Are you pinning your marketing hopes on one-shot mailings?
A single postcard mailing is perfect to promote a specific event like a grand opening or sale. In fact, this single-mailing approach is a very common one and is often quite successful.
But to really get results, go beyond this surface approach to postcards. Creating a marketing campaign can build a deep awareness of your business, create a steady flow of incoming leads, and whip up a demand for your products or services.
A marketing campaign takes pieces that build upon each other in a coordinated push toward your desired result. Using postcards in a marketing campaign can bring in business like you've never seen before. If you're ready to try this approach in your own marketing, here's how you can plan a postcard marketing campaign that will get results.
Determine which product or service you would like to promote. Don't make the mistake of trying to sell everything at the same time; rather, focus on one specific offering. If you have a structured back end to your business, try offering an entry-level item that will give you up-sell opportunities.
Isolate your target audience for this product or service. Determine precisely whom you'd like to reach with this campaign. Perhaps you'll decide to focus on existing customers or customers you haven't heard from lately. Or maybe you'd like to approach new customers. If your product or service has appeal to multiple audiences, you can create future campaigns to reach each one. But, for each marketing campaign, keep the focus on one audience and one product or service. This will make maximum use of your marketing dollars and avoid diluting your message (which is what happens when you try to reach too many types of people at once).
Define your budget. Most companies spend too little on marketing, which equals having too little to spend on marketing. If you've never done mailings like this before, it might take some work to massage the budget, but if you can put enough there and stay committed to it, you will soon have more business and more income to invest. A good place to start is at about 10% of your income (or as close as you can get) and work up as you drive in more business through marketing. Remember that you're investing in your business and its future income.
Create your campaign. With your marketing company's help, create three to five postcards that will go out at scheduled intervals. The right interval for you will depend on your audience and what you're trying to accomplish, so ask your marketing company for guidance. And make sure you don't overlook the importance of a good list at this stage; this is another area to get guidance on from your marketing company.
Test and track. Unless you have a proven design that you've gotten great results with, it's time to test. No matter how well you think you know your market or how creative your ideas are, the proof is in the pudding. A mailing of 5000 cards will give you a good idea of whether you need to tweak your design, improve your offer, or adjust your list. There are several ways to track responses; the easiest is to have your salespeople or receptionist ask new callers how they heard of you and note the responses. Based on your results, you can expand your campaign or adjust your list or design as needed.
Stay committed. Don't stop mailing because of one slow mailing; stick to your plan. If your list doesn't respond the way you'd like, determine what went wrong and fix it. It will take an investment, particularly while you're still in the testing stages. But once you're through the testing phase you'll have a proven postcard and you'll know precisely the kind of response you can expect. Imagine knowing that for every 5000 cards you send, you can expect to make 100 sales. That's the kind of confidence you'll have after running through your first few campaigns. Then it's a simple matter of deciding how many sales you'd like to make and sending out the appropriate number of postcards. Marketing with postcards works. Stick to your plan, adjust as you go, and you will make it all the way.
Don't make the mistake of seeing marketing as a series of onetime actions. By shaping your marketing into campaigns, not only will your results really start to boom, but also, you'll find it's easier than ever to market your business.
When you put together a regular, ongoing campaign, you'll be amazed at how your customers' awareness of your business and your offerings grows. The leads will start to flow, and demand for your products or services will soar.
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