Ideas
Twelve campaigns Australian businesses actually run, each with the trigger that starts it. All of them share one property: the recipient could work out why they specifically received it.
The test for any direct mail idea is one question: could the recipient work out why they, specifically, received this? If the answer is “because I am on a list”, the campaign will underperform whatever you spend on production. Every idea below has a trigger that answers that question.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
01
Trigger: Someone who bought and then stopped.
A short letter asking whether everything was alright last time, with no discount attached. The absence of an offer is what makes it credible — a voucher says "we want you back for the money", a question says "we noticed you were gone".
02
Trigger: Quotes, appraisals and proposals that went quiet.
Six weeks after the silence, a note that explicitly releases them: "if you have decided against it, that is a perfectly good outcome". Counter-intuitively this is the highest-converting letter most businesses can send.
03
Trigger: A completed job, a large order, a settlement, a renewal.
Written after the money has moved, when there is nothing left to sell. The only letter on this list with no commercial ask at all, and the one most likely to produce a referral eighteen months later.
04
Trigger: You just did work in a street — sold a house, installed a system, landscaped a garden.
Twenty handwritten notes to the surrounding properties beat a thousand printed flyers, because they can see the evidence from their front window.
05
Trigger: Someone sent you work.
Within a week, from the person who received it, by name. This is the highest-return correspondence in professional services and most firms manage an email at best.
06
Trigger: A policy, rate, contract or membership expiring in ninety days.
Written before the competitors get there, naming the date, and honest that they have options. It is cheap relative to the value of the account being defended.
07
Trigger: Something went wrong.
A written apology is one of the few gestures that cannot be produced cheaply, which is exactly why it works. Send it before they escalate, not after.
08
Trigger: A year since they joined, bought, moved in or started.
Trivially easy to trigger from any database with a date in it. Almost nobody does it, which is what makes it land.
09
Trigger: An event, briefing or opening.
A written invitation reads as selective, which is usually what the event is trying to signal in the first place.
10
Trigger: A customer orders for the first time.
No postage, no addressing — the cards go to your warehouse in batches and get packed with qualifying orders. Restrict it to orders worth the card.
11
Trigger: Accounts inactive for a defined period, where inactivity has a consequence.
A genuine deadline — an expiring credit, a closing account, a changing rate — gives the letter a reason to be read now. Do not invent one; readers can tell.
12
Trigger: A new adviser, agent, account manager or partner taking over a relationship.
A handover email gets deleted. A written note from the person taking over sets the register for the whole relationship, and it is the cheapest retention spend at the moment when clients are most likely to leave.
The whole-database mailout. At three or four dollars a piece, mailing everyone is not a strategy, it is an absence of one — and it produces the worst possible evidence about whether the channel works for you.
The discount reflex. Attaching an offer to a handwritten letter converts it back into advertising in the reader’s mind and throws away the advantage you paid for. Several of the ideas above work specifically because there is no offer in them.
Worked examples with actual copy, and what each of these would cost.
How real estate, financial services, healthcare, automotive, charities, professional services…
A direct-mail channel that does not look like direct mail. Handwritten letters and envelopes …
Formats, layouts and message structures for handwritten letters, cards and envelopes — with w…
Work out an indicative per-piece and total cost for a handwritten campaign. Change quantity, …
Send us the shape of it — how many, how long, envelopes or not, when you need it — and we will come back with an exact quote.