Direct mail marketing (DMM) is the third most effective way to personally communicate an offer or solicitation to your intended audience. Face-to-face meetings and telephone calls are the only two ways to better achieve this objective, but both strategies are obviously much more time consuming and expensive.

The biggest advantage that DMM offers over personal meetings and phone calls is that it enables one to reach (still directly) many more prospects in the same period of time for a lot less money. In fact, DMM is often used to determine who it is salespeople will choose to meet with or contact by phone. Further, it is highly effective on a stand-alone basis when accurately targeted. Being able to directly target one's intended audience is a significant benefit of direct mail and you waste very little money on people who have absolutely no interest in your offering. This is not the case with traditional print and broadcast media. Additionally, the results of your efforts are "highly measurable." This is a huge benefit in that it enables marketers to improve performance going forward based on past results.

The best marketing plan is a balanced marketing plan. A marketing plan that does not include direct mail marketing is not a balanced marketing plan. My clients know, from experience, that the best way (in terms of the greatest return on their marketing investment) to sell something or raise money is through the mail. Recently, on their web site, the United State Postal Service (USPS) revealed that 77% of non-customers reported that direct mail was what drove them to complete credit card applications online. It is a remarkable pre-selling tool that yields amazing conversion rates when used to steer prospects to web sites.

I cannot think of many organizations that do not greatly benefit by using direct mail as a key part of their marketing or fundraising strategy. Today, this industry is continuing to grow rapidly due, in part, to the fact that so many organizations are now using direct mail to steer their target audiences to web sites. More than $36 billion (and growing rapidly) was spent on direct mail marketing in 2006 and it is projected to increase by almost 4% in 2007.

Before I wrote a direct mail production handbook, that you can now gain access to, I asked myself the following question. "If, tomorrow, I erased everything I have learned in the past 29 years of producing mailings for others, where would I go to re-learn all that knowledge to be able to get a perfect mailing out in two weeks?" The resource I referenced above is my answer to that nightmare. It could very well be the way you can change your life in a very positive way, very quickly.

Armed with good information, based on the experience of someone who has made it work for them, you will know whether or not you have the interest level and aptitude to make a successful and fulfilling life in the direct mail world.

Should you do your due diligence and decide this business is for you, I sincerely wish you many successful mailings with your newly found base of knowledge. Most importantly, I hope you come to enjoy the mailing process as much as I do. It's great to be great at something, particularly when you can make lots of money doing it.