Direct Mail Works

 

Put Direct Mail Back In Your Marketing Mix! You know I am a great advocate of multi-channel marketing. It allows you take advantage of the 5 senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.  Outside of a good old face to face sales appointment, and that is not going to happen right now with covid, it is only through your message and your words that you can captivate the heart and mind of your prospects and customers.  Show them you care. Tell them you care. You need to start the showing this special care in the words you use, not just expressing the feelings but also explaining how you understand the problems they are having is a great way to start. More so in a Covid world. Then if you are doing niche selling like we at Larson & Associates advocate you most likely really do understand their problems and pain points, maybe even more then they do themselves, all the good and bad of the market because of your fuller broad-based understanding. Direct mail does not have to be dull! Direct mail at first glance might appear to lack the glitz and glamour of digital marketing. No bells. No whistles. But with all the new innovations maybe not! Print technology like spot digital varnish or digital foil have burst onto the the scene in the last year. Are you taking advantage of those new exciting innovations along with variable data capabilities which came into use a few decades ago with the promise of fast, highly personalized campaigns? Smell you ask? Yes you can get scented pieces of mail. Really, The perfume companies have know this for a long time. Is it time for you to start stinking? Sound? Oh yes with little chips you can talk through the mail. If you have the voice for it sing out loud and strong! As direct mail technologies have evolved, and as email in-boxes have filled with needless spam looking offers, many marketers are finding that a targeted direct mail added into the marketing mix can cut through the clutter and deliver many of the those same advantages that companies have been enjoying from online marketing. In addition, with many offices closed during the pandemic, physical mail is often reaching people when they are home as well as phone calls and this mail into their almost empty mail box might be providing a pleasant diversion from the daily routine of life. Many of these prospects are welcoming mail as a point of contact with the world outside their homes. The good thing about mail is that you can touch it, you can feel it, you can smell it and you can see it. If you want to taste it I don't want to hear about it, lol. That alone makes a difference, particularly now, when we can't even really touch or see each other.  Although direct mail volumes are down significantly that is a good thing for you. As marketers headed off to Zoom-land from last March onward amid the contraction of the economy and marketing budges kept shrinking it opened up more space for those who kept doing what worked. As I call them, the basics of Direct mail, Email and Telemarketing using zooming in-place of face-to-face sales calls.  As we move into the start of 2021 and the new year, we are starting to see an increase in direct mail use requests putting aside the slowness because it works! And it holds up one leg of the marketing stool in a way the others can not!   Can We Help You? Take a look or re-look at direct mail. You might be surprised but what mail is capable of doing for you. What we have found is that when people unsubscribe from an email list, many times it's not because they don't want to have a relationship with you and your brand. Sometimes they're are just overwhelmed by the number of emails so unless yours is really good and keeps striking a special note you will not make the short list forever. So is it time to go wide open multi-channel? Should your company be using a strategically timed mulit-channel. multi-touch campaigns involving emails, follow-ups phone calls and postcard mailings? You think we should talk?  The return on investment numbers say. . .  Yes. Larson & Associates We Make Good Businesses Great and Great Businesses Even Better Larson & Associates 3475 Steeplechase Way    Suite 101 Grayslake IL 60030 847-991-1294

3 Legged Stool Of Marketing

Do You Have The Stability of a 3-Legged Stool Marketing Plan?

