Direct Mail Marketing News

For many businesses, it can be tempting to think of marketing as an operational cost, just part of the cost of doing business.

In reality, marketing is an investment in your business – money you put back in to the business to help it strengthen and grow.

Businesses often struggle with the best way to determine their annual marketing budgets. There’s no simple formula, but there are guidelines that smart business people can follow to help ensure they budget wisely and appropriately for their marketing needs.

Basics for Sound Investing

It is common for businesses to base their marketing budget on the previous years’ sales numbers and then increase or decrease their marketing budget accordingly.  Be careful…there’s a real danger in that. The danger lay in a company spending what they want to spend on marketing, rather than what they should spend on marketing, and that gap can be the difference between status quo and growth.

The marketing investment must reflect three basics:

1. Reliance on solid data
2. Sound marketing strategies
3. Clearly defined goals.

Staying on Point

Businesses should review their marketing plan no less than once a year to ensure they stay on target. A comprehensive review requires asking some questions:

1. Have your target markets changed?
2. How has the competitive field changed?
3. Should we develop new marketing goals?
4. What are the strategies we need to implement to achieve these goals?

What was effective 10 years ago, 5 years ago and or even last year may not be what positions us for success today and into the future. Once you’ve answered these critical questions, then proceed to determining what current goals will cost, and whether your business can afford it.

Measuring Success

One advantage of thinking of marketing as an investment rather than a cost is that we understand investment often brings reward. Once you’ve made your decisions about how much you can invest and how to invest, then it’s time to measure that investment for return. Every postcard marketing campaign, sales promotion, and sales strategy should be generating revenue for your business. For example, if postcard marketing has a new customer acquisition rate of around 4%…are you finding your postcard marketing campaigns more or less successful?  If you fail to evaluate the return on your investment, how will you know if what you’re doing is truly effective?

There are rarely simply answers to nearly any question in business, but the answers are easier to find if you begin with asking the right questions. Sometimes you have to change how you’re thinking about the costs related to business and realize that what you put into it is what you get back out of it, and that’s not as easy as a simple number on a balance sheet.

Why Bother with Content Marketing?

Content marketing is simply any marketing that involves creating and publishing educational content in a way that will create more customers for your company.

You may be wondering why you should spend the time and energy to create content like articles or white papers. First, you have to embrace the idea that your potential customers have questions. They want to know about your company, products, services, and why they should choose you over a competitor.  When you are able to create and propagate smart and effective content that answers those questions, you’ve created the most direct line to sales and loyalty. No business can afford to not create effective content marketing.

Businesses Are Struggling to Make Every Dollar Count

Most large brands use content marketing, and yet many profess not to be very good at it. However, effective content marketing is critical for small business in particular. Small businesses rarely have the luxury of bloated marketing budgets therefore every dollar must count. One of the main goals of content marketing is to build trust because when consumers have trust in your brand, they are more likely to purchase your products and services, and recommend them to friends and family.

Identify Key Components

When creating a postcard marketing campaign, for example, a business must identify business goals, target audience, the value they wish to create for the consumer, and the value they wish to create for their business. It can be invaluable to take the consumer’s perspective and ask what problems does the consumer have and what can I do to help solve them? Pull together a team of associates you can trust and who know your business from the ground up to help you really understand and develop your goals and potential strategies. Write down strategic possibilities and tie your business goals and objectives to your content marketing strategy.

Breaking Through

Consumers are often bombarded with advertising and brand messaging and finding a way to break through the clutter is a must. Your content marketing must address volume, value and variety. Your message needs to be always present. Postcard marketing is one piece, but you must also develop a strong web presence and build good will through word of mouth.

Businesses must identify what they want to communicate, specifically, what are the topics of conversation surrounding their brand. The goal then is to create valuable content around those topics. A business must be prepared to deliver their message in a variety of ways. Postcard marketing, a web presence, print advertising, blogs – these are all different ways to get your message out.

Four Musts for Good Content

Good content must be “findable”, “readable”, “understandable” and “actionable.”

Content must be easily accessible by your target audience. This can be achieved through using effective search engine optimization online, and using compelling imagery, packaging, and easy flowing text that makes your content messaging stand out in direct mail pieces.

