Advertising With Direct Mail: The Advantages

By Author: Claude Whitacre
Total Articles: 164
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Most people won't be listening to your radio ad when it plays. Most people won't be seeing your cable TV ad. Most people aren't tuned into the specific station or channel your ad is on, when it plays. But everyone in your area will get your Direct Mail piece. And when they get their mail from their mailbox, nobody ever just throws it all away without at least seeing where it is from. Market coverage is almost complete.

The reader can put your ad down, come back later to it, read some more, save the ad, and buy when they can get to your store. The information in the ad stays with them. Direct mail can be set down, looked at later, given to another buyer, used to find your store, and brought in as a form of shopping list. Unless the customer records the radio or TV ad, it's gone after it plays.

You can say so much more in a Direct Mail piece that in a TV ad, Radio spot, Yellow Page ad.
You can list reasons to buy, use coupons, and make several offers, all in the same ad. Very difficult to do in other media. You can mail a five page direct mail ad for the same price as a one page ad. You can tell a complete ...
... story to bring them in your store (or get them to call)

Direct Mail can work as the "Backbone" of your advertising. I've noticed that we get a better total result when we have Direct Mail going out at the same time as a series of radio commercials. There is synergy in multiple media advertising.

Most people call this Junk Mail. So do I. But so what? If it creates a tangible profit for your business, what difference does it make what it's called?

Here's how I doubled my profits in one month.

I was running a full page Direct Mail ad in the Town Money Saver (my local Direct Mail company) for over a year. We would switch the ads every few months to "keep the ads fresh" in the reader's mind. It finally dawned on me that there wasn't a law that said I couldn't have two pages in the Town Money Saver. Two completely different offers in the same magazine. I even got a price break for doing it. Very profitable. The most we have done is three ads in the same magazine. Our three main ads were running at the same time. Amazingly, no loss of response from any of them. I can't believe I didn't think of this idea sooner.

One of the things I like most about Direct Mail, is that I can know for sure if an ad is working or not. I just put in every ad "Bring this ad in for a free ___ with the purchase of a ___". When the customer comes in the store waving the ad, I know what brought them into the store. I just clip the ad to my copy of the receipt, and at the end of the month add them up. Very easy.

The Big Reason That You'll Like Direct Mail
After you get a customer, you'll be contacting them by Direct Mail for your additional offers. If the customer was brought in the store by Direct Mail in the first place, they will be much more responsive to your Direct Mail offers in the future. They have proven that they read their mail.
You aren't going to contact your customers by TV, Radio, or the Newspaper.
In Direct Mail, a list of names of buyers , that bought from a TV infomercial, aren't as valuable as a list of names of customers that bought by Direct Mail. People tend to respond the same media over and over again. In fact, I have taken money from the Yellow Pages and put it into Direct Mail with very profitable results.

If you make offers to your current customers by Direct Mail, your best results will come from building your new customer base by Direct Mail.
Small Business Advertising and Local Marketing expert Claude Whitacre is author of the book The Unfair Advantage Small Business Advertising Manual. You can purchase the book for $19.95 at http://www.claudewhitacre.com. You can also download your Free copy of the complete book at http://local-small-business-advertising-marketing-book.com/