Nowadays, businesses are increasingly focused on their digital marketing strategies. However, with so much competition, it can be especially difficult to stand out from the crowd and find your audience.

This is why direct mail marketing could be an excellent option for finding an alternative way to reach potential clients. Read on to learn about the best practices and tips to use for your B2B direct mail marketing designs.

10 Tips On B2B Direct Mail Marketing Design

#1. Understand Your Audience

You need to know who your audience is and understand how to approach this audience. If you don’t know who your potential clients are, you won’t be able to create a letter that will truly pique their interest and make them want to find out more about you and what you have to offer.

Therefore, you should start by doing research into who your recipients are. How did you get their addresses? Have you done business with them before? What are your goals for a particular letter you want to send? Are there any additional marketing materials you are planning to send them?

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#2. Personalize Where You Can

Once you understand who your audience is, you will need to personalize your materials to fit the idea of what they are looking for. The best way to personalize is by breaking down your target audience into segments and then creating profiles for each segment. However, you can go even further than that.

Consider marketing to a smaller group of businesses. This way, you can focus on each business individually and provide them with highly-personalized content delivered directly to them through the mail. Such a high level of personalization will show them that you really want to connect and have a long-term business relationship.

Besides, you can use direct mail automation software that tailor the content of every mail piece. Such solutions integrate with your digital marketing tools to align mailings with online user activity. As a result, direct mail becomes trigger-based and highly personalized to the preferences of every business partner.

#3. Craft Interesting Offers

Having something interesting to offer is probably more important than anything else that goes into creating your direct mail marketing materials. If you don’t have anything special, you won’t attract any business partner.

That’s why you need to evaluate what you have and what your clients need carefully. Then, you can align these two elements to create an offer that your recipients won’t be able to turn down. Keep in mind that different segments of your audience may be interested in different offers.

#4. Focus on Benefits Over Features

Every time you create a new letter, you need to focus on the benefits of your products or services (i.e., your offer) rather than focusing on their features. There are so many alternatives on the market – then why should businesses choose you if you have the same features as everyone else?

Interestingly, focusing on the benefits can present the products or services in completely different ways. In other words, you can market the same product to potential clients differently. Mind this while optimizing your offer for varying segments of your audience.

#5. Appeal to Emotions

In addition to focusing on benefits, try to appeal to emotions. Don’t do it too obviously because experienced professionals will likely consider this a manipulation. Instead, try to seamlessly integrate the emotional side of your offer into the design of your marketing materials.

Mariam Edgerton, an expert from the custom writing reviews site Best Writers Online, says, “Appealing to emotions can be your winning tactic, especially if you use it together with facts and statistics. That said, it still largely depends on your audience. If the segment you are targeting tends to respond better to emotions, then emotions will work better. If they respond better to cold facts, then facts will work better.”

#6. Improve Readability

Readability may not seem like a significant point, but it can make a massive difference in the grand scheme of things. If it is easier to read your letter, then there will be more recipients who take the time to read it.

To improve readability, don’t use fancy fonts or strange color combinations. Use different font sizes to direct attention to critical elements and use bold, italicized, or underlined phrases and words to create accents within blocks of text.

#7. Prioritize Visuals Over Text

In addition to improving readability, prioritize visuals over text. Of course, you will want to include as much valuable information as possible. However, you can still do this if you use most of your space for visuals instead of text.

Remember to show instead of telling. For example, including an illustration of your product with small informational text pieces will be much better than writing an entire section dedicated to explaining what your product is like and how it works. Nobody has the time to read lengthy letters. Respect your audience and provide them with the essential points they need to know about your offer.

#8. Have Multiple Entry Points

Before your recipient starts reading the letter, they first need to find an entry point that will guide them through the letter. To put it simply, this is the place on your letter that catches the person’s eye and makes them want to continue exploring the mail piece.

Typically, it is more effective to have multiple entry points instead of single. If there are several entry points, the recipient can detect one faster. Moreover, if one point leads them on but they decide to drop it, you may re-engage them through a different entry point. Whether it is a headline, a visual element, or something else, make sure you have many entry points.

#9. Show Your Credentials

If you want to develop long-term relationships with your clients, make them respect you. This is why you need to position yourself as an authority in your field from the very beginning.

To do so, show your credentials in the direct mail marketing materials you send. Include information on your accreditations, memberships, and achievements. Of course, no need to include everything, but try to show that you are not just a random company they cannot trust.

#10. Experiment and Try New Things

Last but not least, don’t forget to experiment and try new things with your designs. Even though many trusted practices can make your marketing materials more effective, you sometimes need to break the rules.

Try to think outside the box and adapt standard techniques to your marketing method. This will not only make you stand out but will also help you maximize results if it turns out to be a successful change.

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Inkit Send for Direct Mail Automation

All in all, while there are certain techniques commonly used in B2B direct mail marketing, you should still recognize the potential of experimenting and finding new ways to approach your clients and persuade them to do business with you.

Inkit Send is one of the ways to innovate. It’s a direct mail automation API you can connect with your systems to send personalized and triggered-based mail. Send allows you to include direct mail into omnichannel B2B campaigns and make it highly automated.

Get a free version now to see how it works and upgrade your direct mail campaign now.

Frank Hamilton has been working as an editor at essay review service Writing Judge. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.