Making your content readable means presenting it in a way that is reader-friendly. Bullet points, numbered lists and chunking are ways that can make your message more readable. These styles work well on postcards, websites and print ads.

Creating understandable content means content must be appropriate for your audience. For the audience at large, the less complex the better. If you’re marketing to highly skilled professionals, speak their language and stay on their level. Try to articulate your message in a new way.

Lastly, a call to action is critical. In a direct mail piece, such as a postcard, offer a web address for more information or for comments, offer a link to relevant content, give the consumer a summary of what to do, and where appropriate, ask for their business.

At ProspectsPLUS.com, we have tons of experience with content marketing.  Topics, formatting, location, accessibility and more.  If you want to try this strategy or want to improve on your current strategy, give us a jingle.  We just love chatting about this stuff!  877-222-6010

When you’re doing postcard marketing, you’ve got a small space to make a BIG impression!

The good news is, it doesn’t take much space, it’s about using the space you have for maximum effectiveness. You’ve got a blank space to fill with style and artistry that’s breathtaking and awe-inspiring. You need good copy…I mean…you need the BEST copy!

Defining “best” is the part that’s not so easy. Let’s take a look at a few types of copy and why they’re effective.

1. The Plain Jane – Plain copy doesn’t use gimmicks, there’s no flash or sizzle. It simply presents facts and benefits. It may not set your customer’s hair on fire, but it gives them the information they need to make an informed decision, and sometimes that’s enough to get the job done.
2. The Storyteller – A story has four basic traits; opening, conflict, dialogue, and solution. A story may speak of a challenge someone faced, and how they overcame that challenge. The moral of the story, of course, is that your product or service was the catalyst to overcome the odds. The story doesn’t have to be dramatic; it just has to tell an engaging tale that frames a need for what you offer.
3. The Conversationalist – Conversational copy is written as if you and I are having a conversation. It’s as if we’re at lunch and you tell me you’ve been experiencing some dry skin lately. I tell you I used to have a terrible problem with that, but then I found a great product and my dry skin is a thing of the past. This type of copy can invoke passion for a product, making it quite effective.
4. The John Lennon – John Lennon asked us to imagine something very different from the world we understand. It was persuasive and imaginative. You can ask your customer to imagine something, like painless weight loss, or the joy of unwinding on a dream vacation. Ask your customer to picture something, or close their eyes and imagine it.
5. Long Copy – While this is not likely to lend itself well to postcard marketing, long copy takes the approach of “the more you tell, the more you sell.” Long copy lays it all out for the reader. It answers their questions before they’ve asked them.
6. The Poet’s Copy – Using poetry is a means of presenting an ad in a beautiful and moving way. While it educates and sells, it also elevates the reader with stylish prose. It is a combination of style and selling. If you choose this type of copy, do it well, or select a different style of copy.
7. Communications Direct from the CEO – When a CEO communicates directly with a customer, it gives the company a down-to-earth feel that makes the CEO seem approachable and caring. Jeff Bezos often uses Amazon.com’s homepage to reach out directly to customers in a plain and conversational style that presents the facts.
8. The Direct Approach – Sometimes copy benefits from just being “frank”. It starts not with the gems, but with the warts. It may point out all the negatives up front before introducing you to the benefits. Honesty and transparency about the weaknesses of a product can build trust with the customer. When you tell them about the bad things, they are more likely to believe you when you tell them about the good things.
9. Claims of Excellence – It is sometimes ok to be outlandish. It’s ok to say something could make someone a fortune, is a miracle, or you really can achieve this goal. It’s ok to say something, assuming you can back it up. You could back a claim up with statistics, testimonials, research, or all three. Because this type of copy can appear to be hype, use it sparingly.
10. Rejected and Dejected – Rejection copy tries to discourage people from being interested in your product. It conveys the notion that your product appeals to only a very exclusive set of people. This is known as the velvet rope approach. The Amex Black Card is a great example of this type of marketing. It’s reserved for the wealthy and elite and is available by invitation only. The exclusivity is part of the appeal, and this type of copy keys into one’s desire to belong.

Often, great copy combines a variety of techniques into one package. For example, a CEO sends a conversational note about his passion for a product, or someone sends a postcard explaining why certain people will not receive an invitation to dine at an exclusive restaurant.

There is an art and a science to creating good and effective copy, and with a little thought and practice, you can achieve a great and successful balance.

