Author: Tracy - The Main Fireball

Direct mail marketing is a traditional and long standing part of the marketing mix for many companies. One of the benefits of direct mailing is you can order lists of recipients that are within very specific demographics. Obtaining these lists adds additional charges to your project. This is still a great alternative for some business that have a specific product or service; however the USPS has a service that allows businesses to send a marketing piece to every door on a specified delivery route. This is a great alternative for local businesses such as churches, dry cleaners, banks, restaurants and coffee shops that want to reach their local area customers.

Does Direct Mail Really Work?

• Direct mail is the preferred channel for receiving marketing from local shops (51%) and banks (48%), while email is preferred for events and competitions (50% each). October 2013 *
• 54% of mailed postcards are read by recipients. November 2012 *
• Direct mail — yes junk mail via snail mail — still reigns supreme, offering response rates of 1.1 to 1.4% versus 0.03% for email, 0.04% for Internet display ads, and 0.22% for paid search. May 2013 *

*(http://www.cmocouncil.org/facts-stats-categories.php?start=20&category=direct-marketing)

Here’s How EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) Works

1. Create a powerful postcard marketing piece
   Fireball Creative can help you design and print a creative and powerful mailer that captures your company’s branding, the essence of the product or service and includes a specific call to action. Since this is going to be part of your overall marketing mix, it is important that it fits the look and feel of all of your other marketing elements – such as your website, storefront, vehicles, business cards and brochures.
   
   We will make sure that all of the printing specifications for the USPS are met.
2. Visit the USPS EDDM site and select your route(s)
   This is where you can go into the USPS system and actually see the routes you can choose from. The site also shows you the running total of the number of deliveries as well as the postage cost. This interface is nice because it will show you the exact houses that will receive your postcard. This program also allows you to target just PO Boxes, just residential or truly hit Every Door!
   
   Note, the basic EDDM service will only allow you to send 5000 mailers per day.
3. Receive and admire your beautifully printed postcards
   Take a moment to look at your beautifully printed postcards. Get really excited about all of your new clients learning more about what you are up to and how you can help solve one of their pressing problems.
4. Pay for postage
   With EDDM, you can either pay for postage online or at the post office. The postage works out to around  $0.183 per piece.
5. Supply bundled mail to the local post office
   You will need to supply your postcards bundled with a facing slip. So for an example, if a route has 322 houses, you would do 6 bundles of 50 cards + one bundle of 22 and the facing slip. This allows the carrier to easily add this to the route.
6. Wait to for your customers to receive their postcard and come to do business with you!
   CHAAA CHING! 
   

As mentioned before, this solution isn’t for everyone, but it is a PERFECT solution for those businesses who are looking to target the local area within a certain mile radius of their location.

Need help in navigating the process? Designing or printing your postcards? Contact us! We are happy to assist you!

As you are getting ready to go into that big board meeting, someone suggests you wear your “red power tie”. Or when you search for earth friendly products, you see a blanket of green in all of the logos and marketing material. Have you ever noticed that most fast food restaurants’ logos incorporate yellow and red?

So does the color of your logo or your next service offering make that big of a difference?

You Bet!

Different colors will bring about different emotions, which will ultimately impact the decisions of your clients. Let’s take a look:

Red: Power, strength, stimulation
The color red is a strong warm color and can even raise your pulse.

Orange: Happiness, creativity and warmth
It is a great color to catch people’s attention. It is a strong color, but not quite as abrasive as red. This is one you want to use in moderation; too much can come across as immature.

Yellow: Sunshine, joy and energy
This is another attention grabbing color – hence yellow taxi cabs and caution tape. It can evoke pleasant and cheerful feelings – but too much can be overload. Many times it is looked at as a playful color – which makes it not a great choice for an item of prestige.

Green: Nature, fresh, growth and money
Considering the color of most trees and grass, people associate the color green with nature and growth. There is a calming characteristic to the color green.

Blue: Calming, stability, wisdom
Blue is considered a masculine color. It is the most favored color of people. It does reduce tension and fear and even slows the pulse rate. It is great for corporations and financial service companies to use blue to tap into it’s stability and calming effect.

Purple: Wealth, extravagance, royalty
Purple became associated with wealth due to the great expense it took to make it before synthetic dyes. It used to be so expensive, only rulers and royalty could afford it. For a while, Queen Elizabeth even forbade anyone who was not royalty to wear the color purple.

Now, after reading at all of this you might feel a bit more overwhelmed when it comes to selecting the color scheme for your next product or service. Take a deep breath – you can do this.

