Direct Marketing News

What are you going to read first?
A full colour postcard with attractive photos and visible offers
A plain envelope with an unmarked sender
That’s the beauty of it, you know the answer to the question and it sells.

You’ll get an incredible high readership just because it’s visible and in front of the reader before they even decide to read it. What the recipient reader doesn’t know that whoever has supplied the direct mail campaign may have spent more on the plain envelope campaign than the postcard campaign. There is less labour involved in postcard campaigns and now days full colour printing is affordable. The said thing is that you will spend less and receive higher readership and results with the postcard campaign than the plain envelope campaign.

What can I use Postcard Marketing for?
Announcement (new product, new store, event, address change, Just sold or listed, etc)
Publicize your web-site to drive traffic to it
Newsletters to keep in touch with
Building your brand
Follow up’s
Mail Orders
Thank You’s

Is it worth it?
You need to have a good idea of your goals going into a campaign. Postcard Marketing or Direct Marketing for that matter is great because everything is trackable. You can use the numbers for your campaigns to tweak your efforts and grow your business. There are a number of things to keep in mind going into your next postcard marketing campaign:
Know the number you want to boost your sales (ex:$50,000 extra sales/month)
Know the number of sales you will need to make in order to achieve that
Understand the % of leads you will need from your campaign and the % of those leads that will close on a sales (Ex: A 5000 postcard campaign produces 250 leads(5%) and of those 250 leads, 25 of them close a sales(10%)
Multiple the closed sales predictions by average sell price (ex:$2000) In this case you would achieve $50,000 in sales and make your goal.
Inform customer service of the mail campaign so they are ready for an increase in call volume
Make sure you can track the campaigns(tracking code on postcard or ask how they heard about your services)

From 5000 postcards going out you generate an extra $50,000. Not bad. Think of the possibilities it could create for you. It may take some test mailings to figure out if you have the right target market. 40% of a successful campaign comes from the mail list so you want to ensure this is not overlooked.

What will increase my ROI:
There are things inside your postcard marketing campaign that will also help increase ROI. Your design and wording is key in any campaign and are the obviously precise factors to build your success. But there are other things that many direct marketers don’t include for their customers.

One great addition to a postcard campaign is to make sure it’s full colour. This will increase your results and your read results.

Another great addition we use is VDP(Variable Data Printing) which means the mail piece is personalized to the reader(ex:uses their name).

Another powerful marketing driver in our campaigns and what we offer to our customers is Purls (Personalized URL’s) This will drive the reader to a customized web-site that will gather info, advertise a precise product, etc. Once the reader visits the web site it tracks who has visited the PURL, how often they were on it. These results or leads can be then sent to you through e-mail or your cell phone. This method will increase your close % and bring your ROI up by up to 200% of what you would normally get out of a basic campaign. The power is in hitting the customer with multiple avenues and giving the buyer the confidence in your product.

If you want to check out a ROI calculator that will bring you confidence in your Postcard Marketing Campaign visit:

http://www.marketingtoday.com/tools/roi_calculator.htm

Novice marketers give up the minute their mailing did not go as they expected - and quite frankly, what they expected was not realistic. You cannot count on total abundance in response where you are just starting out. You may rocket there, but you have to be able to maintain it. Marketing is a game of gradual increase, if you do it right, by testing and tracking all along. That way you don’t go into overwhelm and are able to organize your business structure as you expand from the constant new, but gradual business.

What should you be spending on your marketing?

This depends on how you want to grow your business and what your goals are. Also, each industry is different on how they market to their clients and through what marketing channels you choose. It’s good to diversify in what you do and spread your marketing out through different avenues (SEM, direct mail, radio/TV, Billboards, etc)

Postcard Marketing Group uses postcard marketing as a main avenue as it is our medicine and the results are proven and trackable to what we do.

There is no right answer but the fact of the matter is you should have a marketing budget and know what is working for you. As mentioned above, do not give up the moment something doesn’t get you the ROI you expect. It takes time and continuously trying new things to increase your postcard marketing results

To Recap:

You need to do:

Test mailings
Track your results
Make sure you understand where your money is going and how it directly relates to your ROI

Travis Batting founded Postcard Marketing Group in 2005 with a vision in creating an ease of ordering for customers and driving ROI. The company has quickly evolved and offers clients above average tools to be a leader in the industry and brings knowledge to keep the customers on top of their business.

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Dare her to say no when you are on your knees with a designer jewellery diamond ring.