Need help figuring out which approach to take? We can help!  Call 877-222-6010 and we’ll take as much time as you need to understand your business and figure things out.  

It’s no secret that people put value on emotional experience. When we like or dislike something, we are assigning a value to it.

At any given moment in time, we are focusing on a trend of thought and experiencing the relevant emotions. Sometimes it’s a conscious choice, sometimes it happens in our subconscious, but the value we place on whatever is before us at that moment determines the emotions we will feel.

When you want to connect with your customers, you cannot downplay the value of emotion. Emotion and decision making are bound together, and successful marketing requires creating an emotional connection between you and your customer.

Making It Personal

It is critical to your success to find out that one thing that your customers really love. Some of the most successful brands in the world have been those that were able to tap into the heart of their customers and establish an emotional connection. Bear in mind, an emotional connection is not about what a product does, for example, maybe this shampoo will give you shiny hair. Rather, a connection is about a feeling – something that makes it personal for the customer. Shiny hair might make a person feel good about themselves, feel more confident, which may help draw people to them – that’s now an emotional connection.

Know Your Audience

Establishing an emotional connection also requires the proper focus.

Not everybody wants shiny hair. Dr, Phil, George Foreman – you can tell them all day how your shampoo will make their hair shiny and they’ll never make an emotional connection because they don’t have hair. Your target market would need to focus more on people who have hair, people who want to feel good about their hair, and people who will feel better if their hair looks better. You’re targeting a specific demographic.

If you can establish that emotional connection by communicating with them in such a way as to create some positive feeling, then you’ve already won half the battle. Words must be chosen selectively to invoke a feeling and a positive response that makes the customer desire what you have to offer.

The Power of Carefully Selected Words

Some companies have had tremendous success by carefully choosing their words. For example, Zappos.com has tapped into our frustration with customer service by placing it front and center. Their tagline “Powered by Service” indicates their model is built on the reputation of good customer service. Customers want to feel they’ll be taken care of, if there’s a problem it will be resolved – building your brand around customer service taps into the positive emotion that’s generated from saying, in essence, we care about you.

Years ago, Apple made significant inroads into the market with their slogan, “Think Different.” Just those two words allowed Apple to appeal to edgy individuals who wanted to be the early adopters of new technology, people who were excited by innovation.

Creating Emotional Content

Emotional content captures the reader’s attention, keeps their interest, and inspires them to take action. This is especially true in direct mail campaigns. Creating emotional copy may seem challenging, but in reality, it’s as simple as understanding the customer’s feelings.

Here are four key elements to creating emotional content:

1. Respect the individuality of your customer. Use the word you.
2. Create a headline that grabs your customer’s attention. Make your emotional connection in the headline.
3. Describe your customer, understand who they are, and identify them. Don’t shy away from direct assertions and bold statements.
4. Focus on feelings. Describe a sensation, a pleasure or some other sort of sensation the customer understands. This is a form of emotional persuasion and can have a significant impact on the customer’s willingness to make a decision.

Creating an emotional connection is indispensable – whether you’re launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign for a large corporation or doing a postcard marketing blitz for a neighborhood shop.

Once you find that emotional selling point, you need to emphasize it with good content. Customers remember less what you actually do and more how you make them feel – tapping into that will bring a wellspring of benefits.

Need help crafting the perfect, attention grabbing message?  We can help.  Call our marketing team today at 877-222-6010 or visit our website www.prospectsplus.com/PEI

Marketing is a crucial piece of your business, and every bit as vital as the business plan itself.

A good marketing plan must focus on the key elements of how to win and keep customers.

It must be strategic but also include specific objectives and tactics you’ll use to achieve your sales goals. Think of it as an action plan – what will you sell, who is your target audience, and how will you generate leads that result in sales. Here are some simple steps you can take to build a winning marketing plan.

Take An Honest Look in the Mirror

A situational analysis is essentially a snapshot of your company’s current situation. Keep it very simple: Define your company and the product or services it offers then show how the benefits you offer set you apart from competitors.

Many times, targeted audiences may be very specialized or segmented. Regardless of what your business is, to market competitively you need to understand your target audience. You must thoroughly understand not only what you offer but what the competition offers, and be prepared to show how you offer the best alternative. This will help results while saving you big bucks!

