To everything there is a season.

• Author: Turner, Jim
• Position: Direct Mail Essentials

The time of year when you start your direct mail campaign call have a striking impact on the response rote. While the product you promote may have its own seasonality, the direct mail medium also has its higher and lower response months.

Timing the medium

When you write your annual marketing plan, try to plan your mailings for direct mail's "best" months and avoid the weaker ones.

The timing factors are not the same for every, industry, and in fact, they can be quite different. For example, the retailing industry's best months are November and December, reflecting holiday sales.

But for that reason, those can be very difficult months for financial direct mail. The amount of mail your prospect receives increases sharply in October and November, especially with catalogs and promotions building up to the holiday season.

All those mailings compete for your reader's attention with time-sensitive offers. And, to most consumers, a holiday catalog is more tempting to read than the bank's direct mail (with the exception perhaps of a credit card or debit curd campaign keyed to holiday shopping).

Furthermore, even if the reader finds your offer appealing, the rash of holiday activities can make it difficult for people to find the time to respond.

To avoid the holiday mailbox crush, try mailing early in October with offers that expire during November.

Or, mail early in January, as it's one of the better months for direct mail response. Many banks don't mail early in that month because they wait for staff to return from their holiday and need time to gear up for the new year's first mailing. Instead, try planning ahead to have the mailing ready in December to send in the first week of January.

Also you may do well to avoid August. Typically, the last two weeks of the month leading up to Labor Day is the time when the highest percentage of Americans take their vacation. When they return to a stack of accumulated mail, these returning vacationers usually give precedence to bills rather than promotional offers.

Product seasonality

Beyond general timing Factors for direct mail alone, certain products will do somewhat better during selected time periods, even if they are successful in most other months, too.

For example, mailings for loans, especially home equity credit, tend to draw well in January, both because of the seasonal response for direct mail and because consumers have bills from the...