Direct Mail Marketing News

Though the web is full of marketing “rules” for anyone who cares to Google for such, the 40-40-20 Rule might be one of the most powerful because it’s also the most simple. It doesn’t add more activities to your already busy day but helps you focus your current time budget on the factors that bring the biggest returns.

The 40-40-20 Rule represents percentages: 40 percent of your marketing success depends on identifying the right people for your mailing list. The other 40 percent depends upon creating the right offer. The remaining 20 percent is…all the other stuff, like the design elements—colors, photos, fonts—of your postcard. (Certainly these things are important but not as important as the other two.)

You can spend a lot of time on the 20% but the factors that have the most effect on your response and ROI are the list and the offer.

Here’s how to do it:

1.) Identify Who Your Customers Are

The world if full of prospects but, unless you’re fond of wasting tons of money, you don’t need to reach all prospects; you only need to reach the ones who need or want what you offer—a percentage of whom will become your customers.

So, instead of “spraying and praying” with your marketing, take a more pro-active approach: identify exactly who your ideal customer is, according to demographic factors like these:

• age range
• income
• gender
• number in household

Depending on your product/service, you might want to further refine your ideal customer identify based on psychographic factors

You can learn about all of our mailing list options here.

The more specific you can get about your ideal customer, the more money you will save because you won’t be sending to “almost” prospects. And the more response you will get because everyone on your list fits the ideal customer description.

2.) Increase Your Warm Leads

It’s a truism that the best source of future income are the sources of past income—your existing customers.

Next in line would be those people who have responded to your marketing but have not yet made a purchase. You can gather more of these warm leads by offering prospects a lead magnet, such as a white paper or special report or even a free gift, in exchange for them sending back a business reply card back in the mail or visiting a landing page and taking a short survey. Not everyone will take the bait but many will and those will be your hottest prospects.

3.) Personalize Your Offer

Notice that both steps #1 and 2 deal with your list? Step 3 is all about your offer.

By “personalize,” we mean “present an offer that creates a strong incentive with your ideal customer.” This can be one of many different approaches:

• Two for one
• 50% off
• Time limited
• etc.

You know your ideal customer best, what grabs their attention, and will make them hang on to your postcard for immediate or future use. So put 40% of your efforts into making sure the offer “speaks” to them.

4.) Test and Adjust

The truth is that even after putting 40% of your attention on the list and 40% on the offer, you can send out your postcards and get dismal response. This is completely normal and should not discourage you. Rather, it should be looked upon as a sort of survey of what works and what doesn’t.

Even a dismal response will provide some valuable data to help you adjust your approach and receive a better response next time. In order to maximize this feedback in your early mailings, do A/B testing on the demographics you think are the most qualified for your product/service.

A simple way to do this is to mail even quantities of cards to two distinct groups. You could distinguish the two group by any one of the following:

• ZIP code
• Age range
• Income range

This kind of testing is necessary as it provides even more specific data because as you jockey the differentiating factors, you will discover the traits (age, geography, etc.) in your ideal customers that provide the best response.

And here’s ours: Log on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei right now and design your next post card (and remember your call to action). You can also create a mailing list and handle the mailing, all in one sitting!

If you need some help with your call to action, give Opportunity Knocks a call at 1 (866) 319-7109. We have lots of experience and success and will design a card that will improve your response.

Wow! Thank you to all our amazing contestants this past month!

We had some terrific entries – and we thank you all so much for sharing your ProspectsPLUS! and Opportunity Knocks experiences! If your name wasn’t drawn – no worries! We’ll choose another winner next month!

Congratulations!

Our May $150 winner is Kathy Goldfarb who shared:

“I love ALL of you! You’re SO professional, responsive, fun and easy to work with! As an added bonus, it’s great that you know me personally too! Thanks for all of your hard work and great ideas!”

Thank you Kathy and to everyone who entered! Ready to throw your hat in the ring? It’s easy! Simply share your experiences on our ProspectsPLUS! Google+ or Facebook Page, or our Opportunity Knocks Google+ or Facebook Page and you’ll be automatically entered. We’ll give away $150 credit. Next drawing is the first week of July!

