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Add You - Powerful PR Lessons from Successful Direct Marketing Techniques
One of your greatest obstacles in operating a successful annual fund is thinking of it as an annual fund.The annual fund is so named because it runs for 12 months. Not because you are supposed to solicit gifts only once a year. In direct mail fundraising, the most important gift is not the first, but the second. The majority of people who respond to a direct mail appeal give once and never again. Your goal is to convert these one-time donors into repeat donors. And you can’t do that if you wait 12 months before asking a o
Many business owners give up on marketing if their first ads don’t send customers flooding into their stores. Or they abandon advertising in a magazine if one ad doesn’t make the phone ring. Direct marketers know that it is often the message—not the medium—that needs to be adjusted to speak more persuasively to the customer. Don’t be too hasty
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to turn everything they touch to gold while you end up with a handful of lead? Do you comfort yourself by saying that they succeed because they were born with money, great looks, and a better education? Even as you do this, do you push away the knowledge that people like Zig Ziglar, Dave Thomas, and Ogg Mandino were born dirt poor and that Dave Thomas made a fortune without graduating from high school? I have spent most of my adult life studying the lives of people who are successful in life and in business because I wanted to
Target your message
Successful direct marketing is targeted. It gets the right offer in the right format to the right people who have an interest in or a need for a manufacturer’s product. Direct marketers spend millions of dollars creating and refining mailing lists and subscriber profiles to find just the right consumers to buy their product.
Direct marketers don’t try to be everything to everybody. They use their budget wisely to reach only the people who are their best prospects and reach them frequently enough to encourage new sales and spur repeat sales.
How targeted is your message?
Do you write your brochures, advertisements and radio commercials with your typical customer in mind? Is your message telling them how they can solve their problems, achieve their dreams, or meet their needs? Direct marketers know that customer benefits outsell product features. Targeting your message to your most likely buyers will make the best use of your budget and yield the most sales.
Test your message
Direct marketers base their ad copy, list purchase, media buys and graphic design on research and industry information. Testing is a basic part of successful direct marketing. Direct marketers will take two versions of an ad—one with slightly different copy from the other—or two different lists, or two different regional versions of the same magazine—and run their campaign tests. All the research in the world can’t substitute for testing. Research gives you a theoretical answer. Testing validates your theories in the real world.
Many business owners give up on marketing if their first ads don’t send customers flooding into their stores. Or they abandon advertising in a magazine if one ad doesn’t make the phone ring. Direct marketers know that it is often the message—not the medium—that needs to be adjusted to speak more persuasively to the customer. Don’t be too hasty t
When I first wrote that title, I subconsciously used the word “process” in place of “progress”—“Your Business As A Work In Process.” Both are true. As we develop our business, we continually have the opportunity to redefine it. Who is my target audience? What services or products am I offering? What can I add to attract more clients? How have the needs of my ideal client changed? What can I create that will be automated and bring me income while I sleep? And even more importantly, how have my values changed?I have just made giant headway in a series of short “how
Direct marketers don’t try to be everything to everybody. They use their budget wisely to reach only the people who are their best prospects and reach them frequently enough to encourage new sales and spur repeat sales.
How targeted is your message?
Do you write your brochures, advertisements and radio commercials with your typical customer in mind? Is your message telling them how they can solve their problems, achieve their dreams, or meet their needs? Direct marketers know that customer benefits outsell product features. Targeting your message to your most likely buyers will make the best use of your budget and yield the most sales.
Test your message
Direct marketers base their ad copy, list purchase, media buys and graphic design on research and industry information. Testing is a basic part of successful direct marketing. Direct marketers will take two versions of an ad—one with slightly different copy from the other—or two different lists, or two different regional versions of the same magazine—and run their campaign tests. All the research in the world can’t substitute for testing. Research gives you a theoretical answer. Testing validates your theories in the real world.
Many business owners give up on marketing if their first ads don’t send customers flooding into their stores. Or they abandon advertising in a magazine if one ad doesn’t make the phone ring. Direct marketers know that it is often the message—not the medium—that needs to be adjusted to speak more persuasively to the customer. Don’t be too hasty
Changing jobs can be a stressful experience, filled with worry, doubt and overwhelming choices. Maybe you hate your current job and want out immediately, but you're afraid you won't have enough money to survive if you leave now. Maybe you want to make a change careers, but know the process will take a while or result in a temporary pay-drop. Maybe you don't even want to consider changing jobs because you fear that changing jobs would be too much of a financial risk right now. In the end, the urgency is created by the money. And it is the urgency that creates
How targeted is your message?
