Business advertising

Strictly speaking, a good multi-step mailing will always out-perform a good single step mailing. Let me explain why. People in contemporary America a caught up in the hustle and bustle of life. Every day without even realizing it, we are bombarded by thousands of marketing messages. From the TV in your living room, to the computer in your den, even cell phones, we are being constantly assaulted with advertisements.
A natural reaction to this phenomenon is to tune out, and this partially explains the increasingly short attention spans of most people. People become so overwhelmed with the amount of advertising they receive that their subconscious mind becomes trained to ignore a great deal of it. It’s almost as if there is a wall that we have to break through, and believe me this is really bad for us marketers out there. People are forgetful creatures and selling in this type of environment almost necessitates multi-stage mailings.
By adding multiple stages to your marketing campaigns you are increasing the chances that your message will get to them. More importantly though, it establishes a rapport with your prospect. It makes them feel valued and builds a relationship with your prospect. They begin to feel that they are the ones that are selecting you rather than the other way around. It also prevents too much burden from being placed on one single step of the campaign, and the multiple stages allow you to lower their natural resistance to your marketing efforts.
Another good idea would be to vary the medium that you are delivering in the campaign to maximize response. Here is an example of a sequence I might send. You could try sending a postcard telling the prospect that an important package is going to be arriving. Then a few days later I would send them a sales letter. Then in a week or so I would send them another sales letter referencing the first. Then I might send them an email telling them that I am surprised they did not respond to my offer and tell them I have a special gift (like maybe a CD with a sales message embedded in free useful information) for them if they respond. I also might include some kind of voice broadcast reminding them of the offer at some point in the sequence.
By incorporating multiple stages into your marketing campaigns you will increase the effectiveness of your advertising. If you don’t you are putting a lot of pressure on that single stage because it now has to do everything at once. With a multi-stage mailing you can have each stage perform different functions, thereby maximizing your marketing dollars.