Tag Archives: Direct Mail

Five Steps for a Productive Product Launch Using Direct Mail

Let’s say you have created compelling, correct, and relevant product positioning for your new product. You have taken a close look at the competitors and evaluated your item’s position in the market, as well as the world wide web, understanding what makes your product different, or even far better. You’ve additionally taken the time to analyze your profit and margin goals, and your pricing prevents any channel clashes. And saving the best for last, the behavior of your potential customers ought to be understood by you.

In case you haven’t done these things, and you believe you are all set for a product launch, you have work to do. Numerous product launches fail largely mainly because that lots of companies usually do not do the required preparation. One mistake is that they do not launch to the right target audience, using the right message, at the correct price, or not to mention the right direct mail piece. You only acquire one launch chance, so for those who have not performed your homework, then it is time to plan your launch along with a solid direct mail campaign. Listed below are five methods that can ensure success:

Product, Packaging, Place, Price, Promotion are the 5 Ps that you should not put aside.

1. Product: Figure out your product brand method (name, positioning, messaging). The distinguishing characteristics need to be centered on! Product messaging is important to a productive launch. Don’t rush through it. You will need to deal with your service just like a product for service providers. Ensure it is touchable. Provide a title!

2. Packaging: Whether you sell a product or a service, the presentation makes a difference! What your presentation can do, you must consider. Some presentation has the role of continuing to “sell from the shelf,” while some other packaging efforts are meant to continue to verify the value of the purchase after the transaction have been made. Almost any which way, the importance of product packaging to a brand new product launch can’t be stressed enough.

3. Place: New distribution and channels possibilities should be looked at. Only to have something fresh to talk about is a superb time to do this. However, do not forget to launch to your existing customer base FIRST. That’s your most receptive audience!

4. Price: An individual always has to think about your introductory pricing as you previously thought about your pricing system early on. Take into account having a price to entice a few early adopters to use your new product. This will get you a number of news out of the gate. Make sure though that your clients realize the offer they are having (add the discount to the receipt/invoice and name it “introductory price”).

5. Promotion: First of all you have to do is figure out 1) the most appropriate launch vehicles to utilize (advertising, direct mail, email, events, PR, telemarketing, other online options), and 2) probably the most gripping offer for your prospect pool at every stage in the buying cycle (a newsletter, white paper, webinar, discount, add-on, trial version, demo, etc.). Range, rate of recurrence and consistency are the 3 crucial components that your marketing campaign needs to have.

Second step will be the visibility to all the up front work necessary from your company, staff and even from an agency outside the business needs to be shown by your promotional schedule that you need to build. This demonstrates the activity degrees you could expect throughout each week of your promotion and validate you will always have a marketing activity going on during the launch period. Therefore, this will teach you if your plans are realistic and can be accomplished with the amount of money and staff members you have.

Always include the price and fees with each and every program in your plan so that you can itemize your finances. These facts is not going to equip you to assess budgetary negotiations much better but this can furthermore enable you to manage your finances a lot more carefully.

Evaluate your return on investment (ROI) by documenting the reach, frequency, and forecasted response rate for each direct mail piece that you’ve determined to get to a potential Return on investment. Because response rates can differ substantially and they also count on numerous factors such as your offer, your list and its quality or how targeted it is, the creativity of your message, its layout, and also the timing of the campaign, you should possibly supply a conservative in addition to aggressive projections.

From then on, present your approach to your team and also to your manager once you have accomplished your strategy with product posting, suggested programs, direct mail piece, schedule and ROI forecasts next budget it. Before executing your plan and also to ensure a prosperous launch too, purchase buy-off from all levels of your business.

If the numbers for your ROI are not good enough, you have to be ready to tweak your direct mail promotional piece. With practice, along with by means of tests, you should be able to assure a great ROI for other campaigns that support your product launch later on in life. In reality, an incredible campaign as well as other direct marketing campaigns that comes after generally pays for itself.