Let us tell you a little story about Kevin and Tracy.

They went to the same junior high school in southern Illinois, just a couple of shy kids. Kevin had a crush on Tracy. Tracy liked him, too. But neither of them ever acted on it. Their friends could see it. They commented on it, but Tracy and Kevin were just too shy.

It went on like this through high school. He never even asked her on a date. Somewhere in there, he got involved with preparing for college and that took up a lot of his attention…but the crush remained.

After graduation, he went off to school at M.I.T. and nearly forgot about Tracy…but not quite. A couple years later, on a visit back home, he discovered she’d gotten married to another guy they’d both gone to school with. It hurt. It was only 20 years later, after Kevin was married (he’s somehow become a bit more assertive) that he found Tracy on social media and they both had a laugh about it.

Cute story—like something from a romantic comedy, right?

Your business is not a comedy but “The Story of Kevin and Tracy” is a strong lesson for any business.

Have you guessed what it is?

You Must Always Ask

It’s your call to action. Businesses do this in different ways, from the crude-but-sometimes-effective “Buy Now!” to these more refined calls:

• “A 15-minute call could save you 15% on your car insurance”
• “Call now for a free quote”
• “Order now to receive a free gift”
• “Call before June 3^rd for a 10% discount”

We are frequently blown away by how many businesses don’t include a call to action on their marketing. Some people think that calls to action are “salesy”–uncool or cheesy. Truly, there are some cheesy and corny calls to action out there. Some people just neglect to include a call to action because they don’t think it’s necessary or they don’t recognize its importance.

Call to Action = Results

There is a huge difference in results between marketing that includes a call to action and marketing that doesn’t.

For instance, WordStream reported that having a single, strong call to action in your marketing can increase sales by more than 1,600%.

The results-boosting power of a call to action applies, regardless of how you market. For instance, posting a call to action button on your Facebook page can increase click-through rate by 285%.

Kevin and Tracy, Again… 

There is no guarantee that Tracy would have said “yes” to Kevin if he’d asked her out—or asked him to marry her. But it’s a sure bet that neither “yes” would have happened if Kevin hadn’t given Tracy his “call to action.”

You miss 100% of the responses/sales that you fail to ask for.

Always include a call to action!

And here’s ours: Log on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei right now and design your next post card (and remember your call to action). You can also create a mailing list and handle the mailing, all in one sitting!

If you need some help with your call to action, give Opportunity Knocks a call at 1 (866) 319-7109. We have lots of experience and success and will design a card that will improve your response.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to isolate the key elements and actions of how you win and keep customers, and ultimately to attain a specific marketing goal. Marketing goals are things like “increase sales ten percent” or “successfully move into ___ market.”  With a plan in place, you always know what to do and how to do it, so you’re not having to dream up new ideas with every campaign.

A marketing plan embodies your marketing strategy—the overall vision for the marketing of your business—but also the shorter-term sales goals and actions you will take to meet them.

Following these five steps to work out your plan:

1.) Analyze the Current Scene

Where does your company currently stand?

This is not a trick question or one that requires a lot of over-analyzing. Rather, you need only to state what you company is and what it does; what products or services it offers; the benefits of those products or services; and what it is about your company that makes you preferable to your competition.

Be brutally honest with yourself: look not only at your company’s strengths but also its weaknesses. Strengths would be such things as what makes your product and/or service better than the rest; what it is about your company that gives it an advantage over the competition.

But then also consider the weaknesses: Is your market highly competitive? Do you face any sort of competitive threat? Is the company strong internally? Are there areas that need improvement?

2.) Identify Your Target Audience

How well do you know your ideal customer? Let’s start with something general and move forward to specifics.

Write a simple customer profile. Include the concrete demographics, such as age, geography, and income. Then move into their buying habits, such as how often they purchase your kind of product or service, as well as why—is it on the basic of convenience? Price? Quality?

