Great marketing is really, really annoying.
Sounds counter intuitive, doesn’t it? After all, you want your business to be liked. Loved, even. But the irony is, if you execute irritating marketing well, it will be.
What makes marketing irritating, you ask? It’s the kind of marketing that’s everywhere. Everywhere you turn, there’s another message worming its way into your subconscious. It’s absolutely ubiquitous. That’s what makes really great marketing: the kind you can’t escape from.
It’s hard to imagine living life without a cell phone these days, isn’t it? But more and more consumers are turning their back on traditional long-term cell contracts in favor of pay-as-you-go models. These contract cutters are often younger, make less money and often move around quite a bit. So how do you get in touch with them and let them know that there’s freedom beyond contracts? With the Internet it can be difficult to target the correct customers, and many people interested in pay-as-you go phone services may not be big computer users.
It doesn’t matter how pretty your direct mail piece is, how many people it goes to, how award-winning its design. All that really matters is the offer, the ask, the reason people need to get in touch with you right now. But how do you do that?
The first key is that the offer must be relevant to each customer. This might mean segmenting your mailing list down to current customers who have bought certain services or it might mean geotargeting your list of prospects down to just those who live in a certain zip code and make $100,000 each year. The things that motivate each group will be different, so the message needs to be different as well. After all, you don’t catch sharks with bluegill bait. Make sure you’re putting the right worms on your hook to get the customers you want.
You’ve probably heard that everyone learns differently. While there are lots of different theories on learning styles and how you can slice that pie, the simplest and most common model puts us all into one of three categories: visual learners, auditory learners and bodily kinesthetic learners. While there’s obviously some overlap—no one learns in just one way—everyone naturally gravitates toward one of these styles when it comes to taking in the world around us.
Okay, but what does all this have to do with marketing? A whole lot, as it turns out. When customers are consuming your marketing material, what they’re doing is learning. They’re learning more about the problem they’re experiencing, possible solutions and yes, of course, your company. So are you marketing to hit all the different learning styles?
Telemarketing is almost a dirty word in some circles these days, but it’s still a common prospecting technique? Why? Because it works. But because of stringent regulations like the Do Not Call List that stop those pesky marketers from calling just as you’re sitting down to dinner, you’ve got to find ways to get permission to make that call, forge that personal connection and make the sale. One powerful way to do that is by warming up that cold call with direct mail marketing.
To do good in this world, whether that’s for a not-for-profit, a university or other worthy cause, it takes money. And that money comes from both passionate big donors and small trickles of $10 here, $100 there, from regular Joes. But just how do you stay in touch with both the big and the little fish? While there are as many ways to reach donors as there are donors themselves, one tactic you shouldn’t discount is direct mail marketing.
All marketing, but direct mail marketing in particular, is made up of two separate yet equally important aspects. First is the left-brained side, where you look at dollars and cents and demographic data. They talk about pinpointing ideal consumers and using market research to identify motives and value propositions and understand on the molecular level why people buy.
Let’s say you work for a company that sells Medicare supplements. You walk into a room with 100 people who by all accounts should be your target customer: they’re just about to turn 65, they’re middle class or upper middle class, they’re health conscious. On paper, they should be all over you.
Direct mail marketing has one distinct advantage over most other types of marketing: It’s marketing you keep. It doesn’t stay on your computer or just exist over radio or TV waves. Who among us doesn’t have a few direct mail pieces plastered on our fridge or stacked on our desk? Sure, they might mostly be pizza delivery places, but that doesn’t mean that’s all it can be.
Here are a few ways to make sure your direct mail piece is useful enough to keep—and to make sure people keep seeing your name and value proposition:
“Email is the way of the future!” “No, it’s social media!” “Your website is the center of your marketing!” “Direct mail gets responses!” Everyone, usually people selling you something, wants to tell you that their preferred marketing channel is the only way to get results. And you know what? They’re right.