Almost every firm these days is getting at least some leads from the tried and true cost-per-click (CPC) advertising. While these leads can be useful and having a continual stream of them is good business, some companies have chosen to think outside the search engine box. DevelopmentNow, mailed postcards to hundreds of different Sales, Marketing, and E-Commerce directors a few weeks ago. The postcards (below) compared a screen shots of the recipients’ website on a smartphone with a shot of their competitors” mobile site. The heading read simply-

“ROBERT, YOU ARE LOSING MONEY AND CUSTOMERS.”

Why CPC Marketing Can Suck

While CPC ads provide leads who want to talk with you, there’s no way to know if they have a need for you, have the budget for you or are even the decision-maker. This can waste both parties time if a lead isn’t realistic about what they can have done within their budget.

Pre-Qualifying Your Leads

With our direct marketing campaign, DevNow was able to handpick companies we knew had a need to be mobile, had the resources to go mobile, and were a good fit. These postcards were sent out just before the holiday shopping season, so we focused a lot on the apparel and fashion industry hoping to catch companies wanting to get mobile. Direct marketing lets you choose the targets and get straight to them.

Direct Marketing Tips

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind to for your next direct mail campaign a success.

• Make sure your card passes the ‘glance’ test. Does your lead know what you’re about by just glancing at your card? Is your message clear if people don’t read the entire thing? casino (note: the backside of the card with the address is the side most often seen by recipients).
• Makes sure you have a clear ‘call to action’. This is something that makes your audience feel an urgency to contact you right now. (“You are losing money and customers”) is direct and hopefully urgent to a business owner
• Give them something other than a sales call. Companies may want to talk to you, but aren’t planning on doing anything in the near future. While some would write this off as a polite ‘no thanks,’ it really is an opportunity to build a relationship with a potential future client. We offered a free mobile report and screen shots of what their site could look like mobile.

Conventional internet marketing methods are yielding way to ‘old fashioned’ marketing strategies and methods. Progressive firms are making inroads by finding different ways to reach out to companies who are off the ‘Google Grid.’ It’s cheap, and it’s paying off.

*DevNow’s postcard used variable data to personalize the text as well as the screenshots used. While this is a more pricy option, many printing shops offer 1000 postcards to be printed and mailed out for as little as $400, or .40 a card. Our campaign was a success and after consistent follow-ups it brought in $10k in proposals and counting.