During this “Honest with yourself” process:

1. Be prepared to give an honest overview of your business’s strengths and weaknesses.
2. Consider opportunities from within your business, and threats from outside forces.
3. Ask yourself why your products or services are superior. What do you offer that gives a competitive advantage?
4. Consider also vulnerabilities, such as inexperienced staff or working in a highly competitive market.
5. Consider opportunities your business can capitalize on, such as expanding your market. Detail ways you can deal with any potential threats.

Your marketing plan should effectively position your product or service by analyzing your product or service features. For example, are your customers looking for convenience, quality, or discount pricing? By understanding what your customers want, you’ll best know what to offer.

Target Audience

Create a simple one paragraph profile of your target customer. This could be described in terms of demographics, such as age, gender, marital status, earnings, location and lifestyle.

Then, if possible, drill down into greater specifics. For example, ask yourself:

1. Is my customer conservative or innovative?
2. Are they are a leader or a follower?
3. Are they humble or aggressive?
4. Are they introverted or extroverted?
5. Are they traditional or modern?
6. How often do they purchase these goods or services?
7. How much do they spend on these goods or services?

This deeper analysis will help you construct marketing messages that relevant to your audience.

If you do primarily business to business marketing, you can define the target audience based on business type, job title, business size, location, and other relevant factors. Whoever your target audience is, it’s important to drill down on the specifics in this section of the marketing plan. This section will serve as a guide when planning media and public relations campaigns. If you need help in the area, head on over to our Mailing List Page…we have some great “How To” videos to help.

Marketing Goals

What is the goal you hope your marketing plan will achieve? Write down a list of goals. You may want to increase sales by 20%, increase profits by 10%, or you may want to expand your business into a new territory. This list should be short and measurable so that you can look back later and determine if you’ve met these goals.

Marketing Communication Strategies and Tactics

This is perhaps the most important part of your marketing plan. You’ve already outlined what your marketing is to accomplish and identified your customer. Now it’s time to decide how you’ll reach those customers and accomplish your goals.

Ideally, you must target prospect at all stages of the sales cycle. You may choose to utilize tactics such as public relations and direct postcard marketing for reaching cold prospects. You might use permission based emails, loyalty programs and customer appreciation events to reach out to warm prospects.

The hottest prospects, those who have already received your message and are close to a sale may be most effectively converted through an interpersonal combined approach, such as postcard marketing followed up by a phone call, email, or both. Outline your primary strategies and a variety of tactics you can use to reach prospective customers at any point during the sales cycle.

To know which strategies create the ideal marketing mix, tune into where your target audience goes for information on the type of product or service you offer. When you key in on the customer’s preferred channel, they’ll be more receptive to your message.

The Marketing Budget

Determining the right budget can be a challenge, but it is one you must confront head on. You must plan to devote a percentage of projected gross sales to an annual marketing budget.

The good news is that with so many different types of strategies and tactics available for reaching out to even a niche audience, there’s a good fit for even the tightest budget.

If you find yourself exceeding your marketing budget, continue to adjust until you find the right mix that is affordable and effective. Just keep marketing in whatever manner you can afford and set aside the more costly tactics til you’re in a better position.

Need help? To learn more about how we can help you fuel your business, streamline your systems and take your career to the next level, call our marketing team today at 877-222-6010 or visit our website www.prospectsplus.com/PEI

Six Powerful Reasons to Put Direct Mail Into Your Fall Marketing Plan

It might be a “digital world,” but we’re also a world of people who still appreciate personal touches. With 9 out of 10 people headed to their mailbox daily, taking full advantage of this habit should be high on your marketing priority list.

Take a minute and really think about it, people still appreciate getting their mail every day, sorting through it looking for the good stuff (letters, cards, positive messages, and special offers) – anything other than those bills-right?

And the truth is – with most businesses trying to make it through spam filters using email marketing, there’s a lot more room in mail boxes these days for your direct message.  While email is a great piece of the marketing puzzle, don’t discount the power of putting something into the hands of the folks in the market area you wish to dominate. Less mail means more opportunity for your postcard to be seen and you have a captive audience.

Here are six reasons why mail is not only relevant – but it produces results!

