Direct Mail Marketing News

Welcome to Part 2 in our multi-part series on how to maximize your direct mail revenue. (If you missed Part 1 on planning and investment, read it here).

Let’s face it, the average consumer is so inundated with advertising messages – from junk mail to billboards – that trying to stand out is a herculean feat.

But the trick to being found and making sales isn’t being louder or pushier – it’s being smarter. Your postcards need to speak directly to your reader, and with these persuasion tips, you’ll master the art of the postcard sale.

3. Design

The design of your direct marketing postcards requires more than a pretty picture and eye-catching logo (although those are important). It takes an understanding of your customer and how they pick up and use your postcard.

For example, what are the demographics of the people who read the mail? What kind of lighting do they read it in? Which hand do they hold the mail in? Where is the focal point of the card, and therefore where should you place your most important details?

Once you have a better understanding of the way people open and look at their mail, you can design accordingly and create visually stimulating postcards.

You can use color and font variations to draw the eyes around your card. You can use the yes-ladder method to get people to agree to several statements on your postcard before showing them a call to action (CTA). And you can use psychographics and knowledge about how your customers speak to tailor your language to them.

Do this, and you’ll have a piece of postal excellence that really gets its message across.

4. Test

Now, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll come up with the best design on the first try. Don’t sweat it, and don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “finished.” Get it out there and test.

You can use A/B testing which is when two similar marketing campaigns are launched simultaneously with one or two slight differences to see which works best. It’s like scientific trial and error, and is how the most successful marketing organizations on Earth operate.

It’s only by looking at this data that you’ll know that you’re having a positive impact.

Here are some elements that you can A/B test:

• The Offer: What works best, a two-for-one deal or 30% off? Free initiation fee or free month of training? You’ll never know until you A/B test!
• The Audience: Hopefully you have some idea who your ideal customer is at this point, but you may be surprised about who is really most receptive to your mailers.
• The Images: Try using a variety of images on your cards to see what captures their attention.
• The Timing: What time of year do consumers respond best to discounts? What weather conditions will get them to shop? Trying your mailers in different months could reveal unique buying habits of your market.

5. Adjust

Finally, after all your designing and testing, you’ll want to take your results and adjust your campaigns accordingly. By incorporating each of your testing successes into your long-term marketing strategy, you’ll be able to craft compelling, effective, and specific offers that speak directly to your prospects.

It’s good practice to continue designing, testing and adjusting throughout the life of your company—markets change constantly, and you’ll have to keep up if you want to win. The more you perfect your system, the more seamless and compelling your postcards become.

Ready to test? Log into our web-to-print platform right now!

And look out for Part 3 in this series, coming soon.

Need help getting marketing strategy up and running? Call Opportunity Knocks marketing at 1 (866) 222-6010 and reach your customers today.

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!

Or, need something specific? Call Opportunity Knocks at 1 (866) 319-7109 and get expert advice!

Repetition is widely regarded as the best way to improve at, well, just about everything: new languages, new sports, new skills.

Yet none of this improvement happens overnight. It takes time for new things to become second nature.

This principle applies to marketing campaigns as well: Repetition and consistency are key to capturing your customers’ attention. You must continuously put yourself in front of prospects.

At first, you’re just familiarizing them with your brand, but at a critical point, they’ll start to equate seeing you so much with you being of a higher quality. (This is called the signaling theory.)

Keep this up and the money will start flowing in while you snooze.

But how do you do this without annoying them?

Learn the 3-7-27 Law of Marketing

How many times does a message need repeating before it sinks in and brings value? A good rule of thumb is to remember the 3-7-27 Law of Marketing which says it takes:

• 3 points of contact to remember a name
• 7 to associate a name and a business
• 27 to become a household name

While these numbers sound daunting, the use of ongoing, repetitive marketing campaigns can help seamlessly accomplish your goals while you worry about your other more urgent matters…like your REM cycle.

Keep it Consistent

In order to reach these numbers, you will need to create a design that you plan to send 5-7 times to the same audience over the course of your campaign. That way, your message will be clear and will start to stick. Small changes are okay from mailing to mailing, but be sure to keep your overall design consistent; any drastic changes will start your repetition count over, and will essentially act as a new advertisement.

