This is why when sending direct mail you should leave it to a professional.

It's cost-effective, costing between .75 cents and $1 per mailing, including paper, ink, envelopes and postage. It's effective, averaging between 1 and 3% response rate. It allows controlled growth. You choose how many you send, and since you know the average response rate, you know how many will probably reply. And it gives you one-on-one attention.

But direct mail is only truly effective if you get at least that 1 to 3% response rate. I've heard about direct mail failures from many small business owners. In fact, I'd say most who've tried it don't believe it works well at all based on their response. Sometimes those responses have been zero.

It's frustrating to pour hours of your best copyrighting into a direct mail letter that bombs. You may feel that not only have you wasted your time, but you've also wasted a bunch of cash that could have been put to better use somewhere else.

But, most of those business owners have committed cardinal sins in their direct mail copyrighting. And their response rates could have been far higher had they known a few things about writing direct mail.

It all starts with the envelope. If it looks like "junk mail", it'll probably be tossed instead of opened. There's no chance of getting your message if it hits the trash can, and that means you have wasted your time and resources.

So, make sure your direct mail letter is opened by making them want to see what's inside. You could:

•use real stamps instead of a postage meter


•take your logo off the return address so they think it's from a real person rather than from a business


•address it in handwriting rather than print


•use a different font than what's normally used


•make the envelope a different color than white


•print a teaser on the envelope
And those are just a few tips. Use your imagination. What gets you to open an envelope?

Once you get them to open it, attention shifts to the letter itself. You have literally seconds to convince them to read on, or once again it hits the trash can. What makes the biggest difference? Your opening headline.

Get their attention with a compelling heading, and try to aim for some kind of emotional response. The stronger that emotional response, the better. Your headline could ask a question. Or it could provide an answer. And it should highlight your biggest benefit in some way. "How to..." is a good bet. "Why" also works. Asking a question stimulates our curiosity, and that usually means we'll read on.

Attract more interest with your first few paragraphs. They're your introduction. If it bores them, they'll stop reading.

Know your target market and write the body of your copy directly to them. If they're women, use words that appeal to women. And if they're men, use words men relate to. Copy written for younger consumers differs from copy for older ones.

Today's direct mail has shifted away from using envelopes because the odds are not in your favor that they will be opened but if you insist on using one have a professional design your campaign. Too many small business's try to do it on their own and that is why direct mail tends to be a bust. Kelnic Corp has over 15 years of dedicated work history to moving the needle in your market, where ever you may be we have had successful campaigns. Our marketing experiences spans US, Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Europe. Our experience in driving traffic is your advantage over most of our competition. We just did a direct mail campaign with our first nursery ever and to our amazement and our clients, they saw 10% of the mailers come back during their one day sale. It is your ad budget use it wisely. With our automotive marketing background we give you the strongest ability to move the needle. Automotive advertising is some of the most aggressive marketing out there and we can take that experience to help you in any industry.