While many businesses think that email outreach has replaced the need for direct mail, that’s simply not the case. Direct mail still provides several benefits that resonate with your target audience and generate more intimate communication. In fact, while email marketing tends to receive an average open rate of about 20%, direct mail can easily achieve up to an 80% open rate. However, in order to get the most of your efforts, it’s important to appeal to grab your audiences’ attention using hot spots.

Hot spots are places where a person’s eyes naturally go when they look at a letter or envelope. When your hot spots are effective, they prompt a higher open rate and can help you get the most out of your marketing efforts. Consider the following tips on how to maximize the effectiveness of hot spots on direct mail.

1. Keep Things Simple

Don’t over complicate your direct mail or digital communication efforts. When you include cluttered copy or too many inserts, you’ll overwhelm your target audience and reduce the effectiveness of your call to action.

2. Use Natural Hot Spots

There are certain areas on print marketing that naturally attract your audiences’ attention. This is especially true on envelopes or letters, where many people first look at the return address, postage, or back flap that seals the letter. When opened, the natural hot spots on a traditional letter are letterheads, titles, greetings, the first sentence, beginning and end paragraphs, signatures, and postscript.

3 .Consider Non-Traditional Options

You can also be creative and create more non-traditional hot spots within your marketing material. If you want to draw your audiences’ attention away from some of the more natural areas and instead focus on non-traditional places, use bold, eye-capturing design elements such as images, unusual fonts, large scale fonts, borders, bolded headlines, or vibrant background colors.

4. Include Hot Spots in Copy

It’s also important to include a few hot spots within your copy, especially if you’re using a letter or something that requires more of a commitment to read. Hot spots within long-form copy allow you to stress certain pieces of information that are the most important. You can achieve this by including bulleted or numbered lists, indented copy, underlining, boldface words, or even handwriting within the margins.

5. Maximize Their Use

Once you’re familiar with a few of the possibilities in regard to using hot spots, be creative and try to use them with your direct mail. You can change the format for different options, analyze their results, and continue using what works. As long as you use natural hot spots or creative design to create your own, you’ll successfully grab your readers attention, increase your open rate, and communicate your messaging more clearly.

On average, you have about three seconds to grab the attention of your audience with a piece of direct mail. Make the most out of that time with vibrant hot spots on direct mail using high-quality printing from Impact Color. Contact us today to see how we can help you maximize your direct mail efforts.