The best part about this strategy is that you will reap the benefits long after the work has been done. You can design, stamp, and plan your mailing schedule all at once (we can help you with this) so the only thing left you’ll have to do is wait for the leads to come in.

Mix it Up your Strategy 

By now, you’ve probably heard about all the ways that direct mail campaigns can benefit your small business.

In order to make the most of these campaigns, however, consider mixing in some new advertising mediums to coincide with your postcards.

Consider using a variety of television, radio, print, and digital marketing platforms at one time. This activates the availability heuristic, in which your customers assume that because your ads are everywhere, you are important and popular, giving you a sharp edge on the competition.

Need help getting started??

Create, print, and post campaigns all online through our web-to-print platform.

If you need help designing a repetition marketing campaign that will free up some precious nap time, call the experts at Opportunity Knocks at 1 (866) 319-7109!

So you’ve launched your first direct mail campaign–Congratulations! What’s next? Now comes the part where you wait and see if your campaign will turn into revenue for your business.

Here’s how you do that.

1. Track it

You can’t judge your postcard success without knowing which leads it generates. That’s why you should add tracking that makes it easy to determine which of your new customers came from this campaign.

This can be a discount code, a unique URL that they can visit, a QR code, or even something to show when they walk into your shop. Keep track of how many of these visits or codes you receive and how much those customers spend. This allows you to determine your ROI.

2. Calculate your break-even point

The break-even point of your campaign is the critical piece of information that will determine if your campaign was successful and worth running again. While making money and bringing in customers in any form is great, you want to know whether the next one brings in more than you spent on them, and that’s what this will show you.

First, let’s get cover some definitions that you’ll need to calculate this:

• Response-rate: How many leads typically respond? Ex. 5%
• Close-rate: How many of the leads that do you typically close? Ex. 50%
• Break-even close rate: The number of leads that need to close for you to break even
• Total cost: That’s postcards plus any labor. Ex. $200
• Gross margin: The amount that you make from each sale after costs. Ex. $100
• Pieces: The total number of mailings you’re sending. Ex. 1,000

Now, here’s how it works. Complete this equation:

Break-even close rate = (Total cost / gross margin)

If we use the example number from above, we get a break-even close rate = 2.

That is to say, if you get two 2 new leads that close, the campaign has paid for itself and you break even.

Now, if you want to know how many postcards to send to get there, use this equation:

Minimum number of pieces to send = ((break-even number of leads / close rate)/average response rate)

Again, by using the sample numbers above, we know that our break-even close rate is 2, our average close rate is 50%, and our response rate is 5%

Thus, we need only to send 80 postcards to get there. But that’s only if you’re shooting to break even – what if you wanted to double your money?

Double the number.

After a while you’ll see a diminishing return where you saturate your market, but according to Entrepreneur, that isn’t until you start sending millions of postcards.

Want more customers? Send more cards. It’s that simple.

Well, was it worth it? 

If this is your first campaign, it’s advisable to run a few mailers at one time to see which draws the most customers back, using variable elements that can help you determine what’s working and what’s not.

These variables can be in design, regions you mail to, month, discount, or any other element that can be manipulated. Keep rigorous track of the success/failures of each variable to know what works well in the future.

It may take a few of these A/B tests to hit your break-even point or turn a profit—but don’t let that deter you. Spending money to make money is just part of business. Eventually you’ll lock down the best strategies for each campaign and can significantly exceed your B/E every time.

Do more than break-even – get ahead! Send your next postcard right now through the link.

Want a master strategy? Call Opportunity Knocks at 1 (866) 319-7109!

Invest in marketing and you’ll earn customers’ “interest”

Have you ever heard of the rule of compounding interest?

You probably have, but here’s a quick refresher: because you earn interest over time, the pile of your money that’s gaining interest increases. For example, if you invest $1,000 and get a 5% return, at first you earn $50, but then you get $52.50, $55.12, $57.88, and so on.

The money you invest grows exponentially. It’s how you can turn $1,000 into $18,000 over the course of your lifetime if you simply invest it.

And guess what? The same principle works in your marketing.

Your customers’ “interest” in your business compounds in the exact same way – only to earn their interest, you actually have to market to them.

If you do this consistently and keep earning interest, you’ll see exponential sales growth.

Why does it work?

