Direct Mail Envelope Teasers
All of us are familiar with teasers, but most of us associate the term with movies or even video games. Generally speaking, we use teasers to generate curiosity or interest in the target audience by showing a small part of the final product/service/offer.
Although the purpose of teasers is pretty much the same, direct mail envelope teasers are unique from the rest. Unfortunately, many experienced marketers are not familiar with envelope teasers or their benefits.
Hence, we have created a complete guide that paints you a comprehensive picture of envelope teasers. Keep reading to understand what envelope teasers are, their benefits, tips, and guidelines to create effective envelope teasers.
There are even a couple of examples of effective direct mail envelopes at the end of the article from which you can take inspiration.
What Are Envelope Teasers?
When it comes to marketing, teasers consist of short and cryptic content that fills the viewer with anticipation for the whole campaign. Similarly, envelope teasers are also used to pique the interest of the person who views it. What makes envelope teasers unique is that it is exclusively used in direct mail marketing.
Envelope teasers are short but captivating sentences or slogans on the direct mail’s envelope. Although direct mail has a higher open rate than most digital marketing campaigns, it does not hurt to increase your odds of success.
How To Write Compelling Direct Mail Envelope Teasers?
The best direct mail envelope teasers are always concise. More importantly, they effectively provide a sneak peek into what direct mail offers the reader without revealing too much. The finished line or teaser may seem short and perhaps even superficial.
However, coming up with clever or witty direct mail envelope ideas is not easy. Just ask a writer, and they will tell you how hard it is to create concise content instead of lengthier sentences to convey the same idea.
Hence, if you are someone new to direct mail envelope teasers, you would probably need a push in the right direction. Below, we have listed some quick tips to help you create the alluring direct mail envelope teasers.
Tip 1: Readers Often Reacts To Urgency In Your Message
Establishing a sense of urgency is one of the most effective ways to make your direct mail teasers work. By asking for a time-sensitive response from the recipient you can boost your response rate. For example, let’s consider a limited period offer. You can pitch the prospects with that in the teaser. Urgency tends to trigger the audience to take action and significantly help your direct mail campaigns.
Tip 2: Hint At The Benefits
Another great way to get your prospects to open your direct mail is to hint at the benefits you are offering. You can use the envelope teasers to hint at the most significant benefit you can offer them. Suppose you have high-quality targeting and hint at a substantial benefit through the envelope teaser. In that case, the prospect is likely to check out your direct mail.
Tip 3: Use A Story
Stories are not the easiest method for writing direct mail envelope teasers but are very effective in generating curiosity in the reader. An advantage of using a story as your envelope teaser is that you can leave it at a cliffhanger. Such a method is ideal for generating curiosity and saves you the trouble of writing the rest of the story.
Tip 4: Ask a Question
Asking a question is a great way to get your prospects thinking about a product or service they need. It is also perfect for hinting at the content of the mailer so that the prospects know whether or not it is relevant to them. As long as you ask the right question to the right audience, you can ensure that the recipient will open the envelope.
Tip 5: Challenge The Reader
Everyone likes a good challenge. Some like it more than others. Even something as simple as “Are you smart enough for this test?” is enough for the reader to accept the challenge and open your direct mail. However, make sure that your direct mail does have a challenge inside it because otherwise, your mailer could still end up in the bin.
Tip 6: Describe Your Direct Mail’s Content
Perhaps the simplest way to write direct mail envelope teasers is to describe the content of your direct mail. However, you still need to give a value offering and a high-quality target list for this to work. Suppose the reader is genuinely interested in the product/service you are offering. In that case, it doesn’t take much to make them open the direct mail envelope.
Tip 7: Use Interesting Facts/Quotes
Using fascinating facts or quotes in your envelope teaser is enough to provoke a train of thoughts inside the reader. However, the factoid or famous quote you use must be relevant to the content of your direct mail and connect instantly with the reader. The more mind-blowing the fact, the higher curiosity it generates. And therefore, the higher the chance of them opening the mailer.
Tip 8: Don’t Use A Teaser At All
After hearing all the good things about direct mail envelope teasers, you might think that your envelopes NEED a teaser. But, the truth is that having no envelope teaser is better for your direct mail campaign than having a lousy envelope teaser. Furthermore, direct mail has a high open rate, and there is no need to make it look like junk mail with a lousy teaser.
Things To Note When Creating Envelope Teaser Ideas
Above we saw some tips to help you create better strategies for your direct mail envelope teaser. However, there are specific steps that you must take to ensure the effectiveness of your direct mail campaign regardless of the approach you want to use.
Listed below are some aspects that you need to consider when creating direct mail envelope teasers for your business.
Think About Your End Goal And Keep Your Focus On That
Before you even start on the direct mail envelope teaser, the first thing you need to do is think about your campaign’s end goal.
