Registered Letter (domestic) increases to $9.50

As per comparison purposes:
• Single paper stamp for domestic standard letter 0-30g changes to $1.05 from $1.00
• Stamps purchased in booklet or coil increase to $0.90 each from $0.85 each

The new postage rates are the first cost increase for letter mail since March 31, 2014. Despite the price increase, Canada Post estimates that the average Canadian family will only be paying less than one extra dollar a year.

For more detailed information in relation to the new affected rates and price increases for 2019 from Canada Post, please visit www.canadapost.ca/notice. You can also contact Canada Post at 1-800-267-1177,

Be sure to keep these rate increases in mind when sending out your next mail campaign, even if you’re just sending a birthday card across the country to your loved ones. Choose Mail-O-Matic as a part of your next direct mail success story, contact us for a quote!