1. It’s targeted. Many marketing vehicles aim at reaching out to as many consumers as possible, but it’s expensive and casts a wide net. Many people refer to this as a “shotgun approach.”  With direct mail you can match your mail specifically to your market or niche dramatically increasing your response rates. You can even now find the mailing lists for those you most want to market to by taking advantage of the specialty data selects from our friends over at Nielsen or look for our Lifestyle Interest data. Head over to our Mailing List page to learn more about all the affordable list options available to you.
2. It’s personal.  Direct mail is your canvas.  You can address your customer by name, share specific offers, communicate information that’s specific to your area, and begin to create a top-of-mind awareness and trust. All of our marketing tools are editable so you can easily match your message with your exact target market.
3. It’s flexible.   Add direct response offers and timely information and you again increase your response rates.  Some businesses wisely choose a campaign with similar branding to send month after month or quarter after quarter that helps consumers develop a recognition of their brand more easily.  Others mix and match their marketing messages – preferring to keep consumers alert and eager to see “what they’ll send next!”
4. It’s tangible. The truth is, as human beings we’re tactile people. Engaging different senses is just smart business.   If I get a message from a professional I touch via email for example, it registers in the moment – but not necessarily long term.  If I get a message that’s directed to me and offers something of importance to me and my family and I can feel it, touch it, put it on the refrigerator or tack it to my bulletin board, etc. – then that message has a much longer shelf life-right?  And a better chance of getting a response – not just once but again and again.
5. It’s measurable.  Direct mail is one of the few media channels that give you the ability to track your success.  Use a QR code or make a specific offer on a direct response piece and keep tabs on how many people click or call on that offer.  Adjust future mailings based on that response rate.  I always recommend making a direct response offer on every piece of direct mail as opposed to just a generic, ‘here I am’ type mailing.  Give people valuable reasons to reach out to you and they will!
6. It’s easy and cost-effective.  Direct mail doesn’t have to mean big bucks. One of the things our customers appreciate most about our services in fact is that we do have the ability to provide short-run orders at extremely affordable rates unlike big mail houses which require you to order thousands at a time.  Not sure what pieces will work best with your budget?  Give us a call-our team is terrific about helping agents match their marketing to their market as well as their budgets!

Hope that gives you some insights into why Direct mail is on so many business’s to-do list this season! If you need help finding the right pieces for you at the right prices-we’ve got you covered. 

Call our marketing team at 877-222-6010 or email us at okiam@prospectsplus.com to learn how we can get your production hopping this next quarter in a very budget friendly way! 

It’s that time of year again where legions of fans from coast to coast get their game on and answer to the battle cry – “Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?”

Even if you’re not a fan, you have to appreciate their enthusiasm-right?  You also should appreciate the excellent opportunity to get your name, contact information and offer into the hands (and on the refrigerators) of local fans in your market ALL SEASON LONG with fun, game-changing football schedule cards!

These handy handouts are many business owner’s favorite this time of year. Why?  Because they are TIMELY and results producing – and most importantly, consumers keep them, share them and sometimes even ask for more!  They are great way to be remembered and considered a resource.  And that is a winning combination in today’s competitive market.

Here’s three ways business’s are using these terrific football schedule postcard tools:

1. They’re mailing them to their current or past customer lists.  That keeps them top of mind with the clients and prospects that they are most focused on gaining business and referrals from.
2. They’re ordering MAGNETIC versions of them.  Then either hand-delivering them to a geographic area, target mailing list or simply placing in envelopes with a note to their best customers.
3. They’re using them as “freebees.” The magnetic versions of these are best – but a printed shell postcard does the trick as well for great giveaways at open houses, local coffee shops, community events and even local businesses that you’re networked in.  It’s a win-win!

Affordable, timely and simple-to-order, you’re certain to score big with those in your market area with these football-friendly tools!  So if you’re ready for some football – and some referrals – click here to see the wide spectrum of game-day team schedules!

Also, if you want to save 10% on your postcard order – please visit our Specials Page to find your corresponding code.  We even have a special code for ordering the cards with the magnetized backs! See them all here.

Advertising Online and Offline

There is no doubt that the internet was a game changer for businesses everywhere. You can easily set up your business online with web pages and social media and then you can advertise that business through digital ads on major platforms such as Facebook, Google search and YouTube.

