By Joy Gendusa, CEO of PostcardMania
A solid marketing system generates leads for your business, and then integrates the latest technologies to turn them into customers. I have spent 15 years perfecting mine, and now you can build this ultimate marketing plan by checking off the following five steps that integrates offline and online efforts:
1.) Create a Postcard Direct Mail Marketing Campaign
Lead generation should be the foundation of any marketing plan, and postcard marketing excels at it. It uses targeted mailing lists to put your cards in front of quality prospects, in order to produce great conversion results. Mailing to attract new customers is important, but the only way to grow your business sustainably is to also build the loyalty of your current customers simultaneously. So, be sure to mail to both groups.
2.) Track Postcards to Prepare for the Response
Your postcards will produce phone responses to your business. You may want to bring in extra help to field calls and serve customers. In order to do this cost-effectively, you should track your postcards so you know when they actually reach your prospects. Tracking your campaign allows you to orchestrate your office preparation in sync with your marketing, and helps you get the most out of your response.
3.) Use Google Remarketing to Follow Up with Online Visitors
These days 90 percent of interested prospects visit your website before they call you. Without online follow up, you may lose the prospects that visit your site, but don't decide to call or make a purchase in that moment. Google Remarketing is an online tool that allows you to keep track of all the visitors to your site, and follow up with them until they become a customer, so you leave no lead behind.
All you have to do is implement a small portion of Web code into your website, and then Google tracks the activity of all of your site visitors automatically. If the visitor doesn't fill out a contact form or make a purchase, Google shows them targeted ads on any website within Google's Display Network. The network includes high-traffic sites like CNN.com, and HGTV.com.
4.) Track Phone Responses to Analyze and Improve Results
Call tracking uses a unique phone number to route phone responses to your business while tracking how many come in from each campaign. This allows you to analyze the response as you experiment with message tweaks or special offers, to improve your results with each campaign. It also records the responses, so you can analyze your sales and reception techniques to improve conversion rates.
5.) Repeat!
You need to mail your postcard campaigns regularly and consistently to get the best results. This system puts the power of improving your marketing in your hands, but no matter what, you need to mail campaigns consistently to keep your business in the forefront of customers' and prospects' minds. Following this systematic approach generates more customers and more revenue month after month.
Look for a marketing company that offers these components as a package. That will reduce the cost and give you the best return on investment - and yes, it exists!
To learn more about how you can integrate your direct mail with Google go here.
About the Author
In 2011, PostcardMania reached almost $45 million in annual revenue and the company now employs more than 195 people, prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards each week, and has more than 53,000 customers in over 350 industries. Please visit www.postcardmania.com for more information. Find Joy on Google+.