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Build Your Business Faster With Direct Mail Advertising

Written by: Jerre Blodgett

Article Overview: Using Direct Mail Advertising can be an effective, inexpensive ad strategy for growing your business. Campaigns need to be interesting and informative; should be mailed to the same prospects again-and-again; and for best results, followed-up with phone calls.

Build Your Business Faster With Direct Mail Advertising

My first business, a printing company, was built almost entirely using direct mail advertising. We began by mailing about a thousand flyers a month. When we sold the business at a huge profit three years later, we were sending monthly mailings to every business in the county - about 30,000.

We built our brand name into one of the best known printing businesses in San Diego county in under four years. I've since used direct mail to build many businesses, and have found that it works for businesses of any size or industry. Let's outline a direct mail program that you can use on a small scale first, then ramp-up as your business grows. Remember, direct mail doesn't have to be simply a letter or brochure.

Small Scale Promotion

Post Cards. Post cards are effective because they are delivered with the message right there in front of the recipient. And since they don't require opening, a higher percentage get read.

There are many inexpensive, quality printers online that will print from your digital files. With the online printer I use, you can buy 500 full color post cards, 5-1/2" x 8-1/2", printed both sides, for about $100. That's about 20 cents each. Add postage, and for a little over 60 cents you have a great mailer. You can send out about 100 a week until they're gone.

I use a professional graphics designer and ad copywriter (me!) to create the images and message. Always have an offer of some kind, which I call "the hook." Your message should be benefits-oriented. Think: what can you do for them that their current supplier isn't? Why should they do business with you?

You can get a mailing list by searching online, or build your own from existing lists augmented by some good research. I usually get one to three inquiries per hundred mailers. Imagine the results if you sent 5,000!

Larger Scale Promotion

This may take some further planning and research. Hand pick 100 companies that meet your ideal client matrix. Mail your Company Brochure to the owners of each of those 100 companies with a personal letter introducing your company and stating, in bullet points, how they can benefit from utilizing your firm. Follow up with a phone call and set face-to-face appointments. You should be able to get at least three to five appointments from each hundred phone calls.

For ideas on more complex, larger-scale direct mail promotions, see my articles: "Small Business Advertising - How Baseball Theme Direct Mail Campaign Hit Home Run" and "Small Business Advertising - Direct Mail Candy Promo Gets Sweet Results."

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  Small Business Advertising - Direct Mail Candy Promo Gets Sweet Results
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Article Tags: br, brand name, brochure, copywriter, direct mail advertising, flyers, hook, images, inexpensive quality, inquiries, mail program, mailers, post cards, printing businesses, printing company, professional graphics designer, quality printers, recipient, san diego county, strong one



Related Forum Posts
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
Re: Great start, but no finish - My advise is FOCUS on your business. Focusing is the main factor to succeed on business. If you have a great idea, then follow it only, don't look anywhere else. It is especially essential in an online business. Because there are a lot of mind blowing sales letters promising millions dolllars or overnight success, people find it difficult to concentrate on one business and they lose their energy. Concept is simple. 1- Have a good idea; 2- Build your business on it; 3- Monetize your business; 4- Promote it; 5- Build list of responsive customers; 6- Maintain You Business. Focusing and not fearing from competition (instead you can learn from competitiors) are main tips of billionaires ,BTW. Orxan
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
How do you know if you have a good idea? - [quote="orxan":3118uboz]My advise is FOCUS on your business. Focusing is the main factor to succeed on business. If you have a great idea, then follow it only, don't look anywhere else. It is especially essential in an online business. Because there are a lot of mind blowing sales letters promising millions dolllars or overnight success, people find it difficult to concentrate on one business and they lose their energy. Concept is simple. 1- Have a good idea; 2- Build your business on it; 3- Monetize your business; 4- Promote it; 5- Build list of responsive customers; 6- Maintain You Business. Focusing and not fearing from competition (instead you can learn from competitiors) are main tips of billionaires ,BTW. Orxan[/quote:3118uboz] Thanks orxan! But how do you know if you truly have a good idea or not? If we ask ourselves, we may be suffering from tunnel vision. On the other hand, friends/family may try to discourage us from pursuing a small business because of their own fears, while others will simply give us an empty "you can do it!" line.
Hello From Marietta GA! - Hello All! My name is Tim Naylor and I am in Direct Sales! I am glad I have found EC's sites and I hope to learn and share a lot!


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