This works because human brains love shortcuts. We think things are more important if we see them frequently. For example, try answering this question:

Q: What’s more likely to kill you, an airplane crash or diabetes?

Don’t worry, most people get this wrong: it’s diabetes. It’s the 7th leading cause of death, compared to airplanes, where your chances of dying are, in The Economist’s words, “so low that it’s almost not worth calculating.”

Why might you have thought airplanes though? You simply have more examples of airplane crashes in your mind because we hear about them nightly on the news.

Similarly, if your prospects see you a lot, they’ll start to think that you’re important.

In fact, after about 7 mailings or “touches,” they’ll not only know your name but they’ll start wondering why they keep seeing you. They’ll feel left out and become curious.

That’s when you start to get phone calls and the graph for your sales turns into a classic hockey-stick chart.

Most businesses get bored when they don’t see any initial success and they give up after 2-3 postcards. Those who keep marketing however generate a tidal wave of demand.

There’s a lot more that goes into it of course – you need to have the right message, a solid call to action, and you need to target those messages, but the underlying principle that’s common to all successful small business marketers is that they stick with it.

So. Now that you know this, will you become an investor?

Click here and get that next postcard marketing campaign out the door right now and in 2-3 years time, you’ll really thank yourself that you started.

After all, the best time to plant a seed was yesterday. The next best time? Right now.

Need help? Call us, we’ll get you started – 1 (866) 319-7109

Millennials aren’t coming – they’re already here. At 80 million strong with a purchasing power of $600 billion, they’re now America’s largest consumer segment.

And sure, you know that they’re aged 18-34 and grew up with the internet, 9/11, and the great recession, but beyond that, but what else?

Most business owners admit to knowing very little, and their misconceptions can hurt them. If millennials think you’re out of touch, they’ll go elsewhere. Better read up!

Here are the 3 biggest myths that have been debunked:

Myth #1: They’re lazy and entitled

Truth: Millennials are passionate, dedicated, and motivated

Of all the myths out there, this is the most pervasive. Many bosses are vocal about the belief that millennial employees are too entitled or don’t work hard enough. And the fact that they switch jobs more than any other generation doesn’t help their case. But are they really too lazy to keep a career?

Quite the opposite, in fact. Millennials may be one of the most industrious generations ever, and the research that’s called them narcissistic has been debunked. The traits that they exhibit are really just hallmarks of young adulthood, and they’re starting to grow up.

• 84% of millennials made a charitable donation in the past year according to Entrepreneur
• 94% of millennials value hard work
• 89% of millennials regularly check their email outside of work hours according to Forbes
• 67% dream of starting their own business

The bottom line: Millennials work hard, do good, and dream big. Address those values in your marketing.

Myth #2: They don’t value owning “things” or settling down

Truth: Despite all the talk, millennials are big consumers and want to settle

Sure, millennials may have spawned the “sharing economy” where cars, apartments, and even dogs are communal property, but is it out of desire or necessity?

Remember that millennials grew up under dire economic conditions with piles of student debt. Most of them simply couldn’t afford milestone possessions like cars and houses like previous generations. Instead, they moved back in with their parents to save money. Now that things have improved, the data shows that they’re plenty willing to spend:

• 93% of millennials want to own their own home according to Goldman Sachs
• 70% want to get married and 74% want to have children
• They do less buying in stores, but make up for it with purchasing online

The bottom line: Millennials are just ramping up into their prime spending years and are a great target for your marketing.

Myth #3: Millennials only read things if they’re online

Truth: Millennials actually prefer things in print, like postcards.

A report by the Pew Research foundation found that millennials are more likely than older generations to prefer reading their news. And the under-30 crowd, who use far more digital devices than others, were more likely to say that “a lot of useful, important information is not available on the internet.”

Not what you would have guessed, huh? The numbers around direct-mail marketing reflect this preference for reading print:

• 46% of millennials prefer to read their news in print
• 23% of millennials bought or purchased something because of a direct mailing in the past 12 months
• 65% of millennials have made a purchase because of a catalog
• Direct mail has a 4.25% response rate from millennials compared to 0.06% for digital ads

The bottom line: Postcard marketing is the key method for reaching millennial audiences.

Well, has the data changed your mind at all? They’re not the narcissistic, spend-thrift, freeloaders that you thought, huh?

