A friend who occasionally runs an AdWords campaign received a postcard from Google in the mail the other day. He hadn’t run a campaign in a while and Google, being the ever-helpful Internet mega-nanny, was wondering how it could help out.
The interesting—and ironic—point here is that the Internet’s reigning expert in targeted online marketing regularly turns to the traditional vehicle of direct mail to promote its business. And Google isn’t the only high-tech, über web-savvy company to use old-fashioned direct mail marketing; Apple is not above using snail mail when it
Local Direct Mail
With the impressive adoption of mobile devices, online local marketing efforts have exploded in recent years. There are excellent direct mail equivalents. In fact, you can probably target your audience better—or certainly more surely—through local direct mail.
Instead of jumping through all the hoops to get a text-message marketing campaign going to distribute coupons for your business, why not use a direct mail campaign targeted to the exact geographical area where your patrons live?
And if driving people to your website or a landing page is a critical element of your plan, use a quick response (QR) code on your mailer. When it’s scanned it will send your prospects exactly where you want them to go.
Stick Around
You probably get a refrigerator magnet each year from one or two local businesses. This piece of advertising will never go away for one simple reason: it works. What would an online ad campaign cost to get your brand in front of the eyeballs of local customers every day of the year? With an inexpensive magnet distributed via a direct mail campaign, you can guarantee excellent penetration into your target market.
If you check out the Apple campaign I cited above, you’ll see that it’s a variation of this idea. Apple provided such a great poster that the company knew it would be displayed.
Spread the Word
If you’re a new business, or have struggled getting the word out about your services, combining a well-designed brochure with a direct mail campaign can be the solution you’re looking for.
Online advertising—even when it seems to be very well targeted—can be very “hit or miss.” If you put one of your brochures in the mailbox of every prospect, you can have significant added assurance that it has been seen.
These are just a couple of ideas you may want to consider:
- There are excellent direct mail companies everywhere. Call a few and find one that seems to have the right experience to help you out.
- Also, the US Post Office has a lot of good information about using direct mail to promote your business.
It could be, as Humphrey Bogart says to Claude Rains at the end of “Casablanca,” the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Images: ” Snail Mail – a little snail is climbing on the blocks “mail” for Letter M/ Shutterstock.com“
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