Companies don't write letters. People do.

Image courtesy of LarimdaME

"A mailing with a letter, but without a brochure will almost always outpull a mailing with no letter" - Denny Hatch

Last week I wrote a short post 'Direct Marketing Tip' acknowledging the many learnings available from DM tests. While these little nuggets are widely available, I'm not sure if they are widely used. For a nice example of how not to do it, read the "Dear valued customer" letter here.

So apologies if this is old hat. But if you are new to direct marketing or have not trained in it, I'm hoping this is a useful DM tip:

If you are posting stuff to your customers - include a letter.

Not everybody will read it. But some will. Some will skip the brochure and go straight to the letter. Denny Hatch, a DM author, suggests that the letter is actually more important than the brochure. And if I had to dump one for cost reasons, I'd dump the brochure.

Of course, the brochure and the letter serve different purposes. Your brochure is often the glossy bit from your company but the letter is the personal note from you.

Also, remember that companies don't actually write letters. People do. And I'd recommend that the name at the end of the letter should be a real person's at your company. The days of putting a fake name at the end of a letter so customers can't contact you must be coming to an end.