Then take it a step further, looking who your customer really is–their attitude and personal convictions:

• Do they lean towards innovation or conventionality?
• Are they outspoken and active or withdrawn?
• Are they leaders or followers?
• Are they modern or more traditional?

You can do this kind of customer analysis and summary, even if your customers are other businesses. In that case, you would focus on the type and size of business, the job titles you deal with and other similar and relevant factors.

3.) Establish Your Current Marketing Goal

The entire purpose of the marketing plan is to help you reach your marketing goal. For a business that’s up and running more or less successfully, goals are typically expressed like the following:

• Increase sales by 10%
• Expand into a new geographical territory
• Expand into a new market

For a new business, the goal may be as simple as “bring on 10 new clients.”

There may be more than one goal, so make a list and ensure that each list item is something that has an end to it, so you will know when you’ve reached it.

4.) Work Out How to Communicate to Customers and Prospects

While this blog is focused on direct mail marketing with postcards, we realize that you may have found success reaching certain classes of prospects via other marketing channels.

Work out how to best reach prospects at every step of the sales cycle—from cold prospects (postcards are excellent for this group and we can help you find and reach more of them in your geographical area) to warmer prospects, all the way to your active customers.

The best to way to figure out which channel is the best one to reach a particular prospect on is to identify where this prospect class goes to gather information about the kind of product or service you sell. For instance, if you find that a certain segment of your potential prospects subscribe to a particular person’s or company’s blog, subscribe to it and read it. I will give you ideas on what this audience expects and appreciates—information you can use to inform your own approach.

5.) Decide What Your Marketing Budget Will Be

Marketing, rather than being an expense, is an investment on future income. Companies that like to have a constant flow of business market routinely—it’s a regular action, rather than a “one and done” activity. But quality marketing is not free. It costs time, money, or both.

Today, the Internet makes it easy for small to medium-size businesses to find cost-effective marketing methods for any budget. But you may still discover that you’ve spent more some months than you’d set aside.

In such a case, just jockey what’s been most effective against what’s most affordable. If need be, hold off on the more expensive marketing methods until the less costly ones start producing sufficient income.

For as little as $0.59 per each, including postage, full-color postcards are a ridiculously good marketing value, and you can create you own right now, online, and even target a new batch of prospects to mail them to by logging in to www.prospectsplus.com/pei.

Or, if designing a postcard is not in your “plans,” you can turn it over to our design and marketing pros at Opportunity Knocks at 1 (866) 319-7109. Tell them about your business and your goals and they design and target a postcard that gets you there.

A lot of SMB marketers tell themselves that they are not “creative” or “artistic.” So they naturally approach the design of their marketing campaigns with anxiety and dread.

If this sounds like you then we’d like to put you at ease: Creativity and artistic content in your marketing is not what drives sales. 

Skills for Marketing Success

Marketing success—that is, creating postcards that get great response—is not the result of superior artistic or graphic design ability. Rather, it is the result of a handful of skills that you already have.

We can say this with confidence because we’ve seen it time after time, test after test, with postcard after postcard designed by SMB marketers like you over the last 20 years.

These are skills that most all SMB marketers have and use regularly. Are you curious what they are? Here they are:

• An understanding of your value: Do you know what it is about your business that makes your customers choose you?
• An ability to recognize and utilize a good review: Can you exploit a great social proof to your customers and prospects?
• A practical design sense: Can you select an image that simply helps convey your message? (Yes, you totally can.)
• A willingness to set deadlines: Can you lay down and end date and stick to it?

These are all the skills that are required for effective postcard marketing. (Yes, we are sure of that.)

Your Value

We’re talking about your unique value proposition—the big reason why your customers buy from you instead of from your competition.

There may be dozens or hundreds of reasons but you only need to isolate one that sets your business apart from the rest. (Not sure what it is? Here’s three steps to help you figure it out.)

Not to get too cosmic on you but postcard marketing is a matter of space and time: You have only so much space to work with—enough for a short, powerful message. And somebody finding your postcard in their mailbox is going to devote only so much time to it, so you can’t expect them to read a lot of copy.

