When it comes to 3D Mail, 3D says it all. A regular envelope has length and width, but very little depth. 3D Mail has length, width and depth. It can be an envelope with something in it that makes it lumpy, or it can be a box, or a mini garbage can, or a bank bag, one any one of thousands of items.
What would you do if you HAD to make your next mailing work? What if you could only mail ONE letter and if you didn’t get a response you would, quite literally, be beheaded?
– Gary Halbert
Why does 3D Mail get such huge returns for those who use it? First and foremost, do you really care why it does? Every great direct mail guru will tell you, it really doesn’t matter why anything you test works, what matters is testing one scenario verses another and using the one that perform better… and we’ve never heard of a direct mail expert who doesn’t advocate at least testing 3D Mail.
One of the biggest advantages of direct mail is how easy it is to measure and test one campaign verses another and measure your response rate and your ROI. The fact is we’ve never seen a single test in which 3D Mail didn’t increase your response rate. The question then becomes, does the improved response warrant the extra expense. Click here to see to see How to Test Your Direct Mail Campaign.
With that said, let’s continue with our discussion of why 3D mail out-performs the same mailing without the 3D item.
Good housekeeping did a survey to find out what’s the first thing people do when they get home from work. They found that the first thing they do is open their mail! And guess what? They open it over their trash can!
You, and Me, and Everyone Else, Opens Their Mail the Same Way. They put their mail into piles… at least in their mind.
The first pile is the “C” pile. You don’t want your mail to end up in the “C” pile. The “C” pile screams to the recipient, I’m “Junk Mail”. I’m from someone you don’t really know, trying to sell you something you don’t really want. Often “C” pile mail ends up in the trash can without even being opened. If it does get opened most of the time you message never even get out of the envelopes.
The “B” pile is the “Well I guess I ought to open it pile”. The best you can say for “B” pile mail is that it’s better than being in the “C” pile. But you still have a huge obstacle to overcome. No one is excited, eager, curious or inquisitive when they open “B” pile mail. If you’re mail is in the “B” pile and you have a great headline you might have a chance of getting a response.
Let’s say you went to the doctor he said he wanted you to have a biopsy on some skin tissue and let’s assume one of your parents died from skin cancer. So the doctor tells you that you’ll get the results in the mail in a couple days.
Now, you come home from work and get your mail from the mail box and you see a big manila envelope from “Skin Test Laboratories”. Do you even get into the house before you open it? Probably not. That’s the kind of response you want your mailing to have. You want your client, customer, patient, member, or prospect to be so curious that they can’t wait to rip your mailing piece open right away.
People are bored with the marketing and advertising they see. And they see a lot of it these days. It’s estimated that most people see over 3,100 advertising messages each day, and that number is only going up.
People love to be entertained. 3D Mail is entertaining and it gets your prospect or customer involved! When you actively involve your prospects, they’ll stay with your mailing longer, and any good salesman knows the more time you spend with your prospect, the more of your story you can tell, and the more you can sell!
When you tie your sales message to 3D mail you’ll entertain your prospects and customers, keep them involved and sell more. People are eager for a ‘personal’ approach to selling. They don’t want to part of the masses. They want to be singled out amongst the throng and 3D mail does that.
Some people will say that “my clients are too sophisticated for such gimmicks”, or “my clients are too smart for that kind thing”, or “that might work with Business-to-Consumer marketing, but it won’t work in Business-to- Business”… Hogwash!
I actually started 3D Mail Results because I have a business-to-business distribution company where I use 3D \Mail. I was tired of running around looking for 3D Mail products. I have one 3D letter that has produced well over $10,000,000.00 in business – yes that’s 10 Million Dollars.
I have another 3D Mailing that was used to sell a $10,000.00 product in a Business-to-Business environment that produced a 3,333% Return-on-Investment! Some of the most successful 3D Mail campaigns have been sent to multi-millionaires for investment opportunities.
Again, direct mail professionals really don’t care why something works; we just want to know if it does. And, 3D Mail works incredibly well in Business-to-Business environments. With that said, 3D Mail works great in Business-to-Business campaigns because people are people and buyers are buyers.
