Start the New Year with a Business Development Bang!

Everyone makes New Year’s Resolutions. These decrees usually take the form of “I’m going to lose x amount of pounds.”  And before the end of the month, the resolve is almost always forgotten.

That is often the fate of those kinds of personal resolutions. What about your business resolutions? Those are declarations you might stick with and take more seriously. With some pre-planning you could get the year off to a great start and build your business while building momentum.

So, start by thinking and planning now. Who do you want to gain as new clients next year?  A focused campaign with a series of great mailings with regular follow up could make next year your best year ever.

Give Your Business Development Efforts Greater Dimension.

In my experience dimensional mailings work best when you’re trying to get someone’s attention. Statistics back me up on this. They show dimensional mailings have a greater open rate.  I recently came across an article that reported, “According to the Direct Mail Association (DMA) Fact book for 2013, 65% of consumers of all ages have made a purchase as a result of direct mail.” The article continued, “According to Direct Mail News, in 2012 the average response rate for direct mail was 4.4% for both business-to-business and business to consumer mailings—considerably higher than industry expectations, and surging past electronic mail’s response rate of just 0.12%.”

That’s regular direct mail statistics. Dimensional is even higher. So, just what is a dimensional mailing? Anything that isn’t flat is considered dimensional. It could be bulky or a box. It could be a tube or any size, shape or dimension other than a flat envelope. Anything that has visible height, length, width and breadth is going to stand out among flat mailings. It could be as simple as a padded envelope for example with a pen inside and a message that say’s something to the effect of “sign here and save.”

Dimensional Gives Greater Leverage

According to an Entrepreneur article, “Last year, dimensional mail averaged the highest overall response rate, at 5.49 percent, of any direct response medium, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s Response Rate Report, with campaigns for some businesses yielding astronomical response rates of close to 16 percent. (The average response rate for other direct mail last year was just 2.73 percent.)” 

So plan to get your foot in the door of your most desired prospects with the leverage of a dimensional direct mail campaign. And include little gifts. Those mailings are sure to get opened. Once the door is open, and with good follow-up on a regular basis, more and more doors will easily swing open for you.

Impress your prospects with a well thought-out campaign of dimensional mailings that are relevant. Then finish with a “shock & awe” package that you deliver in person when you are invited in to discuss your offerings.