Postcard campaigns with a single value proposition do much better than campaigns that try to cram in too much information and too many messages. Solution: hit ’em with a single headline message that communicates your unique value proposition.

Testimonials

Why wrack your brain trying to come up with “creative” copy if you already have some great testimonials? Prospects and customers don’t always trust what you have to say about your business. Of course you think you’re wonderful, valuable, better than the rest. They put much more faith in a rave review from someone who has paid for your services. They identify with the customer.

Let your delighted customers speak for you.

A Great Image

Did you ever get a postcard from a friend or family member who was on vacation? Was the front of the card full of text you had to read to find out about the exotic or exciting locale they sent it from?

Of course not; it had a color photo of a sunny beach or a luxury hotel or a serene countryside. The picture was the message.

Postcards—even marketing postcards—are no different. They’re primarily visual with a little bit of text. So choose one or two images that speak for your product or service. This is not difficult. You don’t need an art degree. In fact, in our experience, it’s the people who are not photography buffs that pick the most effective photos for their marketing efforts.

For instance, if you do landscaping or painting or cosmetic dentistry, use before-and-after photos. If you do auto repair or plumbing or HVAC, show happy people in their car or home. Pictures of smiling, satisfied people are very effective in marketing (Your customers might even be willing to give you a picture of themselves to use with their testimonial, so ask.).

If you don’t have photos of your own, use stock images, like the kind you can get by subscribing to ShutterStock or a donation-based service like Pixabay.

Buy Now

Give your customers and prospects a reason to buy now by putting a deadline on the offer you’re presenting.

People understand deadlines. And because so many of them come with penalties (late fees, etc.), it is possible that people identify any deadline with a penalty. So when you give them a deadline for your offer, they feel they must heed it or they will lose out (penalty).

If you don’t, then people lose the card or cover it up with other things they tack to the fridge door. There’s no sense of urgency, so they forget about it.

So give them a deadline (“Offer good until [date],” “Supplies limited…,” etc.). It will compel them to buy now!

And that is all there is to it—four skills: (1) identify a value proposition, (2) gather testimonials, (3) choose images that tell your story, and (4) set a deadline.

So rather than agonizing about “creative” or “art,” for hours on end, you can get your postcard campaign designed and out the door and get back to the rest of your life and your business.

In fact, you can do all of this from your desktop, right now, by logging on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei. There you will find customizable postcard templates and list-building tools, and you can even handle the mailing with a few mouse clicks.

Or call Opportunity Knocks at 1 (866) 319-7109. Tell our design and marketing pros what you need and want. They’ve seen it all and know what works and will produce an effective campaign and even a targeted mailing list, if you need it.

Would you like your business to expand this year?

We are going to tell you the fastest, easiest way to accomplish that. Now, we realize that some people reading this will probably roll their eyes. Those people are not ready for this information. They unfortunately are going to have to struggle a bit longer, their companies growing very slowly, before this information really hits home and they realize that it’s what they need to do.

But others reading this will have a moment of recognition. It will wash over them like the warmth you feel when you step out into the sunlight. For some, the realization will take their breath away for a moment. Time might even feel as if it’s standing still. These people have reached that critical point when they could see the truth in this information and finally know what they need to do to keep their companies growing.

It sounds a bit mystical, doesn’t it?

It is.

The Ideal Circumstances

After that big build-up, we fear we may disappoint a few people with what we’re about to say, but here it is: If your current postcard is not performing very well, this information won’t do much for you.

First, it’s a necessary circumstance that you mail our your postcards regularly and repeatedly; you’re not expecting marketing miracles on one mailing per year.

But if you’re sending out a substantial number of cards every week or month and your ROI is for the dogs, this information won’t change  your situation appreciably.

If you can at the very least say that your current postcard is producing “not great, but acceptable ROI,” then you’re still in a great position.

And if your card is doing great, you’re in the ideal circumstances under which to benefit from the information which we’re going to get into…

…Right now.

