A few years back we were marketing a specific type of packaged creative service through our dm consultancy. The service had wide ranging benefits for all industries. As a testing exercise we decided to hone in on one industry and see what happened.
We sent out prospecting letters to businesses in a specific industry inviting them to take part in a free initial consultation.
The letters flagged them as being in (lets call it) Industry X.
It addressed the specific marketing challenges that businesses in Industry X face and how we could specifically increase their results.
It included testimonials from Industry X clients AND it also included some examples of specific results achieved by Industry X clients.
The result … after telephone follow-up we achieved a whopping 54% appointment rate off a cold list.
To compare results we also sent the same letter in a generic format to a generic list. With telephone follow-up it pulled 18%.
What’s more, with the Industry X letter the conversion rate from appointment to sale was much higher too.
Here are the results from 100 letters mailed to each market.
Targeted List
-Response with no follow-up: 27
-After follow up call: 27
-Total responses: 54
Generic
-Response with no followup call: 10
-After follow up call: 8
-Total responses: 18
Interestingly, the following year we decided to run the same campaign.
This time we decided to use the Industry X mailer as a control and test market to another industry where we had some expertise but not as much as with Industry X.
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The result?
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Responses were about half that of the Industry X campaign but still more powerful than the generic campaign. We figured that this was because we didn’t have quite as many industry-specific testimonials or success stories to use in the piece.
If your top 20% of clients are predominantly in the same industry or have something specific in common, target potential clients who have this “common trait” and address these common traits in your direct mail and in your print ads.
You’ll find that this generates a much more powerful return on your marketing dollar.
Kris Mills of Words that Sell ( http://www.wordsthatsell.com.au/ ) is a top selling copywriter, trainer and author of numerous how-to guides including Proposals and Tenders (Bids) that Sell. Kris has also produced a FREE ebook entitled “11 Bid Writing Sins and How to Avoid Them”. To arrange a FREE copy, visit:http://www.wordsthatsell.com.au/tendersebook.htm