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The Most Common Marketing Mistakes

Marketing is one of the key drivers of business growth and profits. Unfortunately many companies make common mistakes with their marketing. Here’s a few of these common mistakes.

Using institutional advertising
Institutional advertising is about creating brand awareness and establishing what that brand stands for in the mind of the consumer. Most television advertising is institutional and it is often used by larger companies as a way of promoting their brand image. It doesn’t ask for a response to a specific offer. For most businesses institutional advertising is a mistake. Far better to attempt to engage your prospects at an emotional level with a specific offer that solves their problem.

Chasing new customers at the expense of existing and past customers
Many customers leave you because of perceived indifference; not because you actually did something wrong, but because they think you didn’t appreciate their business. This could simply occur because you failed to stay in contact with them and someone made them another offer that they decided to go with. The trick is to stay in contact with your customers on a regular basis; seven times a year is a good number and much of this can be done using email. Promotional products like pens and mugs are a nice way of keeping in touch and saying: “Thank you for your business.”

Trying to achieve a goal with a one-shot campaign

Your prospects need to see a message between four and seven times before they will be convinced to try something new. No single marketing shot can get this result unless the offer is very good.

If your budget is limited, focus on targeting a smaller group rather than a larger one. A classic example is direct mail. I have been guilty of sending out thousands of letters to everyone I know only to receive a poor response. A smarter thing would have been to select a smaller group and have a series of mailings.

Being tactical not strategic
Marketing is about strategy, to gain new customers, to have customers spend more money when they interact with you, to encourage customers to return and so on. The strategy is the message you are delivering and the action you want the customer to take. The tactics are the particular methods you use to deliver that message. Often people choose the tactics then the strategy: “Let’s do a brochure! Great idea” “What do we want it to say?”

Choosing a tactic before a strategy is like jumping in your car, pulling out of your driveway and then asking, “Where do I want to go?” If you are thinking strategy first, you would ask yourself what message you want to send and the action you’d like to take, then you would think about the right way to go about it,

Not being unique
Advertising is like wallpaper; most people know it is there but can’t recall specifically what it is. This is not good, especially when you consider that a marketing study found that only 20 per cent of people could describe the wallpaper in their own home. Let’s face it, it’s hard to stand out in a market when people can’t remember things they see every day.

Research suggests that people are exposed to between 4,000 and 9,000 advertisements daily. Seth Godin talks more about this in his book Purple Cow (a must-read for every marketer). If you want people to talk about you, be unique. This may simply involve identifying what you do best.

What is one of the best ways to make your business stand out? In some industries it is difficult to stand out. For example, commodity markets like petrol, electricity or building products. But regardless of what industry you are in, there is one way that will allow you to stand out in the marketplace. By choosing the thing you want to be known for, a unique selling proposition or unique buyer advantage, you can create a strong presence for your business. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.

It is difficult for business owners to choose the thing that they want to be known for. It’s almost as if by saying “We offer the fastest deliveries”‘ you are saying that your quality is not good. But what if you think your quality is also worth mentioning?

Given the amount of advertising noise heard by customers and prospects on a daily basis, you are better off sticking with one message and repeating it over and over.

Take FedEx for example, they do many things right, but the only benefit they promote is speed : “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”. This is a fantastic marketing slogan that is single-minded. It doesn’t tell you that they offer great value. It doesn’t tell you that their staff are the friendliest. It tells you that they are fast. By adding another four qualities, it would only dilute their message.

The key to picking something to be known for is to emphasise your strengths. There will be things that you are really good at and things that you are okay at, learn to accept this and focus on your strengths. You can never be all things to all people, so focus on the prospects that you are likely to convert into customers and fulfill the needs that are important to them.

Keeping in contact with customers and prospects is a marketing strategy that many companies neglect. What better way to say thanks for your business, than promotional gifts? Promotional pens and promotional mugs are an excellent way of thanking your customers and keeping your name top of mind.


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