Here it comes: mail out twice as many cards as you’re currently mailing.

(Trust us, we hear those eyes rolling…)

This is the concept of scaling up: your current card produces a certain amount of ROI. Sending out more of it will produce more income.

Yes, it is as easy as that.

This is one of the most difficult points for us to get people to think with. No offense, but it’s almost too simple a concept for some business owners to accept: the more marketing communications you mail out, the more response—leads, income, etc.—you get.

“But We Already Mail to Our Entire List…”

There are plenty more people out there who are just like your current customers.

They need and want your product or service. You can use Neighborhood Radius Marketing to reach more of them in your geographic are. Or take advantage of Big Data with a service like Nielsen Prizm Data to reach more prospects who think and feel the same way as your ideal customer, regardless of location.

The Alternative

You could try and squeeze more response out the same-sized mailing by tweaking the design of your current card and doing endless rounds of A-B testing of the headline, the image, the call to action.

And it’s true: A-B testing is valid and can make a huge difference in your ROI but it’s not fast and it’s not easy. (Remember, the title of this post is “The Fastest, Easiest Way to 2x, 3x—Even 4x Your Postcard Marketing Results,” okay?)

Tweaking and testing (or hiring a designer with experience in your industry) is for those people whose card is producing lousy, embarrassingly low ROI.

“Of Course You Guys Would Say That…

…you’re in the postcard business.” We were waiting for someone to bring that up. True, we are in the postcard marketing business but that doesn’t mean what we’re saying isn’t true.

All you have to do to prove it to yourself is try it and see. We’d be shocked if you didn’t see a notable increase in ROI, commensurate with your increase in output.

So, if you’ve got a card that producing acceptable results and you’re in a hurry to expand your company, take the fast and easy route: double, triple or quadruple the number of postcards you’re now sending. The more you marketing postcards you send out, the more response, leads, and income you get.

When you log on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei, you can duplicate your existing design and get access to Neighborhood Radius Marketing and Nielsen Prizm, to expand your mailing list. And you can handle the mailing too—all from your own computer.

If you’re short on time, give Opportunity Knocks a call at 1 (866) 319-7109 and we can take care of all the details. And if you’re in the “embarrassingly low ROI” group, we can definitely design a card that will increase your ROI. And you know what to do next…

Whether you’ve only marketed your business digitally or never marketed at all, you will eventually ask yourself the question (if you haven’t already), “Are paid online ads and email enough?”

You probably don’t click on every single ad you see when you’re online, do you? And you probably don’t open every email that every marketer sends you, right? (We certainly thank you for opening this one.)

Your prospects probably aren’t much different than you. They might even make liberal use of a spam folder and ad-blocking software.

It’s hard to be absolutely sure, unless they somehow contact you and move the sales cycle ahead.

But one thing’s for sure: postal mailboxes don’t have spam filters or pop-up blockers, so direct mail has a much higher degree of certainty of receipt; you can be sure that your prospect is seeing your promotion.

And it doesn’t stop there. It’s been scientifically proven that you get a much higher rate of response with direct mail. A U.S. Postal Service-sponsored study which found that postcards generate a more significant and lasting effect than digital marketing methods: 79% of recipients respond immediately, as opposed only 45% of email recipients.

We could toss out more pro-direct mail stats but let’s get on to the reason you began reading—five great ideas for your first postcard campaign:

1.) The Introducer

This is for new businesses or a new location or office. It’s the “Hey, here we are!” card. An introduction postcard may be the first exposure a prospect has of you, so it should be straightforward about what you do, where you located and how your prospect benefits from choosing you. And even though it’s just supposed to be an introduction, you do want them to respond, right? So remember to present an offer.

2.) Dollars Off

Whether you’re trying to win back customers who’ve gone astray or just generate more business from existing customers, you can’t lose with a discount offer. But according to one study, you’ll win more if you express your discount in dollars, rather than in a percentage. Specifically, dollar amounts (“Get $1 off,” “Take $50 of your next order,” “Here’s $20!” etc.) were consistently found to perform twice as well as a percentage discount.