Businesses don’t buy anything! People in businesses buy things! And, as we said, people like to be entertained, people like to be singled out, and 3D Mail is different. It stands out and it creates curiosity. 3D Mail Simply Needs To Be Opened and Read.
Because people are overwhelmed with amount of advertising and marketing they see today, it is absolutely imperative that you cut through the clutter and boredom and give your prospects or clients something interesting and out of the ordinary.
People are so overwhelmed, that they often spend 3.5 seconds or less with information they’ve requested! If you can’t keep your message in front of your prospect, you’re done. If you think that’s bad, some studies show that business recipients throw out 48% of their unsolicited mail without opening it!
Any message that isn’t opened can never be acted on! When an envelope shows up with something inside, in 3D, your client or prospect MUST open it. They simply have to know what’s inside.
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The huge majority of direct mail ends up in the “B” or “C” pile and then the trash. It lacks the power and ability to break though the clutter. It doesn’t offer strong incentive to act, and it doesn’t have staying power. Your mailing must have an impact!
Whether at home or at the office, we all get a stack of mail every day. One sure fire way to cut through the clutter is to make sure your mailing piece ends up on the top of the stack.
If your mailing is in a regular envelope it can end up anywhere is the stack. But what if your mailing piece is in a box? Or, what if your mail piece is in a mini-trash can? Or what if your mailing is in a real Vinyl Bank Bag? Or what if you mailing is in an envelope with a bag of shredded money inside so if it gets put anywhere other than on the top of the stack the stack will fall over? 3D Mail has to be on the top of the stack or the stack will fall over! Neither the mail man, nor the mail room, nor the receptionist can stack a stack that doesn’t stack.
Let’s face it, most days; nothing different, nothing worth talking about, happens either at work or at home. So a mailing that is different, innovative, and maybe a little humorous ends up being talked about. 3D Mail has sticking power. People show it to their spouse, neighbor, friend or co-worker.
Those of us who produce conferences, boot camps, seminars, and conventions have a secret we don’t tell you. Shhhhhhhhhh…. Sales go up when more people hear about your offer. That’s why when you get invited to a conference or seminar there is always a discount for the second person.
It happens all the time. When two people see an offer, one may decide to not to take advantage of it. But the other person sees the possibilities, so they start talking about all of the things they and you could do…. SALE!!!
The same thing happens with 3D Mail. The recipient shows it to their co-worker, or spouse, or friend just to show them how cute it is and the other person starts talking about the actual offer and your sales increase.
But what if the recipient shows it to another person and they don’t talk about and brainstorm ideas. You know it’s not too bad to
send out one mailing and have 2, 3 or 4 people read it.
Sure, 3D Mail will normally cost more than a mailing that is not 3D, but not all of the time. But are you really interested in what the mailing costs or what you return on the mailing is verses the cost? If I need to convince you that you really should be interested in the results compared to the cost, your Return on Investment, you might as well go do something else right now.
In almost every instance, the results from 3D Mail are a better Return on Investment than the same mailing without the 3D item.
If you’re on a marketing budget (and who besides Nike, McDonald’s and Microsoft aren’t on a marketing budget), we’ve never seen a case in which multiple 3D mails to a smaller list hasn’t out-performed one boring, same-as-everybody-else mailing to a large list.
A freemium is a 3D premium gift that is delivered FREE, in the mail, upfront with no obligation. (Example: FREE pen enclosed).
When you send somebody something of value for free, their human instincts kick in. They feel obligated to at least give your mailing their time. They feel obligated to take you up on your offer. They feel obligated to respond. Sending a ‘freemium’ is cuts the clutter, motivates the prospect to respond, actively involves the reader, and has staying power.
Here’s an example of a “Freemium” mailing that has worked very well for us.
Now, with all that being said, here’s one caveat. No matter how great your 3D mailing, or your copywriting abilities, or your offer is, they all mean nothing without the proper list. If you don’t have a good list, you don’t have a good mailing. If you’re trying to sell sandals in Nome, Alaska in February, you’re probably not going to do well because it’s the wrong offer to the wrong group. Click here for a discussion of lists.
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