First, ask yourself, what emotion do you want people to feel when they see your product? Are selling something that is earth-friendly or creative? Is your product gender specific or gender neutral? Second, look at some similar products and services and see what colors they are using. Then compare those to the color descriptions listed above. Third, create a few different colorways and see which one works. Combining colors is a very complex art. However, just having this added awareness will help you to select a colorway that will elicit the desired emotional reaction in your client – helping you to achieve greater success in your business.

I remember when I was a little girl I would complain to my mom, “Moooom…why don’t any of my friends call me to do something? They said they would!”

Her response to me was, “Well, have you reached out to them?”

I would then proceed to argue with her as to why it was their responsibility to contact me because they said they would; ultimately wasting a lot of time and breath…and missing that opportunity to hang out with my friends.

The thing is, I see this pattern happen with many small businesses when it comes to engaging their clients.

“When they were here in the store, they were really excited about my product. They took several cards, but I haven’t heard from them.”

“They said they were going to call and schedule an appointment, but I am still waiting to hear from them.”

So how do you reach out to your client base on a regular basis to “ask them to play”?

A great, cost-effective way to do this is through e-mail marketing. You might be saying, “but there are soooooo many e-mails sent every day! Won’t mine get lost?”

Well, you are partially correct. There are a lot of e-mails sent; in fact research shows over 204 billion (Source THE RADICATI GROUP, INC) – yes, that is with a “B” – e-mails are sent/received each day…and that is A LOT! However, research also shows that targeted e-mails are very effective for marketing your product as well as a preference for many consumers.

Take a look at this research:

So that research tells us that not only do consumers like to receive e-mails from their favorite businesses; but on average, they will spend MORE money with you because of this connection through e-mail.

In order to create effective e-mails, it is important that you follow these guidelines:

• Your e-mail list is made up of people who have asked to receive e-mails from you
  When it comes to building your e-mail list, remember it is important to only capture and send to people who are interested in receiving your e-mails. Don’t just add someone to your e-mail list because you found their card lying on the ground somewhere near the entrance of your office. Even if they are your customer or if they have signed in for one of your events, make sure you get their permission before adding them.Also, give them the opportunity to unsubscribe at any time – and don’t take it personally if they leave.
• Your offer is specific to the list you are sending it too!
  It is easy and well received to market your brilliant product to people who have the problem you are solving; but it is very difficult if you try to convince someone who doesn’t need your product to buy it.For example, if you have the world’s best detangling brush, you aren’t going to get many sales when selling to a group of bald guys. So don’t frustrate yourself or them!
• Have a captivating subject line
  The best way make it to the eyeballs of your reader is with a captivating subject line. This is important to avoid the SPAM filters as well as the “Delete Finger” on your user. Make is something fun, relevant, and personal. You can even play around with turning it into a question! Instead of “E-Newsletter – August 2015” or “FREE! Recipe Guide” try something like, “Say good-bye to your {fill in the blank} Issue” or “Are you ready to stop pulling your hair out?”
• Be personal!
  Remember, people do business with those they know, like and trust. When you write your broadcast e-mail, in your mind, picture you are writing it to one specific person. This makes the whole experience for the client more personal and genuine.

So, are you ready to get your e-mail marketing moving?

I would love to talk with you about getting started! I use and recommend Constant Contact. I can assist you on getting things started.

Ready to venture out alone?

Constant Contact offers a free trial period. Jump in and get started. Remember, I am always here in case you need some help!

Constant Contact
If you have any intent of offering live events where you would like to drive registrations through the same database as your e-newsletters, this is a MUST!

I had the opportunity to live in Japan for 6 months when I was in my twenties. Before I went, I spent some time learning the language and aspects of their culture. One of the parts of the Japanese culture and language that was emphasised by my professor was the Japanese kotowaza – or Japanese proverb. My professor taught the class several of these sayings as something we could use in conversation to break down barriers and open up the conversation. It was pretty funny to see the look on the faces of the Japanese people when I would insert a kotowaza at just the opportune time.

Since then, my Japanese skills have dwindled away to close to nothing, but there is one of the kotowazas that still resonates in my head.

Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru.

Translation – Even dust bunnies can pile to make a mountain

This one is so powerful because it speaks to the power of perseverance and the accumulation of many little things will amount to something powerful. In English proverbs, someone would say, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

So let me ask you, in building your proverbial mountain – aka your business, what “dust bunny” did you add to the pile today?

In building that mountain or taking that thousand mile journey, it is important to continue to take steps daily. Remember, sometimes the step you take might feel like a step backwards. That is ok – as long as you are still moving. Even the steps backwards can end up moving you much further forward in the long run.

In marketing your product or service, here are some ideas for some steps you can take:

The journey of building your business and connecting with your customers is a process of building up the mountain little by little. Just ask yourself,

Need help with identifying or implementing the next step in marketing your product or service? Fireball Creative would love to help you fire things up a bit!