Better tweak your marketing: postcards are the way to go and you can send one targeted at millennials through our web-to-print platform. Just call 1 (877) 222-6010 if you need help!

Or, if you want real help, Opportunity Knocks is the millennial-whisperer. Call 1 (866) 319-7109 to reach more of them today!

Yes, in fact, it does.

But design isn’t what you think it is. It’s about a lot more than just pretty pictures of smiling people and a big logo – and it can be the difference between getting hundreds of new customers or nothing at all.

Design is that whole process of understanding exactly how your customers interact with your postcards and addressing questions like:

• Who opens the mail, and when and where do they do it?
• Are your customers right or left handed? (more on that in a minute.)
• Where do your customers’ eyes go on your card?
• What colors and calls to action (CTAs) improve sales?

Whew, seems exhaustive, but each of these factors can impact how many people actually pick up the phone and call you. In fact, through testing, you can uncover inexplicable little tricks that cause your response rates to jump 5x – sometimes you won’t even know why, but you will know that it’s good design because it keeps the cash coming in.

Here’s how to improve your design:

1. Ask yourself: Who opens the mail, and when and where do they do it?

Knowing more about your audience can inform the colors, text, and font that you decide to use. For example, the Direct Marketing Association found that 91% of mail is always picked up by the same person and 80% of those people are women. If you’ve been tailoring your postcard to men, time to rethink your message.

Here are more examples: If you sell to doctors and nurses, know that they’ll likely open their mail extremely early or extremely late, and visibility at that time of day is very low. You’ll want to use higher contrast colors. If you’re marketing to the elderly, you’ll want to use bigger, more legible fonts. And if you are marketing to men, 8% are colorblind and have trouble distinguishing shades of red.

The bottom line: Find out who’s opening the mail, when and where they do it, and design everything just for them.

2. Ask yourself: Are your customers right handed or left handed?

Unless your business specifically sells to the left-handed community, know that 3 out of 4 adults are right handed. That means that when they pick the actual postcard up, their thumb will cover the right fifth of it. Knowing this means that you can design your postcards so that whatever is there is too big to be covered up.

The bottom line: Put your offer (they last thing they should see) on the right side and make it big enough so that it can’t be covered.

3. Ask yourself: Where do people’s eyes move across the postcard?

Your postcard always gets to tell a story. Which story? The one about why the reader should want your service. Draw their attention to the first thing you want them to see by making it big and bright and then use the yes-ladder method. This says that you should explain to them what they’re missing in the biggest font, show how you solve it in the next biggest font, and then present the offer, in that order.

The bottom line: Use size, font, color, and position to guide where people look to improve their comprehension.

4. What colors and CTAs perform the best?

It’s no secret that people react differently to different colors and words: every audience is unique. People in rural or metropolitan counties may each have different opinions of the colors red or blue. Californians might not know what to do with the word “y’all.” And the phrase “don’t mess with …” probably performs less well in Maine than in Texas.

Based on all your knowledge of them, use your customer’s’ preferences to your advantage to highlight the parts of your postcard that matter most. Test everything endlessly until you seize upon a trick that drives far higher call volumes.

The bottom line: A/B test colors, text positions, and CTAs one at a time to find what works.

Good designs get great results! Become a great designer yourself simply by getting started in web-to-print postcard mailer – it only takes minutes and it can earn you thousands in new business. We even have done-for-you templates.

Want a hand? We’ll design it for you at Opportunity Knocks. Just call 1 (866) 319-7109

Can you name all 10 ways postcards can save your business?

Don’t worry if you can’t, even we get tripped up sometimes. Plus, you have plenty else to worry about, which is why we made you a quick-reference list of the top 10 uses for postcard marketing – feel free to bookmark it!

Postcard marketing, after all, is such an incredibly cost effective means of capturing new customers and getting your name out there that you’re practically throwing away money if you’re not applying them to every part of your business!

The top 10 ways that postcard marketing can save you:

1. Acquiring new customers– Postcards excel at bringing in new business for a variety of reasons but chief among them is the fact that people actually act on what they read. Research shows that 60% of people who see a postcard eventually take that action.

2. Increasing your revenue and profit – Because postcard marketing is so cost effective, you both increase your profit and hack away at overhead. Brad Hollingsead, CEO of the Georgia-based landscaping business Partners with Nature, reduced his cost-per-new-customer from $12 with online ads to $2 with postcards. Basically, he saved 600% on marketing while still bringing in $22,000 in new business.

