Marketing executives everywhere are looking for the silver bullet of direct marketing emails; the sort of beautifully crafted, phrase-perfect message that makes it through the spam filter and inspires direct action.

But the truth is there is no silver bullet, just thorough research and a perfect writing style that chimes with your audience and means they will choose to work with you. Get the basics on point and everything else will happen.

But before you plunge head first into creating your mailout, you’ll need to spend some time strategizing and planning over subject line, content and even the best time to send an email to your target audience, assuming you know exactly who your audience are. So in this blog, we take a look at six questions you need to answer about your direct marketing mailouts.

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How well do you know your audience?

There’s no point even starting a direct mail campaign until you’ve conducted some proper research. You’ll need to know everything about your potential audience and what makes them tick, from the time they start reading their emails on the train in the morning to their favourite restaurant and social media hangouts.

You will be creating what’s known as an avatar. Filling in the blanks about your ideal customer. You’ll have a name, age, family status and the type of job they do and income they attract. You’ll know how they’re likely to vote and the kind of problems that keep them up at night. You’ll know if they favour animal charities over human ones and what they do to keep fit. In short, you’ll know your customer almost as well as you know yourself and that will be the secret to creating mailouts that speak directly to their hobbies, interests and needs.

How will you achieve this? Through surveys, paid research and statistics and talking to your audience. You’re going to need to do a lot of research so get on the phone, fire up your power dialer and get going.  Failure to do the research will show and will result in failure time and time again.

How relevant is it?

Much of this question can be born out in how well you’ve researched your market. You need to ensure that the subject line before anything else is relevant to your reader and hitting home as soon as It appears In the inbox. Without a subject that means something to your reader you’ll fail to have them engage with the next step and open your email, which might ultimately lead to answering your call to action.

Win this by delving deep into your market research and by following trends, keeping up on social media with the content that engages your key audience and leveraging it in an email. Once you know what makes your customer tick, you’ll stand a better chance of ticking those same boxes and getting their attention right away.

How right is your writing?

You probably have a great idea of what doesn’t work so avoid shouty, capped up language and find a style that appeals without being too intrusive and demanding. You’re looking for that perfect balance of persuasion without nagging or whining. You’ll need to look at the sort of messages and content your audience already engages with and mimic that same voice where appropriate.

The only way you’ll achieve this is by learning what does and doesn’t work. So, take a look at the marketing emails in your own inbox and see which ones you’d be likely to click on and which would be sent straight to the junk folder. Finding a tone that reflects your brand and your marketing aims is for the professionals so work on getting that right from the very start of the process.

Are you clear in your call to action?

What is it that you’re asking your customer to do? Whether you want them to sign up to your newsletter, take part in a survey or visit a specific web page, make that call very clear. You’ll also want to consider how to make the process as obvious as possible with many options on how to get there, not just a button hidden at the bottom of the email.

Give your reader the chance to engage with clear, well thought instructions and don’t make them work too hard in finding a way to do just that.

How are you grabbing the reader’s attention?

The answer initially will be with a subject line that leaps off the page. You might include a special offer, hint at an amazing piece of celebrity gossip, suggest some celebrity endorsement or ask a question that simply begs your reader to open the email and find out. Be clever with considered use of emojis or pictures, be relevant, be funny and be bold but don’t, whatever you do, be boring.

Your reader needs to know that they will be rewarded for taking the time to open your email, so make that subject line a tantalising first glimpse of what they might discover if they take the next step and click open. If you are an already established brand, use that existing recognition to help persuade your reader there’s more to discover about you, some latest news or an amazing offer.

How have you tested your draft?

When you’ve spent so long working through your subject line and email body, had it designed perfectly and feel that you’ve captured the tone just right, the last thing you need are errors.

Make sure you send your email draft to colleagues across the board to test out. They’ll be looking for spelling, grammar and syntax errors as well as links that go nowhere and images that fail to download. It might be that what looks great on an Explorer powered email looks terrible on other platforms so make sure to have your email opened across different software for the full effect.

You only get one shot at making your email marketing work so don’t send out anything you’re not 100% sure about. If your customers see mistakes, it runs the strong risk of being binned. Not only does it give your brand a bad reputation, it also looks like a fake, or even worse some kind of phishing email scam. Get it right first time.

If you’re unsure about your grammar or you want to double check that you’ve got things right, then make sure to use an online spelling and grammar tool as well as the sharp eyes of your colleagues for a belt and braces approach.

Getting marketing right and hitting the mark every time can feel like an artform or maybe even a bit like magic. Have all the ingredients and you hit the spot right away but miss out something small but vital and it’s instant failure.

The great thing about direct mailouts is that they do work. You might just raise your brand awareness or you might translate a call to action into an actual sale or something in between the two. Spending time getting it right is well worth the time and trouble it takes to carry out the research. And that really is the foundation that underpins the process, research. To talk to your customers, you have to know your customers. Spend the time and the money finding out what motivates your email readers. Create those avatars and find a strategy that once delivered, can only have the effect of making your customer fully engaged with your brand. You only get one shot. Make it happen.