Direct Mail Marketing is a Rifle, Not a Shotgun, Says Direct Response Advertising Services Company

When I served in the British Special Forces, I learned a lesson from a sniper that applies directly to your success at direct mail marketing.

I had a buddy in my Reconnaissance Troop who could kill a man at 800 metres with one bullet, even if the man was walking. Scottie was a sniper. His motto was the motto of all snipers, “One round, one kill.”

The job of a sniper in wartime is to kill specific people at specific places at specific times. Snipers don’t engage all the enemy on all fronts. Instead, they are given orders to kill “high-value targets.” And they are expected to kill those people with one shot from a concealed position. They shouldn’t expect a second chance. Which means each bullet (each “round”) has someone’s name on it, so to speak.

I remember Scottie whenever I am talking with a client or prospective client who wants to use direct mail to reach the masses. Someone who wants to use direct mail as a shotgun so that everyone in its path receives the sales pitch.

But direct mail marketing isn’t mass marketing. It’s a sniper rifle. With a sniper scope mounted on top. Direct mail marketing is all about putting one individual in your crosshairs and firing one message at that person. Newspaper advertising targets the masses. Direct mail marketing targets one individual.

Direct mail is too accurate a weapon to be used simply for raising awareness. And it’s too expensive to use to reach the masses, since most individuals in the masses will never buy from you.

So your first job as a direct mail marketer is to segment your market. Narrow your focus to those individuals who want and can afford what you are selling. They will usually fall into different groups.

One group might be chief operating officers at non-profit teaching hospitals in cities of 400,000 people or greater, at hospitals with more than 700 beds.

Another group might be chief financial officers at rural hospitals that have 200 beds or fewer, and that are operated as corporations.

Your next job is to narrow your offer. Your offer for the chief operating officer at the large, non-profit, urban hospital should be different from your offer for the chief financial officer at the small, for-profit, rural hospital. Their needs are different. So your messages and offers must be different. Each market segment gets a different bullet.

Using direct mail as a sniper rifle instead of a shotgun means you will mail fewer packages to fewer people. Which means your cost to reach each individual will be higher. But it also means your response rates will be higher. And your cost per sale, and your cost per qualified lead, will be lower. That’s the beauty of one shot, one sale.