By Janet Holian, Chief Marketing Officer, VistaPrint

While it may sound counter intuitive with the relative cost of email vs. offline media, with the increase of email saturation offline media can in fact be a valuable tool to help drive high-ROI (Return on Investment) online sales.

Whether you are trying to acquire new customers or retain existing ones, there are several critical components to a direct marketing campaign that must be considered to ensure its success as an online traffic driver.

Cut Through the Clutter
It’s critical to design a program that cuts through the clutter. Consider using envelopes that stand out against today’s popular self mailers. Try hand written addresses or write personal and confidential on the outside. Add a yellow sticky note graphic to the outside of the package. Using very bright postcards with striking graphics are also effective. It’s important to stand out in order to ensure that your direct mail piece will be read.

Increase Response with a Strong Offer & a Clear Call to Action
The hardest part of any direct mail piece is getting the customer to act on the offer and when your focus is online sales, your goal should be to drive traffic to the site (more similar to a retail store than catalog). In order to accomplish this, lower the barriers to encourage a better response rate.

Be sure to create a really compelling offer to excite your target market. The type of offer is very dependent on the product or service you provide and what motivates your customers to buy. It’s essential there is a very strong call to action with a deadline to prompt your target market to act now!

Target the Right List
List selection will have more impact on the success of the campaign than the creative. Finding a list broker you can work with to ensure that you get the best possible list advice. Consider using hotline names, folks that recently purchased online or other list selects so you have a highly targeted prospect audience.

Do not forget to mail your current customers. Be sure to provide the best offer to the right slice of your database for the best results – evaluate elements like whether customers are opted-in for email, how often they visit your site (in addition to purchase frequency), and the channels they’ve shopped through in the past.

Create a More Tangible Relationship with Customers
Consider sending sample products to show the quality of what you offer – especially in a pure-play environment, offline channels can be used to create a more tangible relationship with your product and your company. Even giveaways such as magnets with your company name and contact information on them also can be effective since they help keep your company in the minds of your customers for a lot longer than a regular direct mail piece.

Test Test Test!
It is critical to test your mailings. Start with an audience by testing to see if they are the right target for your product or service. What works for you offline may be different in an online environment where you have customers who may just always shop through search, specific affiliates, or your email program. Once you have a good list to work with, test the offer to see if a discount works better than say a free product. Once you have the offer down, test the format of the piece to determine, for example, if envelopes work better than self mailers. Learn from every single mailing so each consecutive one becomes more effective.

Analyze Results Using a Control Group
Tying offline media to online sales can be trickier than you think. First, make sure you send customers to specific URLs or if you’re in a call center environment, ensure your agents are armed with the question, “How did you hear about us?” However, as with offline traffic drivers, many customers will just type your site in directly without taking advantage of the offer (think of this just like measuring coupon response vs. incremental revenue in an offline environment). Whenever possible, match back the list of people mailed to purchases on the site. This will help you determine who is going direct to your URL. Keep your metrics similar looking at not only offer response, but more importantly, incremental sales vs. a control group.

Create Continuity with Your Campaigns
While you want to stand out, it’s important that all of your direct mail campaigns have some continuity. Whether it is a coupon included in every piece or a layout that remains the same, the more your pieces carry similar characteristics, the more likely they will make an impact and ensure customers purchase from you whether they have your direct mail piece in front of them or not.

Align with Your Brand
First and foremost, it is important that your direct marketing campaign aligns with your brand. Are you friendly and helpful like Jet Blue, or consistently fast and efficient like McDonald’s? Are your products high-end like Nordstrom, or bargain basement like Wal-Mart? Do you offer something no one else does like Sharper Image or are you competing on price in a competitive market like Staples? Whatever your brand is, make sure your direct marketing materials effectively aligns with your brand promise.

If you consider these critical success factors, you too can have a successful direct marketing program that will drive sales for your organization and increase your bottom line.

Janet Holian is the chief marketing officer of VistaPrint, a leading online supplier of high-quality graphic design services and customized printed products to small businesses and consumers. She has been helping small business grow since joining the company in 2000. Please visit www.vistaprint.com for more information.