Do you write your brochures, advertisements and radio commercials with your typical customer in mind? Is your message telling them how they can solve their problems, achieve their dreams, or meet their needs? Direct marketers know that customer benefits outsell product features. Targeting your message to your most likely buyers will make the best use of your budget and yield the most sales.
Test your message
Direct marketers base their ad copy, list purchase, media buys and graphic design on research and industry information. Testing is a basic part of successful direct marketing. Direct marketers will take two versions of an ad—one with slightly different copy from the other—or two different lists, or two different regional versions of the same magazine—and run their campaign tests. All the research in the world can’t substitute for testing. Research gives you a theoretical answer. Testing validates your theories in the real world.
Many business owners give up on marketing if their first ads don’t send customers flooding into their stores. Or they abandon advertising in a magazine if one ad doesn’t make the phone ring. Direct marketers know that it is often the message—not the medium—that needs to be adjusted to speak more persuasively to the customer. Don’t be too hasty
In a rapidly changing technological landscape, some high profile brands are facing the challenging decision of whether to embrace 'viral' marketing campaigns. As there can be no assurances with each viral project, executives do not have the 'usual' facts and figures to make a well-informed and substantiated decision.By its very nature a viral project must be unlike anything that has been done before.This means there is no formula, no statistics, nor guarantees. Results can only be proven retrospectively, by which time it can be too late for those r
Test your message
Direct marketers base their ad copy, list purchase, media buys and graphic design on research and industry information. Testing is a basic part of successful direct marketing. Direct marketers will take two versions of an ad—one with slightly different copy from the other—or two different lists, or two different regional versions of the same magazine—and run their campaign tests. All the research in the world can’t substitute for testing. Research gives you a theoretical answer. Testing validates your theories in the real world.
Many business owners give up on marketing if their first ads don’t send customers flooding into their stores. Or they abandon advertising in a magazine if one ad doesn’t make the phone ring. Direct marketers know that it is often the message—not the medium—that needs to be adjusted to speak more persuasively to the customer. Don’t be too hasty
Networking is a very powerful tool for business enhancement. With the clutter in the market of powerful advertising, decision making can become confused and uncertain. This is where networking can be so effective. People respond better to those whom they know. Those whom they can trust.How can you build this element of familiarity that breaks down the barriers of resistance?There is certainly the matter of belief to be considered. Some people simply don't believe anything they see or read is truthful. They think that everybody is out there to take them down
Many business owners give up on marketing if their first ads don’t send customers flooding into their stores. Or they abandon advertising in a magazine if one ad doesn’t make the phone ring. Direct marketers know that it is often the message—not the medium—that needs to be adjusted to speak more persuasively to the customer. Don’t be too hasty to give up on a whole type of advertising because one effort did not bring a crowd. Change your ad, re-write your mailing piece, adjust your list and try again. When the right message reaches a receptive potential customer, sales happen.
Change your definition of success
Direct marketers are patient. They understand that testing is essential to capture sales. But they also have a realistic idea of success. Depending on the size of the campaign, the type of product and the break-even cost, some direct marketers consider a response of 1 – 5 percent to be very successful. They know that large percentages aren’t realistic.
A campaign’s success also depends on its purpose. Some offers are made just to generate leads in order to build a better mailing list for the next offer. Those campaigns are focused on screening out non-buyers, not necessarily on selling product. Getting 1,000 names of people who are interested out of a mailing of 10,000 people on a list might be very successful under those conditions.
Make sure you have defined success in a way that is realistic and based on solid criteria.
Tailor your offer
Direct marketers know that the magic is in the way the product is offered. Are you selling closet shelving—or an organization system? Is your product an air cleaner—or a way to reduce indoor air pollution?
Even the way the price is stated makes a difference. If you’re having a sale, is the price half off, fifty-percent reduced or two for one? Direct marketers know that different ways to say the same thing get different responses. Make sure that your offers are tailored to what encourages your customers to take action.
Know your customer
The most important lesson is to understand your customer. Find out what the customer is really purchasing when he buys
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