In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, letters invariably outpull self-mailers, including postcards. Your sales message belongs in an envelope for a number of good reasons.

1. Better privacy
An envelope announces to the recipient, private correspondence enclosed. A self-mailer, on the other hand, particularly a postcard, says, this message has been read by all and sundry, including the letter carrier and Joe in the mail room.

2. More personal
I realize that, with digital imaging, postcards and self-mailers can now be personalized with the name of the reader. But they still look like and read like bulk mail. A letter, on the other hand, always looks like a piece of one-to-one communication, particularly when it is hand-signed by the writer and arrives with a hand-affixed stamp on the carrier envelope.

3. Better response mechanism
If you want your prospect to answer a survey or return a business reply card, you are better off going with a letter mailed in an envelope. There are self-mailer alternatives, of course. Double postcards let the prospect tear off one side of the postcard and mail it back to you. And you can always incorporate a perforated, tear-off business reply card into your self-mailer. But these two methods have the drawback of making your piece look like bulk mail, which is death in B2B lead generation.

4. Exclusivity
Which brings us to the major selling feature of envelopes over self-mailers. Self-mailers, by their very design and utility, look like they are mass produced and mailed in quantity. Even when addressed to a prospect by name and job title, self-mailers still look like, dare I use the term, junk mail.

But envelopes, particularly #10 business envelopes, carry about themselves the aura of exclusivity, of a message that is for the eyes of the recipient only. This is especially true when the letter writer addresses the needs of the reader in particular by naming the readers company, mentioning the CEO by name, or discussing mergers, new product launches, IPOs and other events that have affected the prospects company in particular. This cannot be done effectively, or believably, with a self-mailer.

How to get your envelope opened
To make sure that your business prospects open your mailings and dont consider them bulk mail, make each envelope look private, personal and exclusive:

• use a closed-face envelope, not a window
• laser the address (no labels)
• avoid teaser copy
• dont use a bulk class postal indicia
• use a first-class stamp, preferably a commemorative one
• avoid gimmicks, like writing IMPORTANT

2006 Sharpe Copy Inc. You may reprint this article online and in print provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the Author" message).