Direct mail vs. e-mail

Traditional direct mail letters are quick compared to other marketing media but slow against e-mail. With direct mail, you can include more material and more details.  You have a physical presence in their home /office.  You can send your message out to named people or a job title. It is more expensive to send out than e-mail, but can be used to start the marketing process.

With e-mail, a cold list tends to elicit a poor response so it is more worthwhile sent to opt in people. It is very fast to send out and free or very low cost but response rates are generally far lower as people get inundated with e-mails every day.  For every letter you receive, you are likely to get around 20 e-mails. In order to make an impact with e-mail, it’s best to make it look as much like a ‘normal’ e-mail as you can.

This material comes from one one of the Marketing Mentor Marketing Seminars.

Some areas of direct mail that are worth testing:

The list of names it is sent to

The headline

The time of year / month / week
The offer

The copy inside the letter

The supporting material

References quoted

The envelope

The follow up method

Timing of the offer

This material comes from one one of the Marketing Mentor Marketing Seminars.

Keeping focus in your letter

Whichever approach you use, it is important to remember that the communication is not about you or your company.  It is about how you can help the person receiving the letter.  How you can save them time or money or assist them in some way.  Explain to them how you can help them in their specific situation and you will have a letter that is read.  Tell them all about how wonderful your company is and you are quickly heading for the bin.

In addition, it is very important to focus on one central message.  You can add in other advantages later in the letter or in the sales pitch, but initially your letter should be focused on one specific area.  

This material comes from one one of the Marketing Mentor Marketing Seminars.

Why direct mail works

Direct mail or e-mail communications work best when you are able to identify a specific, real and current problem – and then suggest a solution to it. By communicating with somebody directly – from you to them – you are able to write to them as an individual and make a compelling case for an answer to a problem they face. If your argument grabs their attention and then talks to them in their language about their problem, you have a much higher chance of getting a response from the prospect. 

When it doesn’t work is when it becomes junk mail: a bland letter sent to anybody who will read it and that talks only about what you do, paying no heed to the problems of the person you are contacting.

This material comes from one one of the Marketing Mentor Marketing Seminars.

When to use direct mail

Direct mail is great for launching something new to targeted groups of people.  If you are launching a new finance product aimed at small companies which you have identified as having cash flow problems, then direct mail is perfect.  It allows you to write to the appropriate person within an organisation, at the right time and be very specific with the information that you tell them.

For e-mail, it is best used as an opt in service.  That means you give people who visit your site the opportunity to ‘opt in’ to receive updates and information about what you have to offer.  Cold e-mail campaigns are far less effective that these warmer ‘opted in’ prospects.

This material comes from one one of the Marketing Mentor Marketing Seminars.

On Tuesday November 18th at 6.30pm I am offering a free marketing seminar covering the 12 most practical ideas I know of to market your company during this slowdown.

There is no catch – the seminar is free and lasts for about 1 and a half hour.  The first 10 people on the night will also be offered the chance to have a free one month trial of the Marketing Mentor programme -again no catch.

The seminar takes place in Leicesteshire and at the moment we have people traveling from London, Watford, Derby, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottinghjam and Northampton to see this new marketing seminar. If you want to claim one of the few remaining places, please have a look at the seminar page of this site for details and then e-mail how many places (up to 3) that you would like to claim.

This marketing seminar on how to market during the difficult times we are facing will give you plenty of practical ideas to take away and use straight away.

Rebecca Silvester, The Quest Institute

‘Having built up a training consultancy business over the past eight years with no business background I’ve learnt as I’ve gone along, and of course made some mistakes.

I was introduced to the marketing mentor programme one evening with Alastair. He held a free seminar, which was very useful in itself, and made me want to know more. I signed up for the programme based on just that evening and have been very pleased I did.

