Direct Marketing - It's Not Just Junk Mail

We have all had “junk” mail appear in our mail boxes.  Well, it’s only junk if it doesn’t interest you.  But that doesn’t mean direct response marketing doesn’t work.  If it didn’t work, nobody would do it.   Similar to sales promotion activities, direct response marketing is designed to encourage immediate action.  Things like catalogues, direct mail flyers, sales or fundraising letters, magazine inserts and statement stuffers.  Even some forms of television can be considered direct marketing.  Things like infomercials and commercials that encourage you to “Buy now!  Just call the toll free number on the screen.  If you call in the next 10 minutes, you’ll receive a free bonus gift!”  Direct marketing is very highly targeted to ensure that the advertiser is reaching only a very specific target market as opposed to mass marketing which attempts to reach a much broader audience.

 

Advantages of Direct Marketing:

·         Allows you to target your message to a very specific audience.   Whatever kind of business you have, you will have defined specific target markets when creating your marketing plan.  Mail-outs can be sent specifically to those people only instead of mass mailing something.  Also, each specific piece can be customized to each person in that target market.

·         You can evaluate its effectiveness. If you compare the number of responses to the number of pieces mailed, you can calculate the response rate. If you include coded coupons or response cards you can keep track of exactly who responded and from where.

·         Mail readers are actively involved.  When people take the time to read their mail, your message will have their undivided attention while they open and scan through it.

Disadvantages of Direct Marketing:

·         Many people don't like unsolicited offers and many are skeptical of their validity.

·         Increasingly, busy people don't even open what they view as "junk mail."

·         Using this method of advertising requires thorough maintenance of mail lists. Many small business owners don't take the time to update their mailing lists. With outdated lists, however, mail goes to undeliverable addresses, which is a waste of money.   Another possible glitch - an inaccurate list may misspell names or address a person who has died. These kinds of errors annoy, or worse yet offend, the recipient.

·         Some groups are concerned about the environmental impact of resources used for advertising mailings.

·         It can be expensive.  When creating a direct marketing campaign, you really need to weigh out the cost differential between producing the materials and the profits earned from any new business the campaign will generate.

Tips on Developing Your Direct Mail Piece

·         Focus on customer benefits and do it right at the beginning. The first sentence (the lead) in a direct mail letter should be about benefits.   Your prospective customer only takes a second or two to decide whether or not to keep reading or to pitch it.  So, make sure the benefits of your product or service are offered right up front.

·         Keep the offer simple, easy to understand and persuasive.

·         Include a "call to action."

·         Ask the customer to "call today."

·         Include a postage-paid reply card.

·         Make the offer for a limited time to encourage prospects to act.

·         Make it easy to respond or place an order. Include order forms if appropriate for your product. Include a:

o   toll-free phone number (24-hour ordering if possible)

o   fax numbers

o   email addresses

o   payment options such as credit cards

o   payment plans for big ticket items

·         Use a personal and friendly writing style. Mail is a one-to-one communication; make it sound that way.

·         Create different direct mail pieces to address different audiences - even when you're offering the same product. Your product or service may have a different benefit for different target markets. So, create multiple forms of the same offer for those different audiences.

·         Consider making your mailing "3D" by including an object in the envelope that will peak the recipient's curiosity.

Mailing List Options:

Mailing lists are available for purchase, but they can be quite costly, especially for small businesses on a tight budget.  A better option is to use your house list.  That means that you really need to be diligent about obtaining information from your current customers and people who have inquired about your product or service in the past and maintaining it.  Keep your mailing list current by periodically asking your customers for their current mailing address.

Success Measurements:

When you include coded coupons or response cards, you can track how many you have received and where they came from.  Direct mail experts tell clients to expect anywhere between a .05 percent and 1 percent response rate.  That means that if you mailed out 1,000 direct mail pieces, expect to receive about 10 responses.  That might not sound like a lot, but it’s better to receive 10 actual sales, than 500 “maybes” that you could be chasing down forever.  So, don’t increase the number of mail outs just to increase your response rate.  The quality of the response is what’s important.

What is Sales Promotion?

So far I’ve covered the importance of your company website, public relations and an overview of the marketing wheel.  In today’s post, I want to educate you on what sales promotion is.  Time and time again, I hear people say “advertising” when they really mean “sales promotion”.  The two terms are often confused with each other but they are not the same thing.

Sales promotion is used as a short term technique to persuade customers to make a quick purchase.  These are things like:

·         coupons

·         buy one get one free deals

·         giveaways

·         free events such as workshops

·         loyalty programs

·         buy now – pay later plans

·         free samples

This is just a short list of the things that you can do to incorporate sales promotion into your marketing plan, but it gives you an idea of what sales promotion is to begin with.

Advantages of sales promotion:

Price competition – One of the advantages of sales promotion for small business owners is that you can significantly lower the price of a product (at least temporarily) that is in direct competition with a larger retailer.  This in turn can drive traffic into your store, hopefully turning these new customers into permanent customers.

Encourages repeat purchases – Things like loyalty programs can encourage repeat purchases.  We’ve all been to a coffee shop or sandwich place that gives you a card where they punch it every time you purchase something.  Then after you’ve purchased 10 coffees you get one free.  That free one at the end kept you coming back, didn’t it?!

Entices new customers – As a small business owner, it’s often more difficult to make customers aware of your product or company since you don’t have a massive advertising budget.  But people always want something that is going to provide a benefit to them, so if they are going to get something for free, they are more likely to come to your store, instead of going down the street to your competitor.

Disadvantages of sales promotion:

Short-lived – The biggest disadvantage of sales promotion is that it doesn’t develop brand loyalty.  It is intended to generate immediate, short-term results.

