It’s been about two decades since I was involved in the American ritual — a vacation trip to Disney World. Now I see, Disney wants me back.

If you’ve ever visited Las Vegas or other resorts, you’ll open your mailbox to find similar mail promotions that offer you special room rates and other discounts as encouragements to return.

Many retailers use the “we want you back” theme to encourage lax customers to make another purchase.

These examples are one version of a classification of marketing called Follow-Up Mail.

As a direct marketing strategy, follow-up mail works. Yes, that includes bank and credit union marketing for both prospect and customer or member promotions.

At ACTON Marketing, we use follow-up mail for some checking account promotions when the client isn’t running a typical six- or eight-week mail cycle. Follow-up mail gives an additional spike in responses for our clients that use our auto loan marketing program, where we highly recommend the successful technique. Also called reminder mail, the technique works for home equity promotions and other banking products as well.

Follow-up campaigns can include phone calls to customers or emails that reemphasize the original campaign messages. For the best success, you typically want to initiate your follow-up plan within weeks after the original message arrives in-home.

That’s why I was at first surprised to see the follow-up mailer from Disney. After 20 years, families age. Kids become adults. People move. Lifestyles change.

That doesn’t seem to matter in the ever-youthful World of Disney. I suspect they’re looking for the next generation of visitors.

Here’s an image of the top inside panel from the colorful, Disney-themed 6 x 8.5-inch folded, three-panel self-mailer that appeared in my mailbox in mid-March.

Altogether, the mailer is an appealing collection of visuals and copy. Nice offers, too, including 30% off the resort rate for most nights. Click on the image to enlarge and you’ll see the copy acknowledges I’ve been a past guest. There are similar statements on the two outer panels (one shown above).

I recommend you look closely at your various marketing promotions and see if they’d benefit from a follow-up campaign. These follow-ups are especially helpful and cost-effective when you run them with high-value product promotions like mortgages and loans.

Of course, shorten the time frame. You may not see much response to your follow-up campaigns after 20 years go by.

***************

Here’s a related topic: When Do You Remove a Prospect From Your Mail List?