Have you ever sat on a 3 legged stool? The reality is it does not wiggle or shake. It can be said that every business is supported by a three-legged stool. Each leg of the stool represents one of the three marketing elements needed to run a successful campaign. Since its inception and initial use in the early years of the twentieth century, the three-legged stool analogy has been used to describe the fundamental principles of business, leadership, investment, banking, politics, art and even baking. Its longevity and endurance speak to its strength and simple eloquence of design, representative of specific ideas and fundamental principles that shape successful organizations. In the quintessential successful organization, the three ‘legs’ will be of equal height, size and strength. For if any one or two of the legs are shorter, thinner, or weaker than the others then the risk for the business is multiplied exponentially. This risk negates potential, slowing or stopping growth, causing instability, doubt and can lead to catastrophic failure, the whole project can begin collapse or never even get off the ground in the first place. In order for the stool to remain sturdy, supportive and even all three legs must be balanced. Just as with this stool analogy to ensure a successful marketing campaign it is imperative to keep marketing ideas, efforts and goals balanced, on-track and on time. For those who have worked with or spent time with us here at Larson & Associates, you are probably already very familiar with our well-established fondness for this analogy. The simple eloquence of design and purpose illustrate perfectly the need for supportive planning, strategy, and long-term implementation. For those of you who have not had the opportunity to hear our version of what we call “The three-legged stool of marketing” pull up your stool, maybe put on a pillow and get comfortable. In this analogy, the seat represents your company your organizational idea, your dream. To be successful, you want it to be stable, accommodating, and enticing to clients and customers from every walk of life. In business this is accomplished and accentuated through marketing, a sturdy, strategically planned and dependable marketing strategy is going to include 3 main “legs” Direct Mail, Email Campaigning, and Telemarketing. At Larson & Associates, we build strategic, stable, successful marketing plans with this proven combination of direct mail, email campaigns, and telemarketing. At Larson & Associates, it is our firm collective belief that if you were to utilize nothing else except these 3 marketing tactics effectively that your business will grow and prosper. Not just grow but grow at the rate we want it to, 3 times the national gross national product. Direct Mail is seen as a dinosaur by many but before you dismiss it do your research, it has proven to be beneficial. Don’t forget to apply the golden rule 40/20/40 the success of your direct mail marketing efforts are going to be dependent upon three factors – 40% of your success will come from how effective your mailing list is, another 40% will depend on how compelling your offer is, and the remaining 20% will come from everything else (design, the copy/text of the mailing, etc.).The takeaway here is do not spend exuberant time on flashy graphics, layouts. Keep in mind the mail box is next to empty.  Some key things to keep in mind when planning this campaign: Find your target audience Test the Market Make a powerful call to action Don't’ forget to proofread Don't forget to follow up Be sure to direct them to your online site Email is your channel of distribution, use it wisely. To share your latest blog, a sale or just share information this is the way to go. But use it wisely. Make what you are sending them useful, make an intriguing subject line, make your content engaging and always provide an awesome call to action. Telemarketing is the glue to make this all come together. It gives you the unique ability to go in ask questions on what you sent and come away with the information you are after and then it gives you immediate feedback.   All 3 methods have been the focus of many arguments debating their relevance in today’s technical age. When it seems their marketing attempts have returned less than desirable results or seems to have failed, business people tend to blame the media platform first. “I should never have used email, no one opens those, I ruined my whole campaign by focusing on email.” Or it’s the fault of the greatly derided direct mail platform, where it seems everyone is quick to advise you afterwards that ‘It’s just a waste of time and resources, no one pays attention to print any longer.’ . But in the end these media platforms are just tools — like hammers, harnesses and remote controls — they work properly only if you can hit the nail, buckle the straps or press the right buttons. Being in the marketing business my brain is always running, looking at products and see how they could be promoted, sales or conversions. Did you realize humans have an attention span of 8 seconds??? WOW! The brain processes visuals 60,0000 times faster than the time it takes the brain to decode text. Being able to add graphics, pictures, and visuals to sell yourself with is a must.   Marketing that cuts through the clutter with attention-getting graphics and copy is important to success.   Keep it simple. Due to cognitive fluency, the brain craves ease and order. Direct mail and email that creates a simple decision path with limited copy and explanation always test better. Add that to a simple call to action telemarketing follow up and there you go. The support is in the legs. Like a stool, your campaign will topple if any of the legs are weak or not there. And before you blame the multi-channel legs of your campaign’s shortcomings, ask first whether you got the right marketing channel, list, and message. A business owner told me “telemarketing doesn’t work’  but then after I nitched him down and slashed his overly long script that only emphasizes benefits that address the target audience’s primary needs, he went and had a successful calling campaign. Another very common complaint was voiced by a business owner. She claimed that email does not work. Together we examined & cleaned her email list, determined her primary audience, sent targeted emails and added on a phone call to people who opened up the email 3 or more times. She saw the power of email when it was used properly. A similar story unfolded with a couple of business owners who had decided that direct mail doesn’t work. We sat down together looked over their mailing list cleaned it up and then look at the content they were sending. The content was tweaked to be more relevant, graphics and a call to action were added. They immediately saw a turn around in the number of clients brought in this way.   Of course, all media channels don’t work for all people and purposes. But what is the right one for you? If you’re B2B like I and my clients are, I go to my stool legs of direct mail, email, and telemarketing. Time and time again this is where the real marketing action is, Everything else, yes everything in that long list only supports rolls to these 3. But more often than not, you’ll have better luck with your marketing campaigns if you examine your target market and message first. If you don’t get those right, it doesn’t matter what media channel you choose. You’re doomed to failure. So come with us and sit down on your companies stool and let us keep those legs strong and working Larson & Associates 847-991-1294 howard@larsonassociates.ws