(If you want that same campaign, just call us at 1 (866) 319-7109 and we’ll set you up)

3. Drive store or website traffic – Consumers today are walking around with blinders on and even though your product might be perfect for them, they’re not paying attention. Postcards are proven to break through – people actually look forward to them – and you can drive traffic to your store or website.

4. Promote events and special offers – Nothing catches attention like a brightly colored, well-designed mailing. Cut through the clutter and announce offers through the mail where people have no choice but to read them.

5. Grand opening or relocation – Need to get the word out? There’s absolutely no better way on Earth to alert everyone within a target radius of your new opening than Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM). It’s a partnership with the USPS who already knows everyone and where they live, and it drops a postcard onto every mailbox.

6. Introduce products and services – Need to let both current and new customers know that you’ve got a new offering? Pack it all onto either a regular or jumbo-sized mailing with a hero-shot of that product in action. Limeberry Lumber announced their new home-installation service this way and saw a 10x return on their money, for a grand total of $55,000 in sales.

7. Build community awareness – Postcards don’t always have to have a call to action. In fact, you can build a solid reputation as a community-minded business by promoting local events. (In the end though, this usually does help sales too.)

8. Establish your expertise – People patronize businesses who they think know more than they do. Use postcards to deliver free tips and expertise and in turn, people will come buy from you when they need help.

9. Develop new markets – Moving into a new market? Launching a new product line? Expanding your business? Soften those new targets with postcard mailings to drum up business and test the waters.

10. Ward off competitors – People are sometimes attracted to what’s new and exciting and if you’ve got new competitors moving in on your territory, it pays to get your name out there and keep people talking about you.

Is this giving you good ideas? Put your marketing where your mouth is and use our web-to-print platform to send that postcard today!

We’d love to talk strategy with you – shoot us a call at 1 (877) 319-7109. We want you to succeed!

There are a lot of misconceptions about our world today, and a lot of ideas masquerading as “facts.” For example, do you think millennials prefer to read something or watch a video? Surprise, it’s reading. And what do you think wins more new customers, a million-dollar social media campaign or an old fashioned catalog? For brands like Burberry, it’s the catalog.

Needless to say, we could all use a little reality fact-check! Especially when it comes to direct mail, which has received a lot of press lately.

Here’s what the numbers say about it:

#1

What you hear: direct mail is dead

The truth: Americans actually love getting mail

1. 70% of Americans say snail mail is more personal than the Internet – Direct Marketing Association
2. 56% of Americans say receiving mail is a real pleasure – DMA
3. 98% of Americans check their mail daily – Entrepreneur

Despite all this talk of digital taking over, direct mail marketing is undergoing a renaissance. Consumers suffering from digital overload want opportunities to disconnect. For this reason and more, they actually love to receive direct mail!

#2

What you hear: Everything important happens online nowadays

The truth: Americans spend so much time online that they’re sick of it

It’s no argument that Americans spend a lot of time on their screens:

• Americans dedicate 10 hours per day to “screen time” – CNN
• Americans spend 2 hours per day on social media – Adweek

And yet…

• 85% of consumers suffer from banner blindness – Adotas
• Only 1 in 2,000 people click on the average digital ad – Google
• 90% of Americans are tired of staring at screens all day – Business Insider

Put simply, people are tired of being online and know better than to trust most things that they read on the internet! This unfortunately applies to most of your marketing there.

#3

What you hear: The best way to get new customers is online

The truth: Mail is better for advertising than digital

• Mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital media – Canada Post
• Consumers are 70% more likely to recall a brand name from a postcard than an online ad – Canada Post
• Direct mail delivers a strong ROI of 15-17% – DMA
• Direct mail outperforms digital by 600% – DMA

Americans want any excuse to put those screens down and experience something real – postcards and direct mail, for example, are striking, tactile, and satisfying, and endless studies prove that they’re far more effective at getting people to remember you, give you a call, and walk into your store.

The bottom line: Direct mail is the best way to reach your customers in the modern age!

Lucky for you, postcards are easy – click here and get a campaign out the door in minutes.

Would you like a digital + print strategy? Opportunity Knocks can help, just call 1 (877) 319-7109.