Hand addressed direct mail get's opened 100% of the time (or close to it)

It's time to get back to the basics. If you have a business, small or large that relies on direct mail as your bread and butter.. then you will want to test the response rates that you receive using handwritten addressed envelopes for your next direct mail campaign.

Yes, it is labor intensive, and Yes, it is worth it.

Did you know that you are lucky if you get 20% of the recipients on your mailing list to even open your direct mail? And that's if you're paying a premium for fancy envelopes, lot's of color, and some cheesy teaser copy on the envelope.

If you want to be sure that 100% (I should say "nearly" 100%) of your direct mail at least gets opened.. then put it in a plain white hand addressed envelope, WITH a hand affixed 1st Class Stamp. Nearly (there's that word again) 100% of your mail will be opened by the recipient.

Now.. the "nearly" word needs an explanation.. these are common things that may prevent the handful of letter's that do not get opened, from being opened:

1. Low quality Mailing list -- the list DOES make a difference. If the list house does not update their mailing lists often enough, you may address a letter to the previous owner.. who will probably never get it if their "change of address" card has expired.

2. Letter gets lost in the mail. Yes, as reliable as the USPS is.. occasionally a letter just disappears...who knows what happens.... maybe it blows away when the mail dock door is opened, or gets stuck in a letter sorter, or just gets delivered to the wrong address.. (I always put them back in the mail box with "wrong address" written on them -- but some people just throw them away ..)

3. I'm sure that there is a small cross section of people out there who do not open any mail at all..you would think that curiosity would beat all of us.. but some remain strong :-)

With all of that being said.. "Nearly".. 100% will get opened.. and really, no less than 95%.

Another reason why a hand addressed envelope will get opened by most people is because it's personalized. Yes, people like to think that someone out there actually cares enough about them to sit down and hand address a letter -- to them personally.

And to top that.. if you really want to show them how much you care.. put a personal note on the inside of your mailer too! So, not only have you taken the time to hand address the envelope to a specific person in a household, but you've also taken the time to write either a short personalized greeting, a handwritten signature, or even a handwritten, "p.s.". (update: make sure you read my other lens on yellow letters - we did a side by side test proving what a difference it makes to include a handwritten letter too)

It really is a novel, well received, old fashioned way to communicate with your prospective customers..and well researched too! It truly adds a personal touch that seems to be missing in today's commercial world.

Here's a scenario that will make Dollar $$ sense to you. I personally own a marketing company that has serviced Life insurance agents for several years now. My job is to get these guys their "leads".. or people that are interested in purchasing a certain type of life insurance policy.
I would contract data compilers that would compile high quality new mortgage lists from the courthouses in different counties across the U.S..
We would scrub the list and send it off to a mail house who would have it in the mail the next day. This system worked like a charm for this particular type of life policy -- it was a very lucrative niche market for some time -- at least until the housing market changed... that's when the struggle began in the life market that focused on mortgage protection insurance.

I had to think of a way to bail these guys out. First of all.. the letters that used to get a 4% response rate were now only getting less than a 1% response rate -- which really is the industry average according to DMA studies.. but not quite good enough for someone trying to take care of their family.

Not only did the change in the mortgage market (which effected the quantity of data available) hurt the industry.. but so did the over saturation of similar types of mailers that the larger IMO's (Insurance marketing organizations) were putting out. The "Big guys" as I call them, could afford to spend millions of dollars on direct mail and were able to effectively flood the market with the same type of letter.. You've probably received several of them if you've refi'd or bought a new home in the past couple of years. They're easy to detect.. the white window envelope will have the name of your lender peeking through so that you think it's the bank and will quickly open it. It contains a plain black and white letter with a health questionnaire for you to fill out. If you've received just a couple of these.. by now your radar detects them as junk and you likely toss them without even opening them.

My answer to this was to try the hand addressed envelope approach.. I figured that if I could do nothing to increase the volume of data (I can't make people take out mortgages).. then I could at least do something to improve the average response rate... so that's how I got started hand addressing envelopes as a service...and guess what --- It works! Like a charm... The ROI on a mailer is where the proof lies. Agents that were paying as much as $100 per lead, are now only paying much less than half that amount! In this scenario.. hand addressed envelopes coupled with a personalized sticky note solved one of the major problems that we were facing in this industry - response rates.

In summary, the research that I had previously done on Hand addressed direct mail was correct.. You can easily double, triple, and sometimes even quadruple your response rates by using a Hand addressed direct mail campaign. If you want to gain loyal customers.. add a personal touch while your at it.. i.e.
Short notes, handwritten signatures, P.S's, and more recently, we've found that fully handwritten letters do an amazing job too!

It really does pay off in a big way. The cost of this service really isn't as much as you would think. We've developed a high volume production method of incorporating real handwriting into your direct mail campaign at a FRACTION of what it used to cost!

Try it yourself first.. If it works for you and you want to contract a reliable, quality Handwritten direct mail service. Please, shop around because there are a lot of such services available now. The success of using real handwriting has opened a pool of services that will allow you to make an educated choice as to which mail service you will use.

I have a small army of people ready to handle any job, large or small. Same day turnaround and all inclusive pricing is available.... and as I mentioned above, we do offer some very unique services that will make the use of handwritten mail affordable.

All inclusive pricing can include but is not limited to.....
Mailing list, Full color printing, Sticky notes, hand addressed envelopes, hand affixed postage stamps, handwritten letters, and more starting at less than $1 per piece!

Let's beat this economy together!!!!

Tanya Johnson, Director
T Johnson Marketing
tjohnsonmarketing@gmail.com
302-727-0339

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