Direct Marketing for Small Business

Direct Marketing for Small Business

Direct marketing is the most widely accepted medium for advertising your business to the consumer. When it comes to advertising there are many mediums (TV, Radio, Yellow Pages, Local News Paper, Billboards, Magazine and of course Internet) These are probably the most notable of all the forms of advertising available. There are of course many other forms including but limited to Bus Shelters, Trains, Taxi’s, Electronic Displays, Blimps, Shopping Dockets, Aircraft Banners etc

The most successful of all is Direct Marketing (Junk Mail). You may be surprised by this comment, but the facts tell the situation. Over 50% of media spend is through the letter box. You are able to reach every house hold with this form of advertising, control the frequency and it’s more accepted than any other media.

When it comes to Return On Investment (ROI), Properly marketed campaigns through the letterbox has the best rate of success.

The one draw back in the past has been the inconsistent distribution methods. Due to the large amount of hobbyists delivering direct mail, there is high rate of loss due to dumping or multiple delivery to the same letterbox. The income generated by the sale of distribution contracts has not been divided fairly amongst all concerned.

In Australia, the national postage service is called Australia Post. They have a premium service that would give on average about 20-25% better response than the commercial distribution companies in the current market, but they ironically cannot guarantee delivery to every mail box.

Large organisations factor this into the cost of every campaign, and accept this as reasonable due to the success of direct mail reaching enough of the consumers to give a positive ROI.

Recently in Australia and soon other countries, a company with a unique business model has launched with incredible success early in it’s very short existence.

Mailpost is the name of the company and it uses a franchise/agency method to distribute it’s customers campaigns. The main difference apart from highly competitive rates, is the guarantee that is offered with the service. Because the postal agent (Postie) purchases their territory, there is a major incentive for the job to be done right. The postie must buy the area that they will deliver to and must also guarantee 99% delivery or it must be printed and distributed again at no charge to the client. The postie is tracked by means of a GPS device that can be audited by the client on request if they have reason to believe that the guarantee has not been met.

So what does this mean? Well if you consider that at best, about 70-75% of most direct mailings will reach the consumer, and this is with a premium service. The extra 25% will give a massive boost to the ROI and effectiveness of the campaign. So in short, you appear to pay less in most cases and get more delivered than ever before. Mailpost should really make a difference on the marketing reaching the consumer.

With theses benefits the small business person should really consider revisiting the idea of direct marketing. This company is aiming it’s service at the small to medium enterprise, a largely untapped market due to the complaints the current commercial distribution companies receive due to dumping etc. So these companies stick to the large end of town who accept the dumping and factor it in to the cost.

If you want your marketing campaign to reach every home with the frequency that you want. Then revisit direct marketing with Mailpost who guarantee your delivery and give a better return on your investment.

Tony Longbottom
www.JourneyToWealthClub.com