Price Sensitivity – If sales promotions are done too frequently, customers will come to expect great deals all the time.  In this case, they will just wait until you have another promotion before purchasing the product.  Promotions are great tools, but do them infrequently.  Otherwise, you’re losing out on sales of regular priced items and losing profit.

Quality image may be compromised – When you heavily discount a product, customers may think that the product isn’t selling, so there must be something wrong with it.  For that reason, sales promotions need to be used sparingly, especially in businesses where quality and image are important to their marketing strategy.

So, definitely incorporate sales promotional activities into your marketing plan.  Plan them out to coincide with your other campaigns, but don’t do too many of them.  Remember that sales promotion is not advertising… it’s a tool that is used to generate quick, short term activity.

For help planning your sales promotion activities, contact us at info@s-b-m-s.ca.

Public Relations - A Key Component to Your Marketing Wheel

Public relations is an incredibly important part of your marketing communications plan.  It is essentially free advertising, done by journalists and reporters.  It is used to promote products, people, places, ideas, activities, organizations, and even entire countries!

The benefit to public relations is that it is more credible than traditional advertising.  News stories, feature articles, and events seem more real and believable to readers than ads do.

 Some of the public relations tools that you can use are:

·         Press releases
·         Speeches
·         Product publicity
·         Public affairs
·         Lobbying
·         Investor relations
·        Product Development
·         Special Events
·         Public service activities

Here’s where your marketing wheel starts to take place.  Remember that in the first blog of this series, I talked about your website being the centre of the wheel and everything you do needs to lead back to your website.  Your website is a great tool to use for public relations.  People search the internet for information, not necessarily to purchase something.  Using your website as a public relations tool gives your customers the information they are looking for.  If your company has appeared in the news, put a link to that newscast on your website.  Had an article written about you or your company?  Put that in there too.  Maybe your company just won an award.  That needs to be broadcast too.  All of this is giving customers information about your company, which is what they are really looking for.

 Your marketing team needs to have a great working relationship with journalists and reporters that represent your industry and your target market.   You need to know how they prefer to receive stories, whether it be by email or through a press release distribution site.  I have also just called up some of my contacts and asked if they would be willing to do a story on a certain topic.  If they have the time and they find it newsworthy, they’ll do it.

 Now, here are some tips when submitting a press release.  If you would like to submit a press release that will actually be effective

a)      Make sure you have something newsworthy to say
b)      Make sure your press release is professionally written
c)       Make sure it’s truthful and it isn’t an outright advertisement
d)      Make sure you are sending it to the correct place and contact person

So, remember to include public relations activities into your marketing communications plan.  It will help build your reputation without breaking your bank account.

Marketing is not just Advertising

Marketing is not just advertising.   It’s about developing a brand, an image that customers will remember.  It’s about delivering a memorable experience.  Sure, advertising is a part of that, but so are a lot of other things.  In the next few weeks, I will be posting an 8 part series centred around creating that memorable impression.   This first post is an overview on how to create that memorable impression.

I often refer to what I call the “marketing wheel”.  (I’m not the first or only one to refer to it this way, nor is my “wheel” the only one out there.)  Here’s how it works.  Advertising messages from different media and different promotional approaches all become part of a single message about the company.  So, it stands to reason that marketing is not just about advertising… it’s about the entire package that the company portrays.  So, all of your marketing activities need to work together to deliver the same consistent message.

If you look at the “marketing wheel”, you’ll see that the company website is right in the centre of the wheel.  That’s because these days, if you don’t have a website, nobody is going to know you exist.  Think about it; when you’re looking for a company, do you still look in the yellow pages?  Likely not.  Instead you “Google” it.  So, your entire marketing communications plan needs to centre around your website.  Every other marketing activity needs to lead back to that website.

I love the advertising campaign for Franks Red Hot Sauce.  The old lady that says she “puts that sh#t on everything” is hilarious.  But think about that tag line and use it in relation to your website.  Put it on EVERYTHING!

Advertising is pretty self-explanatory, but a lot of people think that advertising isn’t important anymore because companies have so much more available to them on-line.  And it’s free.  Well, advertising is still extremely important.  Just remember that your traditional advertising needs to reach your intended target market and it needs to present that consistent image.  Your traditional advertising needs to lead your customers back to your website.

Public relations is a great way to get customers to trust you.  Anytime you have the opportunity to get in front of a camera or get an article printed in a newspaper or magazine, you have just solidified your place in the world as the expert in your field.  Make sure that your company spokesperson is articulate and professional.  Remember, you’re trying to create a positive image for your company!

Sales promotions and direct marketing are great for driving traffic into your business.  The downside is that they don’t develop that brand loyalty you want.  However, that’s not to say that they should never be implemented.  These are really important parts of the “marketing wheel”.  Once again, make sure the image you have projected in your website and in your advertising is carried over into your sales promotion activities.

Personal selling is by far one of the most important aspects to developing that brand for your company.  Your sales team needs to know exactly what your company mission and vision are and they need to live that every day.  The last thing you want is for customers to have a bad experience with a sales associate because they will tell a lot of people to never shop in your store ever again. 

And of course, on-line marketing is extremely important to your marketing plan.  15 years ago, this was not something that companies thought about.   Now it’s absolutely vital that you are able to be found on the web.  Remember that whatever you put on the internet stays there forever.  No matter how well you think it might be hidden, it can always be found, so anytime you post anything on the internet think about how that is going to reflect your image.

In the rest of the posts, I will start going into more depth about each section of the wheel, starting with the website.  If you take away only one thing from these posts, I want it to be this:

Advertising messages from different media and different promotional approaches all become part of a single message about the company.  So keep it consistent!