In every door there is a letterbox. Through those letterboxes are your customers, either at home or at work. The post arrives. They pick it up. And there in their hands is your business, your image, your product or service, your offer.

You talk to them. You tell them your news. You make them an offer. You get a response. You close the sale. Then, over time, you keep talking to them. You build a relationship. They become loyal, lifelong customers, buying your products and services time and time again, and recommending you to their friends.

“Yes, but that doesn't happen in the real world,” you might be thinking. Only it does: it's called mail marketing. It can be a mailshot (personally addressed advertising) or a door drop (unaddressed advertising sent to specific postcode areas).

Mail is used by all types of businesses, in all sectors, to acquire customers, retain them and encourage them to spend more. It's a highly targeted, highly personal, highly successful form of marketing that's worth over £25 billion in sales revenue each year in the UK.

So how does it work?

Whether targeting consumers (business-to-consumer) or businesses (business-to-business), mail is a precise and personal form of marketing. It's one of the few media that enables you to know exactly who you are talking to, where they live and what interests them.

Information about your customers is crucial to any mailshot. This may already exist in its most basic form as a list of your existing customers’ names and addresses. Or you can buy a list of potential customers to match your target audience.

Refining your customer information helps to target your audience more accurately for more effective mailings. It can also provide a clearer understanding of the person. What age are they? What income? Are they male or female? Are they avid readers, or into sports and exercise? Do they give to good causes, or are they keen investors? The more information you can draw on, the more precise you can be in your targeting.

The aim is to speak to those who are more likely to want to hear from you, and therefore more likely to respond.

Mailshots, also known as direct mail, are the personalised form of marketing by mail. You have known names and addresses of either existing customers (a ‘warm’ list) or people who fit your target audience and are potential customers (a ‘cold’ list).

Door drops, sometimes known as door-to-door, are the unaddressed form of marketing, where you don't have the names of the people you want to reach. These mailings can be very similar in form and content as personalised mail, but are delivered to areas (districts and postcodes) that fit your target audience's profile.

Both forms of mail can be used individually or together in any campaign, and often play key roles in wider, integrated campaigns using TV, radio, press, web and outdoor advertising.

People respond to mail like no other media. They really read it. Research shows that people can spend up to 10 minutes reading mailshots. They digest the information in their own time and at their own pace, and then decide to act, or not. 

Mail provides businesses with a discrete, individualised environment to get a response from an individual customer. And there are many tools and techniques that can be used to help you get that response.

The first and most important is to have a compelling reason for the customer to respond (a fantastic offer…only available through mail…for a limited period only…etc) and then provide the customer with the easiest way to respond. The very medium of a mailshot offers you the chance to be more engaging, more persuasive and even more detailed in what you have to say and sell.

Longer, more persuasive messaging. Deeper, richer information. Mailshots allow you to set out your stall in as structured and as engaging a style as you wish.

Mailshots and door drops can be created in many different formats and often include one or any number of the following items:

• Letters and postcards
• Leaflets
• Brochures
• Catalogues
• Videos/DVDs
• Samples

The key thing is to exploit mail as an exciting and engaging medium. It is one of the few media that can affect all the senses - sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.
Creative and well thought through mailshots really do help get your message across, and solicit that all important response. The possibilities are restricted only by imagination, budget...and the size of the standard letterbox.

• Why mailshots work
• How to use mailshots