Many people often get lost in creating an enticing envelope teaser so much that they forget about staying consistent. As a result, the envelope teaser may not connect with the content of the mailer.
However, it is vital to ensure that you don’t deviate from your set goals. The teaser must immediately connect with the content of the mailer.
Personalize Your Envelope Teasers
Personalization always works wonders for your marketing campaigns, no matter which medium you use. Suppose you ignore the personalization part of your envelope teaser and use phrases like “customer” or “friend”. In that case, your envelope teaser will likely end up sounding generic or bland.
And just like how people immediately hang up automated calls, they are likely to throw your mail in the bin if it sounds generic. Personalization gives your mailer a human touch which also helps you tap into the customer’s emotions.
Hence, it would be best if you always made it a point to personalize your direct mail envelope teasers.
Don’t Be Boring
The whole purpose of a direct mail envelope teaser is to pique the reader’s interest, so they end up opening your mailer. Hence, sounding boring is the most counterproductive thing you can do for your envelope teaser and your direct mail campaign.
It would be best to avoid the age-old envelope teaser such as “urgent mail” or “Open Now!” at all costs. And, if you can’t come up with a good envelope teaser, then you should not use a teaser at all. Forcing a direct mail envelope teaser seldom works in favour of the business.
Ensure The Teaser Aligns With The Context Of The Whole Campaign
Today marketing campaigns are more complex and multi-tiered than ever before. Most companies now employ advanced marketing campaigns with multichannel or omnichannel characteristics. Therefore, you must manage consistency on the different levels of your marketing campaign.
It is easy to lose track of your end goals and marketing approach as your campaigns get more complex. However, you must make sure that the envelope teaser aligns with the context of the whole marketing campaign. In other words, you need to make sure that your teaser is relevant to the direct mail content/campaign.
Test Your Direct Mail Envelope Teasers Before Using It
Unlike an email campaign, direct mail campaigns are relatively expensive. You have to invest your resources and money in implementing direct mail campaigns. Hence, it would be a bad idea to try your luck with a new envelope teaser for an extensive direct mail campaign.
Direct mail envelope teasers’ effectiveness depends on testing before trying it on the field. Ideally, you would have to run the teaser through multiple testing stages to ensure its appeal to your target audience.
Are Direct Mail Envelope Teasers Effective?
The answer to the above question is both yes and no. Why? Because using an envelope teaser does not guarantee that the recipient will open your direct mail. On the contrary, if you get the teaser wrong, the recipient may think it’s junk mail and immediately toss it into the trash.
In such a case the tips and guidelines provided above can help you improve your envelope teasers’ success rate. Apart from the ones we have already listed, some design aspects might help you better present the teasers.
The Upside Of Using Direct Mail Envelope Teasers
Well-written direct mail envelope teasers can pique the reader’s interest and encourage them to open the envelope. It is also confirmed that nonprofit mailings can use proper design elements and colour combinations to make the teaser more effective.
The Downside Of Using Direct Mail Envelope Teasers
The biggest downside of using direct mail envelope teasers is that it lets the prospect know it’s promotional mail. Although that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it still clubs your direct mail with any junk mail the prospective customer may have received.
#3 Best Direct Mail Teasers
Listed below are some of the best direct mail envelope teasers that we have hand-picked for you. Analyzing these mailers can help you inspire envelope teasers of your own.
#1 TD Bank
“Discovering $300 in your wallet.
Yeah, it’s like that.”
Given above is the envelope teaser used by TD bank in one of their direct mail campaigns. Notice how they inconspicuously mentioned “$300” to raise curiosity and imply a reward? Try something similar for your direct mail and check the results.
#2 Personal Capital
“When will I have enough money to retire?”
Personal Capital’s direct mail teaser idea is worth a mention here because it beautifully uses a question format for its teaser. As you can see, a question like that is bound to trigger a train of thought inside the reader. Asking such questions to a quality audience can get you the desired result.
#3 Subaru
“The road may end, but your Subaru keeps going.”
The car company Subaru used the above line in their direct mail campaign. As you can see, one-liner stays true to the brand and its values. Furthermore, Subaru used attractive visuals to make the mailer more appealing to the target audience.
Conclusion
Direct mail envelope teasers can play an essential role in deciding the fate of your direct mail campaign. If employed correctly, it boosts the chance of your direct mail getting opened significantly. However, getting the envelope teaser right is not an easy task.
To get the desired results, you must personalize your entire direct mail campaign, including the envelope teaser. Such personalization, especially for the business requirements, needs the help of advanced software solutions like PostGrid.
PostGrid enables you to personalize your entire direct mail campaign and not just the envelope teaser. You can easily connect PostGrid’s system with your CRM for easy and convenient direct mail personalization. On top of it all, PostGrid lets you automate the printing and delivery of your direct mail.
