So, you have something you want to sell. It may be a product, a service, or a cause. It could be a membership, a subscription, or a motor car. It might be paper, health products or idea that humane society or Alzheimer’s association is worth giving money to. It could be computer equipment, hand-sewn dolls clothes or garden gnomes.

Whatever it is you are selling, you need to let right people know you’re selling it. And one of most effective ways of doing that is through direct mail.

Direct mail works best if you know type of person who buys your product or service. For instance, if you sell to building contractors or pet owners you can get a targeted, personal message to them quickly.

What’s more, computers make it possible for small businesses to produce professional looking mailings at a very attractive price. They make it possible to select names from mailing lists by demographic classification, frequency of purchase or by amount of purchase. Computers allow every letter in a mailing to include name of addressee, not just salutation but several times throughout body of letter.

Here’s some tips that will help you make your campaign more effective…

Always include a letter in your mailing

This may sound obvious but many mailings only contain a brochure. This is a mistake. There’s a saying “Brochures are sent by companies, letters are sent by people.” You need a letter because a letter is personal. And because letters persuade people to buy.

Get your letterhead right

What paper, layout and design you use are very important. I recommend you steer clear of official company letterhead and design something more appropriate to your message. If you want people to telephone, make your phone number stand out. If you want them to visit your web site, do same. Your address is less important because even if you want people to reply by mail they’ll expect a reply paid envelope. Don’t put fax and telephone together – it’s confusing for people. Avoid using telephone numbers using letters such as, 1-800-OUR SHOP. If you absolutely must use this type of number make sure you place numeric number close by.

Write long letters

The web is a most versatile and often misused medium for direct marketing. In this email, I will share tips and techniques to make web a major advertising tool for your sales and marketing efforts.

Do you have a website? A Web Newsletter? A mailing list of e-mail addresses for customers? Do you track and test everything? You can use web to get sales in lots of exciting ways which are dependant on technology that’s available at time.

Almost everyone is just too busy running their businesses to take time or to give advertising much thought. This is just crazy.

Whether you budget is £600 or £6000, I can show you how it’s done effectively time after time after time!

So here's what I do when I start working with clients and I would like to offer it to you as a gift now. Have a look at this list of ten great ways of marketing. I guarantee, that nearly all web site owners will not have every one of these simple methods in place right now.

Please pick at least two that you're either not doing, or not doing that well - and MAKE A DECISION to add them to your marketing mix in weeks ahead:

Direct Mail Internet Marketing Email Marketing Advertising Telephone Marketing Direct Sales Strategic Alliances Referral Systems PR Additional Products/Services

We will tackle these in order

Direct Mail

Direct mail is often overused and badly done. It’s got a bad reputation over years, mainly due to spammers, used instead of telephone or by con artists seeking their next victim.

There are a lot of myths and nonsense about mailings. You may want to print this out, because in my continuing efforts to help you reach success – I am about to share secrets of direct mail - I’d be surprised if contents of this mail does not save you thousands of pounds over next 12 months.

By way, if you are totally new to Direct Mail - “It’s anything sent by post, sales letters, electronic mail or brochures etc”

I want to dispel some things about DM to you. “Direct Mail doesn’t work” . This ingenious conclusion is arrived at by fact that most people throw most of mail we get directly in bin - therefore thinking is that it's a waste of money. The truth is that 90 out of 100 people might throw your mailing in bin, but if 5 people look at it, 5 more read it and one of those 5 buys from you - you may well have a highly profitable mailing.

Last week I sent 400 emails to potential clients, and got 37 replies. That’s to say that 37 people actually read my mail, and I got exactly 9 new clients as a result.

Now what would happen if I doubled my mailings next week? I could expect from 800 mails, about 80 replies and maybe 20 sales!