"Use Direct
Mail to Drive Traffic to Your Website, Make Your List work for you.".

Use Direct Mail to Drive Traffic to
Your Website
By Janice Jenkins
Once you have created a Web site for your business,
you need to make people aware of your Web site. Direct mail may seem
counterintuitive, but it can actually work quite well to drive traffic
to your Web site. Read on to find out why you should use direct mail to
promote your Web
site.
It
is more personal than email. When you send direct mail pieces to
someone's home, that piece is actually inside his home, inside his
personal space. This creates a greater sense of intimacy than email
because all you have to know is the person's email address - you do not
even have to know the person's name to send an email! People respond
more to personal, postal mail than to email.
People can touch and
feel direct mail pieces. When people have something concrete in their
hands, like a postcard or catalog, they feel more connected to the
company and the product or service the direct mail piece is touting.
Interaction garners better attention and better memorability.
Direct
mail is portable. When someone receives a postcard or catalog in the
mail with a Web site address on it, they do not have to remember the
Web site address to navigate there. They can simply carry the postcard
or catalog over to the computer, set it down and type in the Web site
straight from the direct mail piece. The portability of direct mail
makes it easier for people to go back to your Web site.
You can
target your audience better. You decide who gets your direct mail
pieces, when they get them and where they get them. With television or
online advertising and marketing, you do not know who is seeing your
message and when.
Direct mail is cheaper than other means of
advertising. Catalog printing, flyer printing and other printing
methods are generally cheaper than ads you could run online or on TV.
Because you are reaching a targeted audience at home, you can tailor
your message better. With advertising that is seen outside of the home,
you have to generalize your message for the masses. You know who lives
at the homes you are mailing to, which will net you a higher response
rate because you know what those people want.
People would rather
see direct mail than email ads. In a recent study by InfoTrends, 61% of
consumers said they prefer direct mail ads, which was three times the
number who preferred email ads. People liked direct mail ads that were
personalized better than general ads.
It is easy to ignore email
ads. When you see an email from someone you do not know do you open it?
Probably not. I know I just delete emails that have subject lines that
sound like ads. Or, even emails that have subject lines like "hi" but
are from an unknown source. I know from experience that those are ads
and I do not even bother to open them. But, at home, whenever I get a
postcard, I at least look to see who it's from and turn it over before
I throw it in the trash. That right there is what makes direct mail
worth it - people will see your name and Web site address and it will
become familiar to them. The next time they see your name, they'll be
more apt to read your stuff because they have heard of you. Use Direct Mail to Drive
Traffic to Your Website.
Janice
Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into
marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to
impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Catalog
Printing
buy-direct-mailing-lists.com does not
endorse or claim any of the content in the above article to be factual.
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