Cheap Marketing That Works…
Let’s talk about inexpensive ways to get to your buyers:
Are you leveraging community newspapers?
And yes, this does apply if you are in a business to business market. You just have to look at what papers and newsletters (print ones) are going out to your ideal target market.
But, if you are targeting consumers, have a look at these numbers:
Community newspapers reach:
77% of affluent Canadians
75% of women
76% of parents
75% of homeowners*
(Community Media Special Report 2008)
(This is from a study in Canada, but the numbers would be the same anywhere else who uses quality community newsletters).
Who reads them?
The most recent survey showed that 74 percent of Canadian adults read the last issue of their community paper. That figure was even higher in some provinces; in Saskatchewan it was a record 83 percent. The study also revealed that 76 percent of adults with household incomes over $75K are regular readers, as are most adults with a university education. 50 percent of the surveyed readers do not read any daily newspaper at all.
Think about this now.
If you target a higher income family that you cannot reach via email or newspapers, this is a potential goldmine. 74% of your ideal buyers read the community paper regularly. They earn more money, they are better educated, and they are looking for appropriate products and services (see the survey below for more details).
The best part?
The price of community newspapers! To get a quarter page ad – $50. Full page (with color) – $150. That gets you in front of thousands of targeted prospects (you can choose which community you advertise in by the average income in the community, choose communities that have a higher percentage of golfers, have more than average numbers of school aged children, or have a significant number of boomers and seniors.
All it takes is a little research on your part and you can tap into a very powerful source of potential buyers.
To add to that… community newspapers are filled with crappy advertising! Yours done right, using the information you pick up for free through the Total Package, and you can get some exceptional results.
Definitely worthy of some testing.
Right now, with the economy as it is, people are travelling less and spending more time at home, and in their yards. What better way to reach them than through a paper that 74% of them open every chance they get.
Try and get that through email!
One other inexpensive marketing tool at your disposal
The lowly flyer
What amazes me with these little unsung heroes of direct marketing is the sheer impact you can get with minimal dollars invested.
Here in Canada, we can send “unaddressed admail” to as many homes or businesses as we want for $0.11/per piece. So we can go to 1,000 businesses for $111.
Where else can you get that breadth of distribution? For that price?
Especially now that you can do geographic and demographic targeting of those businesses and individuals?
Thompson Rivers University received a 1.43% response rate to its latest flyer campaign! Higher than the industry average for addressed direct mail… at a fraction of the price.
“The sheer volume and ability to geo-target by postal code keeps my cost per inquiry low and, in general, helps to build brand awareness.” Thompson Rivers University
These days, you can also very selectively target who receives your flyers…
Let’s say, for instance, you want to target upper-class households in central Canada with an interest in golf?
Targeting like this is not only possible, but cost-effective because it eliminates unreceptive audiences. Again, for $0.11/home.
There are firms that do this for little charge… and are a goldmine of great information for you.
Imagine the power you hold in your hands when you combine neighborhood community newspapers, combined with flyers.
You could be blanketing an entire community (or city) for very little money out of pocket.
You can select exactly the type of demographic you want reading it.
You can target their interests and hobbies.
And you can dominate your industry using little used techniques like this.
It doesn’t all have to be through email or in-house database work.
This is a VERY effective way to generate sales and build your prospect database…
… using very targeted, very effective tools available at your disposal.
If you have recently used these types of tools, let me know. I would love to hear what you did, how it worked, and if you had used it to it’s fullest ability.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Trying times call for more interaction and help from you!
Marketing quick hits
I wanted to start a series of quick-hit tips to help you get better results in your marketing.
These are some of the top things you need to understand moving into the new year and the new mindset of today’s buyers:
- Copy is not advertising. It’s salesmanship in print. You do not need to always be selling a product or service (not recommended), you should be selling your prospects and clients on you, your ideas, your values, etc. Get them over to your side, and then, once they are warmed up, then you can sell your products and services. Trust always comes first.
- You don’t need to be a 10/10 in marketing to get great results, you can be a 6! Everyone else is a zero. If you doubt this… LOOK around you. Their ads suck. Their yellow page postings suck. Their websites suck. They do not understand marketing… and it shines through. Big reason why so many companies are failing right now… they think price cutting is a winning marketing strategy. It’s not!
- The receptivity of the recipient is MORE IMPORTANT than the copy it self. (message to market match). You can have the best copy in the world… but if it is targeted at the wrong audience… it WILL fail. Mediocre copy targeted at the right audience will almost ALWAYS win. As a copywriter and marketing consultant, I hate to say copy isn’t ALWAYS king… but I know it… and I make sure my copywriting clients know it too.
- Your own customer list is (by far) the best recipient of your marketing. Keep in touch regularly with your existing clients and make sure they are getting special materials that are ONLY available to paying clients. Word spreads. Give them value. Give them fun. Give them your personality.
- Your second best list to market to is a joint venture list. Find other people who market to the same type of client you market to. Approach them and educate them on the power of reciprocal joint ventures. Offer to write their promotions for them (they, of course, get full approval on anything getting mailed out to their clients). Arrange a mutually beneficial profit split on the campaign. Then make sure you do mutual mailings to your list and theirs.
- Your third best list to market to is the lead generation list you create. Use the principles I outline in the Small Display Ads Lead Generation Report. Use 2-step marketing. Use consistent follow-up. Educate them. Share your personality with them. Do and say things you competitors are scared to do. Be different in a very cluttered marketplace!
- Narrowly define your best market, and then spend as much as you can to sell them. Understanding that this is counter-intuitive… but it works. The tighter you can define your ideal clients, the more effective your marketing will be. For example: I like to beat up on realtors. They all look the same, act the same, and get the same dismal results. FOR GOOD REASON. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and there are 5,000 or so realtors here, in a city of one million. One for every 200 people! That is a very competitive situation… and explains why 90% of the realots here barely eke out a living. In the city of 5,000 realtors, there is only ONE realtor that advertises herself as “the pet lovers realtor”. She advertises with pictures of her and her dogs. She puts her ads in the kids magazines, in the pet magazines, in the pets section of the classified ads. And she STANDS OUT in a very cluttered realtor environment. The more tightly you define your market, the easier it become to reach them and match your message to their needs.
- If there is something you provide that your competitors don’t, build your whole sales pitch around this. Dig deep into why you started the business. Why you created this type of product or service. Why you are the one to deliver it over all the others out there. Tell the complete story… good and bad.
- Make it look like a friend sent it. (best to use “blind” format with new prospects. When they know who you are teaser copy is best. Use front and back of envelope; testimonials, teasers,etc.)
- Lumpy mail gets dramatically better results.
A few quick and dirty tricks that are guaranteed to get you better results in your marketing.
More to come.
Let me know your results. Troy
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