CASE-STUDY: How I Used Direct Mail In My Funnel To Improve My Conversion Rate by 19%

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1 CASE-STUDY: How I Used Direct Mail In My Funnel To Improve My Conversion Rate by 19% Alright. In this short straight-to-the-point case-study, I m going to reveal how I ve used a unique snail-mail system in my sales funnel to effortlessly collect 44% of new prospects postal addresses and send a series of timed direct mail pieces that increased my conversion rate by 19%. Best of all, I ll show you the exact pages and pieces of direct mail that I sent with their results. But first, let s look at why using direct mail in your funnel follow-up series works so well Because with open-rates declining, Facebook clamping down closing accounts and online retargeting becoming flooded finding ways to follow-up and liquidate your ad spend are becoming increasingly difficult. Yet the most tangible and impactful style of marketing available isn t being used. Direct Mail. That s because direct mail requires a bit more effort. However, using Direct Mail allows you to take advantage of many marketing opportunities that online cannot.

2 You can guarantee a 95%+ open-rate by using direct mail strategies like hand-addressed envelopes, live stamps and lumpy mail. You can send something tangible that they can hold, keep and use whereas your competitors do not. You can build a second prospect list of postal addresses that allows you to not be reliant on your systems, Facebook ads, or any third party online system that could be taken down. However Collecting prospects postal addresses and using direct mail effectively to liquidate your prospect acquisition cost can be difficult. How do you collect postal addresses? When do you send direct mail? What should your direct mail look like? This case-study will reveal all. Enjoy! What s a Sandwich page and what did mine look like? A Sandwich page is a purposely-built page that has one job, to simply collect brand new prospects postal addresses. It s simple, has one goal and is a gesture of goodwill. Let me briefly explain how my funnel looks and where the Sandwich page sat. My funnel was to get brand new prospects to take the trial of my monthly direct mail newsletter package. It costs per month and each member receives a parcel each month which is stuffed with my newsletter, sales letter swipe files and book of the month plus some extras like interview audios etc.

3 The aim of the funnel was to get people on a 30-day free trial, just covering the shipping costs of Here s how it looked. Facebook Ad >> Opt-in page >> Sandwich page >> Trial sales page >> Thank you page It was very simple and not complicated but the key part of this funnel was the follow-up. To get new prospects straight onto a continuity newsletter by taking the trial is difficult, regardless of how great the copy is. Now, I could easily follow-up with an series and by retargeting through Facebook, Google, Twitter and Youtube (and I did) But I knew that my skills lie in direct mail and by being able to build this into my follow-up would drastically improve my results. That s why I had to find a way to effortlessly obtain their postal addresses to add well-time direct mail to my mix. That s how the sandwich page was born. So, after the prospect opt-in through my standard opt-in page, here s what they see:

4 The Sandwich page had a simple headline; a bit of copy that addresses the reasons I m giving it away for free, a picture of me and the address fields. This page converted 44% of those brand new prospects into giving their postal addresses. However, I m sure I could easily improve that number by simply including a picture of me holding the report. For each prospect that requested the physical printed copy of the report, it cost me an additional Report = 2.40 Envelope = 8p First class stamp = 63p Letter printing = 1.29 TOTAL

5 This took my average lead acquisition cost of the new prospect to 5.65 (with added Facebook conversion cost). So, it was costing me 5.65 to get the prospects address, postal address and phone number. Not bad. As soon as they requested the printed report, my team had a request to send a printed copy of the report, with a handsigned sales letter to the prospect in a hand-addressed coloured envelope with a first class stamp. (Sales Letter #1 Included). Obviously, I have an advantage sending these because I run a handwritten mailing house but you could either have this request go to your PA or team, or you could even set it up to work with my handwritten mailing house if that would work easier (not a plug!). You supply them with your printed reports and sales letters and set their specific address as the Task notify contact. We carefully tracked the link on the sales letter and it was converting 11% onto our trial with the average spend of each trial-taker being four turns of the continuity cog. Meaning that for every 4.40 we were spending on sending the printed report and sales letter; we were generating in sales. Seven days later, another task was created for my team to send the second sales letter. This one was much simpler; it was a short handwritten letter that we had scanned and re-printed that was very personal, honest and emotion-filled.

6 (Attached as letter #2). It was 5 pages, folded and sent in a hand-addressed C5 envelope with a first class stamp. This letter cost 1.36 to send and was converting 7% of the prospects to take trial. Once again with each trial member being worth on average. Which generated a ROI on each letter we sent of 1464% generating for each letter we sent. We then had a third step, which was a printed postcard that was sent after 16 days (from when they originally requested the report). The postcard converted at a very low 1.2% - but it was only costing 72p to send each one. This means that I was generating on average for every 72 I was spending, or 3.64 for every postcard that I sent. That s the basics of the funnel. 3 steps. Letter one 11% Letter two 7% Postcard 1.2% Added: 19% conversion increase taking new prospects onto my trial then per month newsletter subscription.

7 The three pieces of direct mail are available to download in the same download page, where you downloaded this report.