We met, as a small group of around ten business owners, for a days training on a comprehensive list of marketing musts. We were then invited to take part in regular conference calls regarding one of the topics originally discussed and deal in depth with live current issues from our own business. I get to hear Alistair’s expert advice as well as ideas and suggestions from my group. We learn from each other and motivate, all from the comfort of my own desk!

THIS was no mistake…. I’d recommend to anyone who wants to focus, with a little help from others, on important aspects of marketing.’

Thank you to Rebecca from The Quest Institute www.questintitute.co.uk for her recent feedback for the Marketing Mentor programme. Rebecca has only been on the programme for just over 2 months and has already reported some good results to me.  Call 01858 44 55 43 to find out how to claim your first month’s membership for free.

Dark times ahead?

It’s been an amazing week but not in a good way for the ecconomy.  Talking to some friends last might we all agreed that that none of us can belive what happened to the economy this week and that 2009 is looking grim for lots of people.  However, all of our companies are doing really well at the moment with a full ‘order book’ and many new enquiries.  The reason?  We all spnd time marketing on a regular basis.  We look to the future, try to find new trends, offer great customer service and are always looking for better ways to find new clients.

These are serious times with even more serious times ahead.  The only way to cope is to have a plan for your business and your marketing. I’d like to think that the Marketing Mentor is going to make a big difference to a lot of companies out there over the coming months.

Marketing Mentor monthly phone session

On Wednesday afternoon I ran the monthly telephone conference session of the Marketing Mentor programme – but this was was different from the norm.  For the first time I co-hosted the call with sombody.  Steve Hawkins from web design company wwwcCagedfish.co.uk joined me.  I have worked with several times in the past and found their company to create some very impressive results.  They also know a huge amount about how to optimise a site for search engines. He has been mentorong me on internet marketing for a while so I thought it would be best if we shared this months session.  Which I’m pleased to say seemed to work really well.

Thanks Steve for all your input.  I’ve already had (less that 24 hours later) feedback on how well it worked for 3 of the people listening in and the results they have achived.

Call 01858 44 55 43 for details of how to obtain a one month free subscriotion to the marketing mentor programme.

Peter Jones - Business Mentor

I’m always looking for ideas from people who have achived great things with their cpmpanies and Peter Jones from TVs Dragon’s Den certianly fits that catagory. He has a great website and business forum that I would highly reccomend at www.peterjones.tv which has some great articles.  He acts as a mentoring figure to many and has some great ideas on marketing and many others.    I have reproduced an article from his website here on the importance of imagination

Aged 12, I imagined what it would be like to run a tennis academy. When I was 16, my imagination ran riot when I gained experience from another coach during the summer holidays. It was enough to spur me into completing the Lawn Tennis Association’s coaching exams, which enabled me to set up my own academy. I made the most of my two interests: sport and economics. I followed my imagination.

Free thinking is vital in business. Daydreaming is good. Ideas are the seedlings of reality which need to be nurtured into real, living, breathing enterprises.

Being an entrepreneur means harnessing the power of your imagination constantly. Imagination has no boundaries or constraints. Great ideas are central to you and your business. Let your imagination breathe.

Ideas are everywhere. Use a variety of stimuli to help you capture them. Draw parallels from one object or idea to help you think through the workings of another idea. In doing so, you can turn an imaginative idea into a fully fledged fleshed out business.

Equally, ideas harvested by the imagination must be plausible, rather than total fantasy; believeable, rather than unlikely. For a dream to become reality, it must be real enough to believe in. So let the imagination run freely, without constraint, but still have viability in mind.

As the idea blossoms into a plausible business idea, it’s time to stop and stand back.

Entrepreneurs know when to stand back and review their ideas objectively. It’s vital to appraise ideas honestly. A common mistake is to believe there are no flaws in an idea whatsoever, which often means missing obvious problematic areas. There will be links in the chain to fix and potential problems to smooth over.

A good entrepreneur knows this, seeks out the missing pieces and focuses on the weaknesses of the idea as well as the strengths before fine tuning the idea and proceeding.