With an ROI of $27 for every $1 spent, do you really need anything more than postcard mailers?
They’re one of the most effective ways small businesses can market themselves and yet you don’t just stumble into incredible results like this with zero planning.
No sir, you are going to need a full-fledged strategy, and that’s why we’re kicking off the first in our three-part series with planning your two biggest resources: your customers and your budget.
1. Identify your customer
One of the biggest advantages of using a direct marketing system is that you can target customers in whatever market you choose. Unlike digital campaigns, you have full control over which living, breathing people see your ad.
To figure out who those ideal customers are, ask yourself:
-Who are my best clients? Think demographics: Is your product geared towards men or women? What age range? Income or education level? Career status?
-Where do they live? ProspectPLUS! gives you options when it comes to figuring out where your targets live. You can use:
- Geo-location targeting (Map My Mail)
- Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)
- Profile targeting by Nielsen PRIZM (Nielsen PRIZM)
- Demographic targeting (Demographic Search).
In addition, if you’ve run successful campaigns in certain areas in the past, you can reuse your mailing lists and simply upload them.
–How do they buy? You will also need a grasp on your customers’ purchasing behavior. What sorts of call-to-actions (CTA) have your prospects responded to? Do they prefer talking on the phone, browsing your website, or visiting your store? Study the data from your previous marketing campaigns to understand exactly what drives your customers to spend. This will determine how to craft compelling campaigns that lead to real results.
2. Identify your budget
Postcard marketing can be used to build your business in more ways than one and the more you invest, the more you take advantage of psychological principles like the availability heuristic whereby customers see you so much that they start to wonder what they’re missing out on.
Ask yourself:
– Where do I invest my marketing dollars? Just like a good investment portfolio, it makes sense to diversify, but you should bias your spend towards those channels that give you the greatest ROI.
For many small businesses, this is direct mail. It’s easier to target customers, saves you time, and produces high-quality leads. Limeberry Lumber learned this the easy way and saw a 10x ROI and drove $35,000 in sales by focusing on direct mail.
A good rule of thumb is to elect for an 80/20 split—80% of your marketing dollars toward the top channel (direct mailers), and 20% for everything else.
-How much to invest? U.S. Small Business Administration recommends investing 7-8% of your gross revenue back into your marketing, although the optimal number may fluctuate for your particular business. Keeping in mind the 80/20 split, consider allocating 5-6% of your total gross revenue to your direct mail campaigns.
Ready to get started? Log into our web-to-print platform today.
And look out for Part 2 of this series coming soon!