What you might consider a good response rate to your marketing varies greatly but today I'm going to share with you a method that achieved 37.5% response on cold prospects... which is great by any standards.
The personal letter approach
Writing a personal letter to your target clients can be a very effective way to obtain clients and achieve a high response rate. And I'm not talking about a pretend personal letter that says "Dear Householder," I'm referring to a real personal letter.
Sure, your letter template might be similar for each person but you need to personalise it as much as possible... and in ways a computer couldn't possibly do it. Your recipient is going to be suspicious about your sincerity so you need to do everything in your power to allay their fears.
Let me break it down into 3 steps for success...
Step 1: Clearly define your target market
One of the advantages of a personal letter is you get to choose exactly what clients you want to work with. I simply went through the phonebook looking for interesting businesses and checked out their website to see if they were a match for what I offer. This allows you to pick and choose your clients very precisely.
During this process you also want to make sure you can find out the name of the person your mailing and other contact details like phone number or email will be useful for follow up. This can be time consuming but the better you target your message to the audience... the better results you'll see.
Step 2: Write and send your letter
Write your personal letter and actually make it as personal by using the information you've learnt about them from your research. I also included an ad that restated the offer I made in my letter and a copy of one of my newsletters that supported what I was saying.
One mistake people make is thinking a personal letter can't sell anything. You still want to be upfront about what you want and why you're writing so there's no point beating about the bush. My letter clearly stated my offer for a consultation using all the best direct response techniques.
Step 3: Follow up
People are busy. While they might read your letter and be interested in the offer it will often be moved to the "I'll do this later" pile. That's why follow up is so important and can double your response... it more than doubled mine.
All I did was send an email that also contained valuable information and more of my sales message about why they should meet with me. You could also follow up by phone or with multiple letters. The key point is to do something.
It works... just do it!
While you may not hit 37.5% response right off the bat, this method works. I've tried modifications on this approach and only received 12.5% response. But the point is I received a response and if you continue to develop your message then your response will increase as well.
So start making a list of clients you'd love to have and get writing. You'll be amazed at the results.
Shameless bribe 
If you want to see the campaign I sent out I'll be sharing it with my email subscribers soon. So sign up for the Guide to Great Marketing if you'd like to see exactly what I did and why it worked so well.
