How To Steal Customers From Your Competitors Using Direct Mail

July 7th, 2003 Posted in Advertising, After Sale and Repeat Sales, Case Studies, Creating Sales Opportunities, Direct Mailing, General, Offline Marketing

How To Steal Customers
From Your Competitors
Using Direct Mail

“It’s amazing that direct mail can actually make you so much extra money for so little work”

I am now the proud owner of three hand painted silk ties. While that may not make the evening  news, the story about how I got those ties is quite interesting.

About six days ago, I received a letter. I get a lot of letters. And most of these letters are either checks (I like that kind of letter the best) or various sales and promotional letters. I keep the good letters in a big box for ideas, and throw the boring ones in the bin.

Anyway, this letter got my attention. It was personalized in my name. (This is very important if you want results.) The paper it was printed on was exquisite quality and the letterhead looked a bit like a 4-color hologram (expensive looking too). But what really got my attention was the piece of hand painted silk attached to the top of this letter. (This is what I call a ‘grabber’, it gets your attention and makes you remember the letter.)

I was most impressed.

Not only was this a very catchy and up-market invitation to a new store opening – it also promised me mountains of food, drink and … hand painted silk ties.

Something I’ve had my eye on for a while to go with my seminar suit.

Now, even though I was very busy and this shop was half an hour drive away, I called them and accepted the invitation. While I was at it, I congratulated the owner of the store on his letter. I also asked him how he got my name and such a great idea for getting attention.

“You gave it to me,” he replied. Apparently, he was at a seminar I gave about 15 months ago. Since then he’s taken what I said to heart and follows my advice for creating “killer” direct mail letters. Letters that get attention. Letters that you like to read. Letters that sell.  And did his letter sell! The place was packed. And the people, including me, were buying.  Not a bad way to start a new business, is it?

What’s more, the owners were astute enough to also collect the names and addresses of everyone who bought something. This will be the start of a direct mail business for them. As I’ve said many times before, find the market first.  There is no better market for whatever you are selling, than someone who has just bought from you. Let me show you why that is so …

We have two computers in our office. About four weeks ago, I bought a brand new machine.  A 486 DXI 00 with a CD-Rom drive. The first time I used it, I was amazed at its speed.  What used to take me three hours on the old computer, now takes me one to one and a half-hours. It’s as fast as lightning and makes the old computer look like a pre-historic snail. I kicked myself that I didn’t get it sooner… and I definitely couldn’t go back to the old computer again.

So off I go to buy a second computer. An even bigger and faster one!

Now… if the company I bought it from is smart … (which they are not) they could probably have talked me into some software tape back up for all my data, etc.

The scenario I’ve just described applies to anything you sell. In most cases, the human appetite for more is insatiable. The more we have got the more we want. The better we get the better we want to be, and so it goes. Now, judging by the lack of follow up by most companies I’ve ever bought something from – they simply don’t understand how their customers think. And how to easily double their profits.

Which is great for you and me because …

We are going to take all the money they are missing out on.

But how do you take advantage of this? Quite simply by using direct mail and the phone to constantly keep in touch with all those customers you already have. This is much more profitable than always chasing after new customers. In fact, scientific marketing studies prove that …

It costs five times as much to find a new customer
as it takes to sell something else to an existing one.

In our business, we found that the average customer will spend another $150 – $300 over the next 12 months with us – – if we ask them to by sending them direct mail offers. How much do you think they would spend with us if we ignored them, like most businesses do? That’s right, probably NOTHING!

Think about it. We get an extra $200,000 for every 1,000 customers on our database just for mailing them a few letters!  Isn’t that neat? That’s why I love Direct Mail. What this means to you, is that …

If you build up a client list of 5,000 names, they could be worth
up to $1,000,000 to you each and every year forever after!

Hey, be honest. Wouldn’t you like to have a business that makes you an extra $1,000,000 just by mailing a few letters? Well, you can. All you have to do, is do it. But you know what the best part is? The best part is that your competitors haven’t got a clue as to what you are doing, because …

They don’t get your letters!

Compare this to newspaper or TV ads. As soon as you have something that works, everyone copies it. That just doesn’t happen with Direct Mail. It can be years before any of your competitors catch on to what you are doing – and by then you’ve pinched all their business.

Is this getting you excited?  Good. It gets even better!

By understanding that each new customer is worth $200 per year extra to you, you can actually lose money on the initial sale, and still make off like a bandit in 12 months. This is very significant to understand. Once you know how much extra a customer is worth to you, you can run all sorts of ads, send letters and press releases which, although not profitable initially, will pay off handsomely over the next 12 months and beyond.

99% of your competitors wouldn’t have a clue about this. But it really works.

How else do you think, can all those book and CD clubs offer their amazing “choose any four CDs for $5”? They can do it because they know how much money they’ll make with a new customer over the lifetime of their business relationship. They have been doing it for decades and it still works.

There are only three reasons why direct mail fails to work.

#1.    The first is that you send it to the wrong market. Such as offering $6,000 trips to Alaska to the people on the Social Security list.

#2.    The offer is wrong. If what you offer is not attractive to your chosen market, it won’t sell.

#3.    And the third is that your letters are so boring that no one wants to read them.  Usually, if you can get someone to read the first two paragraphs of your letter, they’ll read the whole thing. That’s why good headlines are so important.

Just think of the letters and ads you see. Which ones get your attention and which ones hit the bin?  That’s the same treatment others give to your ads and letters.

Buffer