The only problem is the fact that you are competing with millions of others who had the same idea; even worse, most internet users have become blind to these ads over time and click through rates have dropped dramatically.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid all online advertising, we’re simply suggesting a very strategic multi-channel approach using both online and offline advertising.  Often, advice to business owners is given in objective terms.  (BTW, since when has marketing become “objective?”)

For example, some study will show that email marketing is better than direct mail marketing or a business guru will write about why business owners should only use internet marketing. However, the truth is, most businesses will need a combination of multiple marketing strategies and tactics to maximize the advertising potential.

So How do I leverage Both Digital and Direct Mail?

Targeted direct mail, sent to a targeted mailing list still ranks among the most effective methods for advertising a specific message to a specific audience.  It’s customizable, it’s laser focused and it’s very easy to execute.  More on that later.

In fact, according to a study conducted by Hubspot, direct mail yields an ROI of $27.00 for every dollar spent.  This is very strong relative to other marketing programs.

Plus, you can determine the area to cover with your advertising and the demographics of the people you want to see your ad.  Besides calling homes or knocking on doors, (which we know you won’t do), Direct mail is the ONLY pro-active advertising vehicle around.

Moreover, your direct mail will been seen.  The United Postal Service reports that 94% of Americans visit their mailbox DAILY!  I would call this a habit…and any form of advertising relative to a habit has a high probability to been seen.  In another study by The USPS, 60% of direct mail recipients were influenced to visit a promoted website on a direct mail piece.  They also tend to spend 28% more on average.

The big “ah-ha” here?  You can use ultra-targeted direct mail to drive your perfect customer online.  You can add QR Codes with embedded tracking codes or include an exclusive coupon or promo code on the mailer.  Then simply use Google Analytics to track visitors and adjust your marketing based on the results.

As mentioned earlier, using direct mail is even easier than ever.  You can literally, create a laser targeted mailing list, design a compelling postcard and mail it in only minutes.

Check out, www.prospectsplus.com/pei or give us a call at 877-222-6010 and we’ll help you out.

The most experienced marketers know that matching your marketing message to your specific audience is an often overlooked strategy that when implemented correctly can produce tremendous results.

Let’s take a second and think about it at a very basic level…if you’re an insurance agent that specializes in auto policies to new drivers, you would want your mailing list to target parents with children in the household who have an upcoming 16^th or 17^th birthday (depending on the state law).  Then your postcard would need to be designed with images of concerned parents and teenagers and messaging that the parents can relate to.

By now, you have probably heard the term “Big Data.”  The newest IBM commercials during spring golf tournaments seem to be making it a household name.  However, before big data started becoming popular, matching your message to your market was a strategy that was often more speculation than real science.

Now I know what you’re thinking…I need IBM to help me do this? NO. (Sorry I scared you!)

Here’s the good news.  With the advance of data research and the team at Nielson Media Group, PRIZM Data makes finding those customer segments a whole lot easier!  As leaders in the direct mail marketing space, we are excited to offer these laser targeted data segments to our insurance agents to help make their marketing easier – and more effective.

So what is PRIZM Segmentation?  According to Nielson, “Segmentation links your customer data with household-level and neighborhood-level demographics, syndicated survey and primary research data to reveal exactly what types of consumers are currently using your products or services. Any customer files, lists or survey data with complete addresses or at least a ZIP Code can be coded with Nielsen’s segmentation systems. This allows you to identify your best prospect segments with the greatest efficiency for effective marketing strategies that align with marketplace demands.”

Or check out this one minute video to get a sneak peek.

Smart right?  So what does that mean to YOU as an Insurance Agent?  Marketing just got more interesting…(and more effective!)  For example, you can actually execute that new driver auto campaign with just a few clicks of a mouse vs months of research.

Here’s another example, you may want to target folks like baby boomers or as Nielson categorizes them, “New Empty Nests” or “Beltway Boomers”, who might have an interest in downsizing their larger family homes now that the kids are grown. Starting to see how this can work for you as well?

If you want to have some fun, it’s time put your “Mad Scientist of the Insurance World” hat on download the Prizm selects here.  From the basic – High income consumers, renters, baby boomers, etc. to the customized PRIZM selects – you can find the folks you most want to work with.

For a great resource to help you use launch a laser targeted postcard campaign using postcard designs matched with Prizm segmented lists Click Here.

Need help? Give our team a call at 888-222-6010