Become Familiar To Your Prospects

Success in getting new customers is the engine that drives your business, the engine that powers your dreams, energizes your ideas and delivers your expectations. A well-tuned engine delivers powerful results, it takes you where you want to be, and beyond.

Starting that engine and running it at peak performance is the priority and end goal of every business. In the B2B arena, this becomes an even greater challenge, where customers are clients, individuals who have been in the trenches and know the drill, what to anticipate when you knock on their door. Often the engine is already built and just needs to be tuned up, sometimes it needs to be rebuilt.This subtle recognition is about making your presence known without all the obnoxious baggage. It’s about being seen and remembered, but for all of the right reasons. When the time comes and your potential client, after recognizing their need, contemplates where to go, what to do and who to call, you want their decision maker to say “Eureka! The answer is right here, call **Insert your organization's name here** immediately!” This is where ideas begin to become a success, where cold calls become clients, this is conversion.

At Larson & Associates, we firmly believe that the success of the campaign is not measured by leads, referrals, or clicks and likes on your social sites, but when the conversion is made. This is when potential becomes a client, where the rubber meets the road, driving your bottom line, creating success.  Everything else is just fluff and puff.

Here are the cold, hard statistics of lead generation. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Starting that engine and running it at peak performance is the priority and end goal of every business. It takes 1 to 3 touches to re-engage an inactive customer It takes 1 to 5 touches to engage a prospect who is high in the buying cycle It takes 5 to 12 touches to engage a warm inbound lead to buy It takes 5 to 20 touches to engage a prospect who has only a minimal familiarity with you or your company It takes 20 to 50 touches to engage a cold prospect who does not know you or your company Now ask yourself how are you going to to that? If you have done your research and have begun focusing on the names of companies that are a good fit for you, then you are ready for another cold, hard fact, it’s likely that many of these companies do not care about you or have even ever heard of you or your organization. Your name brings a blank stare and holds no value for them. So, what do you do?Plan to become familiar to them.   This plan might include office visits, phone calls, voice mail, e-mail, social media, trade shows, and industry conferences. Most importantly, establishing and maintaining contact with them, brand yourself and then integrating yourself into their business world. A word of caution, do not focus solely on building the relationship, do your work, use your product and professionalism in action, this will leave a lasting impression. Each time you leave a voice mail they hear your name and your company name Each time they read an email they see your name, e-mail address, company name and your product/service line and how it fits with they’re pain/pleasure needs. Connect on social media and familiarity increases If you “like,” comment or share something they posted you become more familiar (and important). When you meet and talk at industry events and conferences a name is put together with a face and you are even more familiar. While building your relationship learn all you can about their business. Be aware of any recent changes and any talks of upcoming changes. Don’t be afraid to go the extra mile, the clients will remember you. Respond quickly, never make them wait. Be More than an email address. Create an online presence.  Even with the most finely tuned engine, you’re like the man out driving, who is hopelessly lost but making excellent time. Yet when you build around a plan, with a focused list, clear objectives, aimed at a niched based prospect channel it becomes easier, faster and brings greater results. Invest your time, your efforts and your resources wisely.   If you don’t have a clear plan, if you haven’t identified your objectives or have nothing in particular in mind, then that is what you can expect, nothing, or even worse, a glimpse of success and the knowledge of preventable loss.   At Larson & Associates that is our plan, that is what we do, we sit down with you and create the roadmap to your success. We find the tools to help fine-tune your engine, to reach a peak performance that will put you in the fast lane to success. We offer the services and solutions to assist you in building your business, we ready, willing and able to step in at any part of the process, from creation to fine-tuning, repair, rebuilding or management, we have the right solution for you. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Call or email Larson and Associates 847-991-1294 howard@larsonassociates.ws