3.) Thank You!

According to a 2014 survey, 53% of U.S. consumers will take their business elsewhere when they feel unappreciated or taken for granted.

You’re a customer too, so you know how it feels. Don’t be that guy (or girl). Remember to send a direct mail thank you note when customers make a significant purchase or reach a new customer milestone.

4.) Rewards Program

Think of a rewards program postcard as being a Dollars Off-Thank You! combo. But it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Decide what qualifies a customer for a reward (discount, something free, etc.) and, if you’re using marketing automation, you can set it up to recognize the signals and trigger a new card informing of their discount or freebie.

5.) The Happy Holiday Postcard 

During Christmas and New Years, people anticipate receiving cards in the mail from family and friends. All this attention on the mailbox set up the perfect conditions to send out your own warm holiday greeting. And definitely put the emphasis on the greeting. Wish them a wonderful holiday. Thank them for their business. And then, almost as an afterthought, present them with an irresistible offer or holiday discount.

Did this post give you some ideas for your first (or next) postcard campaign? Here’s another great idea: you can design your card right now, and handle the printing and mailing, all from the comfort of your computer, by logging on to www.prospectsplus.com/pei.

And if you want to hear some more great postcard marketing ideas, give Opportunity Knocks at call at 1 (866) 319-7109, and talk to one of our design and marketing pros about your business. They’ll handle the job from design to mailing and help you get powerful results.

We never launch into our blog posts with a “Hey, look at us!” approach but we’re going to do it this one time because…well, you’ll see why.

So here it is: ProspectsPLUS! gives you the ability to create and send custom direct mail postcards with the simplicity of email. Don’t you love that?

This Is Not Your Daddy’s Direct Mail

Some business owners, entrepreneurs, or marketing personnel, when presented with the idea of direct mail, automatically think “It costs too much” and “It takes too long to get it out.”

At one time, both of these conclusions were true because such direct mail printing was handled by printing houses, which meant:

• Manual, machine printing
• Several-week turnaround time
• Ordering huge batches to get a decent price-per-piece

Only mid-sized and big businesses could really afford to use it for outbound marketing.

That’s how direct mail was done in your parents’ day.

We knew that 54% of all sales in the U.S. are made by small businesses. ProspectsPLUS! was established on the conviction that small businesses should have access to the power of custom direct mail postcards—fast and affordable.

We didn’t just give them access; we made it as fast and easy as email.

Direct Mail As Easy As Email?

You write and send email on a computer or handheld device. Now, thanks to the same kinds of technology that produced the convenience and speed of email, you can design, print, and mail postcards from your computer or tablet.

You don’t even need to have a huge mailing list. You can target new prospects and grow your list with the easy-to-use Mailing List tools.

And it’s much cheaper than traditional brick and mortar printing costs.

If this is all moving a little too fast, take a moment to click on www.prospectsplus.com/pei and watch these short videos on the page:

• Postcard Design
• Mailing List
• Printing & Delivery

Then you’ll see that you can get your postcard campaign out in a matter of days, not weeks. You can design it yourself, use your own existing design, or have one of our design and marketing experts handle it. You can find prospects for your product or services and build up a list.

And you can do it all from your computer, just like email.

So, What Do Small Businesses Use It for?

The short, simple answer is: everything that you use traditional direct mail for:

• Lead generation
• Warm lead sales conversion
• Driving traffic to your door
• Customer retention
• Customer reactivation
• Customer rewards

It’s fast enough that you can generate and launch new campaigns quickly, and it’s affordable enough so that you can do it more often.

Have you watched those videos yet? If not, you can see them at www.prospectsplus.com/pei. While you’re there, feel free to look around and get more familiar with the ProspectsPLUS! design and print platform.

If you want to speak to one of our experts about your specific direct mail marketing needs, we have a separate, full-serve division, called Opportunity Knocks. You can reach them at 1 (866) 319-7109.