8 Things to Love About Direct Mail Letters

You may be tempted, given the highly-technological state of the world today, to abandon or greatly restrict any and all print marketing plans.  Don’t.  Although emails, social media posts, and other online efforts offer inexpensive and instantaneous opportunities, they can’t replace the value of a solid direct mail campaign, particularly a direct mail letter.

Good Neighbors

Earlier this month, my kids set up a “fort” around the mailbox and had a snowball fight with our neighbors.  Who are my parents’ age.  And started it.

Mr. Pete and Miss Jane have no children of their own, but they’re great with ours.  They remember their birthdays.  They bring our kids souvenirs from their trips.  And yes, they knock on our front door and invite our kids to participate in a snowball fight.  They are good neighbors.

New Year's Solutions

Last year’s accomplishments, challenges, and results are officially in the books.  What will 2019 bring you and your business?  It depends on your marketing plans.  Although you may (and should) have many goals for 2019, when it comes to marketing, focusing on one marketing goal—the one goal that matters more than any other—will not only help you create and plan your activities, but it will also help you prioritize how you spend your marketing budget.

5 Reasons Why Your Business Should Blog

Whether you need a reason to start a business blog or a reason to keep an existing one going, here are five key benefits of posting a blog on your business’s website: 
1.    Builds trust with customers.  Offering consumers something of value without asking for anything in return not only establishes you as a knowledgeable organization, but also 

Write with Feeling

When you appeal to a prospect or client with an offer, where do you direct your sale?  To your market’s head or heart?  If you said “head,” you might be jeopardizing your sales.

The fact is, most people—whether they receive marketing promotions at home or at work—make purchasing decisions based on an emotional response to an offer, not a logical one.  

The Top 6 Benefits

of Postcards

On any given day, you’re likely to find a postcard in your mailbox.  It might be a standard-sized 5- or 6-inch long postcard, or it could be an oversized postcard measuring 11 inches long.  And, chances are, whether you recognize the company or not, you’re likely to give it a quick look.  Why?  Well, that’s the power of postcards.

To Thine Pricing

Be True

There’s a difference between deferring when you disclose a price (like in a long-copy sales letter for a high-end product or for a charity or cause) and when you bury prices so deeply or label them so insanely that the action angers customers and turns them away.  

Targeting Versus

Mass Mailing

If you ask my kids, they’ll tell you I have a song for just about anything.   Yesterday morning, my son mentioned the word “supersonic” while talking about his favorite video game, Rocket League.  The late ‘80s song “Supersonic” by JJ Fad immediately popped into my head.  I didn’t know any words beyond the title, so I pulled up a video on YouTube...

The "Untouchable" Marketing Plan for 2020: Communication

Your marketing activities for this year—like most of your professional and personal plans—probably haven’t gone as expected.

If your usual options for marketing your business aren’t possible, and if your customers aren’t, or worse yet—can’t—come see you as freely as they have in the past, now—more than ever—is the time to focus on cultivating relationships.  Building and maintaining trust.  Communicating.  

Six Reasons to Market by Mail

In a world that’s obsessed with cell phones and iPads and social media and podcasts and other forms of electronic communication, sending out direct mail to promote your business feels outdated, useless, and unnecessarily expensive, right?

Wrong.  While print marketing does tend to cost more than digital marketing, you’d be doing yourself and your company a disservice to assume it’s not worth it.  Here’s why...

​One-Page Answers to Direct-Marketing Questions

How to Create an Effective Postcard

Postcards require less text than any other form of direct mail, but that doesn’t mean you can create a postcard marketing campaign without the serious thought and effort you put into your other direct mail. The next time you plan a postcard campaign, make sure you include these steps in your process.

The Benefits of Newsletters

Whether you belong to a professional organization or one related to a personal hobby, chances are good that you receive a regular newsletter.  Why?  For the same reasons that your business should publish a newsletter.  Newsletters provide organizations with a vehicle for keeping in touch with customers, donors, or members throughout the year, not just around a transaction.  

How Long Should My Marketing Email Be?

So, you want to send a marketing email to your clients.  How long should it be?  Generally speaking, you should limit your copy to between 200 and 300 words, or no more than 20 lines.  

Why?   

Your "About" Page

When you’re researching a business, what’s one of the first things you do?  

If you said, “read the company’s ‘About’ page,” you’re not alone.  The “About” page is not only one of the most important pages on a company’s website, but it’s also one of the most visited.

Why?