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

Especially since it is written by a web designer. Let me explain......

Rescue Your Web Site from Boring Words and Poor Design.

The difference between a successful website design and a site that brings in zero or very little business is not how nice graphics are, not colors you choose. It's not flashy animation, and it's not your precious company logo.

I'm not saying to remove these elements. Some of them are important. But they're mostly ego-driven. They are "me" messages, and have absolutely nothing to do with what you want your visitor to do.

And what is that you ask? The answer is of course. You want your visitors to buy something.

People who are considering doing business with you are only interested in one thing; "What's In It For Me?"

One of first steps toward a successful website is writing copy that tells reader what's in it for him, in a style that is easy to read.

Make More Cash

Study any website that makes money and I promise you'll see following copy elements in place:

In main body copy, text color is always black with a white background, making it easy to read. This should be obvious, but it's amazing how many websites out there do not follow this very basic guideline.

Testimonials, and other secondary elements commonly use a contrasting font such as courier, courier new. The background in light blue, beige, or yellow shade to make it stand apart from white background of main body copy.

Verdana is most widely used font for your body copy. This font was actually developed for use in web. Times New Roman, Arial, and Georgiana are also popular. Never use more than two different font faces in your sales copy.

The use of yellow highlights, italics and bold font-style for emphasis.

Headlines and Subheads are usually a contrasting color from black body text. A shade of red, dark green and dark blue are good colors. However, do not use more than three or four different colors.

Sentence and paragraph font size is commonly between 8pt. and 12pt. Never smaller than that, and never bigger.