The most important ingredient in a successful direct mail campaign is repetition. If your audience sees your message enough times, they will begin to remember you and associate you with the business you're in. But there's another reason repetition is important: most direct mail pieces end up in the garbage before they're even looked at. So if you send your marketing message enough times, you will eventually get noticed by everybody.

Getting noticed is the hardest part. A strategy to actually get noticed is the most valuable thing you can harness in a direct mail campaign and this article will outline one of the best kept secrets; a secret you can use immediately in your own business. Keep in mind that just getting noticed is the primary objective behind direct mail.

You've undoubtedly noticed a wide variety of approaches, just by looking in your mail slot. Companies print information on the outside of the envelopes, trying to entice you to open it up and read the contents. Messages are printed in bright colors, trying to get your attention amidst a sea of competitive pieces. Some even use artificial stamps to make it look like the envelope was individually addressed by a real human being.

As it turns out, there is one size of envelope that gets opened far more than any other, and it's the greeting card envelope. Greeting cards are a different shape from the traditional #10 letter envelope and everybody loves getting cards in the mail. So, sending a greeting card that includes your marketing message is one of the best ways of getting your mailer opened.

Do the math with me. If you send something out to 1000 people but only 5% of the envelopes get opened, your actual audience is only 50 people. But if you send out 100 cards and 75% of them get opened, you're actually reaching 25 more people with one tenth the cost. Although specific statistics are difficult to get, greeting cards get opened far more than regular envelopes.

There is one category that gets opened even more than greeting cards and that's greeting cards send near someone's birthday. People are more likely to open a birthday cards than any other type of mailer. Admittedly, birthdays only come around once each year and repetition requires more than once annual mailers, but a birthday mailer has the greatest potential for getting opened by its recipients.

Birthdays are also a great time to recognize those people on your list who have given you business or referrals. In either case, a birthday card is a perfect place for a gift certificate or some other token of your appreciation. Everybody likes being remembered and receiving birthday cards in the mail. At the very least, your card will be opened and remembered.

The trick behind a campaign like this is determining their birthday. For some professions including medical, insurance and mortgage, birthdays are included in the application process so a birthday campaign is easy to start. For other professions, you'd have to begin a program to accumulate birthdays and that can add another step to an already cluttered schedule. But believe me; sending birthday cards to your clients is one of the best ways of to get your message out.