Show Me Postcards

My huge co-op postcard mailers go to thousands of homes in great Columbia neighborhoods through what is called “saturation” mailings. 

In other words, these postcards hit the mailboxes of every home in the neighborhoods I’m targeting, unlike normal direct mail campaigns that can be highly targeted (e.g. only sent to women over 40 who make more than $50,000 a year.)

So the businesses who make the most money by placing their offers on Dynamite Deals postcards are usually business-to-consumer oriented, ones that offer products or services that are commonly used by the general public.

If you own a business in one of these categories, talk to me today about featuring it on our next edition of Show Me Dynamite Deals!

• Amusement (Parks and Recreation)
• Auto Repair
• Auto Sales
• Banking
• Car Wash
• Computer Repair
• Dental
• Dry Cleaning
• Fitness (Gyms and Classes)
• Floral
• Food and Beverage (Restaurants and Grocery Stores)
• General Retail
• Home Services (Carpet Cleaning, House Cleaning, Pest Control, Landscaping, Heating & AC and Electricians)
• Insurance
• Legal (Attorneys)
• Medical
• Moving/Storage
• Museum
• Religious (Churches)
• Salons and Spas
• Tax Preparation
• Telecommunications and Internet Services

If you target particular genders, income ranges etc. then your response may be less – but a placement can certainly help you maintain top-of-mind awareness with those more targeted prospects.

According to BizReport 2010, up to 85% of a store’s customers come from within a 5-mile radius of that business.

In other words – your best customers may be right down the street, around the corner, or a couple of blocks away.

How do you reach THOSE prospects?

Making sure your message gets in the front of the right people – no more but no less – is an important goal for an effective and affordable marketing campaign. Frankly, a lot of advertising options wind up being expensive “overkill.”

It can be difficult to target something as small or as specific as “I want to reach the households within a 1 mile radius of The Village of Cherry Hill.”

One way to do that is with direct mail.

I did a search for households around The Village of Cherry Hill here in Columbia MO, and selected postal carrier routes that add up to about 5,000 homes.  Those selections are reflected in the image.

It would be easy to reach those households with regular postcard mailings.  For those businesses in The Village of Cherry Hill who target consumers directly (such as the chiropractors, fitness centers, optometrists, dentists, insurance agents and financial planners), this could be an extremely effective way to contact people who are predisposed to shop with companies that are convenient to their location.

An EDDM campaign would make postage extremely affordable; this relatively new USPS program allows firms to touch customers by neighborhood or zip code radius without names or addresses.  Those businesses could even do a shared postcard mailing to minimize expenses even further.

You can also take the concept of reaching certain neighborhoods a step further by concentrating on those parts of town where you do not have a presence, but want one.  Since neighborhoods tend to have shared characteristics and demographics (such as homes of the same age and in the same condition) you might want to target older neighborhoods if you own a roofing company, or newer middle-income subdivisions if you want to reach families with children.

I’d love to discuss the idea of a hyper-local, geo-targeted marketing campaign with you, and don’t want the hassle of printing and mailing, contact me today!

Many business owners are wary of using any sort of price in advertising.  They’re afraid people will see a price and think “Oh that’s too expensive” or “I can get that cheaper somewhere else.”

While that may happen, it’s also possible that someone might see your price and think “Hey, that’s a pretty good deal.”  Someone who knows the price is a value may be an even better prospect, since they’ve evidently done some homework.  In this case your price is actually pre-qualifying your prospects before they call you.

If you do choose to put a price in your offer, be sure to be specific, highlight the savings and tell them what they’re getting for the money.  For example “Carpet Cleaning for 3 Rooms – Now $99 Regular $149 Save $50!”  Be sure to stress the benefits: “Extend the Life of Your Carpet, Reduce Allergens, Eliminate Odors!”

You may be tempted to give a discount percentage instead of a specific monetary amount, but that is usually less effective.

Don’t make people think, make the savings obvious! Unless they’re already a customer and know the regular price, they’ll wonder what “10% Off” actually comes to.

It would be better to give a specific number, even if it’s small.  A number that corresponds to an actual unit of currency ($5, $10, $20 bill et cetera) generally pulls better, too,  because people immediately relate to that amount.