According to “A Channel in Transformation: Vertical Market Trends in Direct Mail 2009,” from the Winterberry Group, US direct mail spending fell nearly 3% last year.
Worse yet, Winterberry is predicting further declines in direct mail spending by another 8% to 9% this year.

The financial services industry has traditionally sent a lot of mail in previous years, but they have had to cut back drastically too. Postage costs rising, and production costs continue to rise as well. Therefore the habit of  sending out a lot of direct mail pieces to an untargeted group of people is going to soon be  passé. In favor of small batch sizes that are more customized to the recipient.

Are you still planning direct mail campaigns for this year, or are you cutting back? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Read More about the results at eMarketer

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Being aware of the decision process is crucial to persuading consumers and encouraging buying behaviors.

Back in 1898, Elias St. Elmo Lewis developed a new framework for describing consumers interests through four stages called A.I.D.A.

Awareness/Attention
Interested
Desire/Decision
Action
S (Permanent Satisfaction - key to repeat sales)

In his book, Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Web Sites (New Riders Press, 2002), Andrew Chak applies the AIDAS model above to mapping website visitors.
Using this principle he recommends designing web pages and landing pages for four main user types.

Browsers – May not know what they are looking for; what they want; but do have an unmet need

Evaluators – Are aware of their options;knowing comparable options;looking for detailed information

Transactors - Have already decided to buy, and need to quickly go through the ordering process

Customers – Have completed an order. To ensure there is a repeat sale their satisfaction levels need to remain high to order again. (Important Tip: Continue communicating with previous buyers/customers)

Also keep in mind your sales cycle and applicable time frames. An example would be buying a computer, which could take time to final make the order after deciding what to buy and from where. Using the internet websites are also key elements in driving impulse sales that are short in duration or have low dollar value. An example would be buying flowers online for valentines, etc. The difference is you will probably not put a lot of thought into it spanning several weeks of deciding.

Key Questions to ask yourself when designing your  work flow:

1. Do you have what I want?
2. Why should I get it from you?

Remember sometimes your customers will purchase on the first visit. Others may not, they may return later to continue their evaluation stage before pulling the trigger and ordering. Therefore you must provide clear paths for people to follow: “Order Now” vs. “Compare us to our competition”.

How many times have you visited a website and tried to look for credibility such as return, and shipping policies, secure online order pages, 1-800 numbers, live chat, etc. These facilitate both your new customer ordering now and someone just sizing up your company to see if your website looks legitimate.

Remember: Without having a consumers’ attention (Stage 1) and interest (Stage 2) they will not get to desire to act (Stage 3).

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