Raise awareness for your agency and keep top of mind with prospective clients by using direct mail. Most agencies fail at their own direct mail efforts because they give up after only a couple of mailings when they have little or no results. Direct mail isn’t dead. But its not very effective unless it is part of an integrated marketing plan and is used consistently.
To be consistent:
*Keep it simple, a single concept that fits with your overall new business plan and additional campaign pieces. For simplicity I would suggest using an oversize postcard, 6 to 12 designs for monthly or bi-monthly mailing
*Treat this like a project as you would for any other client. Open a job, develop a creative brief, identify your target audience, have a start date and hard deadline for delivery.
*Develop a years campaign at one time. Have it on the shelf ready for mailing.
*Outsource with a direct mail service. Let them print, presort and stamp for efficiency. I’ve learned that the more things you can outsource the more consistent your efforts will be. Some can even pay for themselves in cost savings. An agency client of mine outsourced their direct mail for the first time, more than doubled their mailing at a savings of $72 not to mention the staff’s time that was saved.
*Purchase a mailing list. Most agencies don’t have the time and resources to develop and maintain their own data base. Executive positions change often. Suppliment your data with a targeted list of companies. Purchase a list for 1 to 2 years and multi-use. Names, titles and addresses plus phone numbers that you can use for your “warm call” program.
Have a “creative” strong call to action. Drive traffic first to your agency’s blog site. The blog site is becoming the gateway to ad agencies and websites are more like an agency brochure or portfolio.
*Autom (more…)
