Does Marketing and Advertising Activity Create An “OPPORTUNITY” for Your Customers?

Does Marketing and Advertising Activity Create An “OPPORTUNITY” for Your Customers?

by | May 15, 2022 | Copy content, Creative strategies, Customer-centric strategy, Direct marketing mail, email tactics, Sales

Here is how to use an "opportunity" to attract more Customers

Finding the right answers is the importance of buying opportunities for your customers. If you need a bit of motivation in your direct marketing, let us discuss the importance of “opportunity.” 

When your team is developing effective marketing and advertising, there is a strange but true corollary:

People do not buy things; they buy opportunities! 

They do not buy stuff for their hobby or paraphernalia for their wardrobe; they do not even buy gadgets, services, or ideas.  

They buy opportunities such as exclusive offers, promotions, no interest when paid by a special date, familiar offers, long-term financing, and easy payment conditions.  

That is why, when you choose direct marketing mail, it is important to spend as much time talking about buying opportunities as you do about the products or services you sell.  

Direct mail is more personal, so your copywriting and design can put your reader into your buying opportunity. In fact, you want to spend as much or more time talking about your offer than you do about your products or services. Because even the best products and services and direct marketing campaigns—unless they are merchandised and encased in attractive offers—can fall short of their goal. 

Using direct mail is a one to one opportunity

When you decide to use direct mail, make it even more powerful. The purpose of all marketing, direct mail included, is to motivate a prospect or customer to act: to call, order, buy, request information, visit your website, or whatever, to take the next step.  

The next step is to set the motivation table. In simple terms, “hey prospect or customer, here is an opportunity you were waiting for, so don’t miss this chance again”  

Making this happen in this fast-paced, highly competitive world is not always easy. The reason is that it takes a tremendous amount of planning and implementation expertise to make that response occur. Build a checklist, adding every idea or change; your entire team must know about all the details. 

As a team leader or manager, your mission is to coordinate all the elements that lead to a successful direct marketing campaign: data, lists, message content, offers, visual impact, timing, frequency, postal rate efficiencies, postal automation compatibility, and on and on.  

Regardless of how much you mail or how often, you will always want to seek overall team leadership, professional guidance, and the advice of experts to achieve the greatest response to your direct marketing mail campaigns. 

 A lot of these best practices in direct marketing using mail can certainly be moved to some of the social or other traditional communication channels. Email, for example, is a great tactic to increase the response of your buying opportunity(s).  

It just may be the extra motivation your customer or prospect needs.

Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are from my experience as a small business owner and a marketing entrepreneur in advertising, writing content, articles, and reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US

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Direct Mail Made Quite a Few Buck$ for Mortgage and Financial Firms When Mailing to Customers and Prospects…

Direct Mail Made Quite a Few Buck$ for Mortgage and Financial Firms When Mailing to Customers and Prospects…

by | Apr 20, 2022 | Creative strategies, CRM, Customer-centric strategy, Database, Direct marketing mail, email tactics

Companies in banking, mortgage, financial companies, and the federal government widely chose the direct mail marketing channel of communications for its dependability in deliverability to the right person or company. Right or wrong? 

According to recent research data from 2019 on the mortgage, banking and the financial industry, most firms provide a variety of financial products. They use an assortment of marketing strategies and advertising tactics, provide yearly sales figures, and what their market share is for the US markets.  

Yet, most of these financial institutions, however, have been slow to return to direct mail marketing tactics, mostly due to “the existing perspectives of how things should be done.”  

Maybe direct mail marketing for mortgage and financial firms is like face-to-face advertising for other companies?

Not long after the emergence of a digital marketing strategy, many industries had jumped on board the digital highway, embracing these new channels. However, in the mortgage and financial industry, the benefits of this the new medium created some confusion. So, many firms in the industry held back, and continued to use the marketing tactics that worked for them in the past.   

This industry was always rather conservative and unwilling to experiment with new and possibly unsafe technologies. Plus, it’s highly regulated. In fact, fewer than 15% of this group is using some digital marketing strategies, which are much lower than other industries. Considering their role in previous financial depressions, it’s quite logical. Customers felt it violated their trust.   

Why not try a direct marketing mail channel using certain segments of your customers and prospects? 

What’s your product? Is it more male or female? If you know how many of each sex or type, why do they make a purchase? 

Getting back to mortgage and financial companies, they already have a lot of information about their customer marketing needs. Probably the biggest need when filing for a mortgage is they need to know a customer’s salary, what is owned in their savings, how they use credit cards and types of insurance they purchase. Theye can find all this and other information in the target markets they build.  

Take another tip from the mortgage and financial sector.

Create trust-building strategies in unison using direct marketing mail, on the company website, social media posts, a blog or build one if one does not exist, or just about any communication channel you used to reach customers and prospects. 

One of the best channels you can use today for trust and readability remains direct mail. Direct mail today gets a 95% whopping delivery rate. As a bonus, if a person in your data moves, that information is forwarded to you to change your records. 

Social media can also be a gold mine. People who post can say a lot and some of this may be wise to determine how you can dissect how much of the discussion is useful in a marketing test. Keep in mind there are a few too many scammers on some of the social channels. 

I build successful customer relationships on trust, and if you set that as a goal of measuring the data from the direct marketing mail or other advertising communications for your company, expect to be compensated. Any company can tout exceptional service, but only a few can deliver. Why? Trust between organizations and people can be expected, but trust is earned.  

Find out more on how to use direct mail marketing in the digital era.  

Speak with one of our community members serving the mortgage and other financial companies. They can help you get on track with your marketing advertising.  

According to the data collected in 2010, it takes 2.7 channels (email, radio, social media, etc) to connect with a contact. I could not locate a recent update, but I am sure it is now higher. If you still only use one channel to connect, you need to consider selecting a few other segments your contacts prefer.    

There is an old saying in direct marketing: test, test, and test again. It is also helpful when you start channel selection.   

If you would like to see a simple segment for a simple small retail business, use a quick pic click now.

Direct-2-Customer Community and Forum is Built On Experience

Marketing and Sales Innovation

Small Businesses Served

Marketing and Sales Solution Providers Created

Years Of Experience

Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are from my experience as a small business owner and a marketing entrepreneur in marketing, advertising, and selling content, articles, reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US

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Does Marketing and Advertising Activity Create An “OPPORTUNITY” for Your Customers?

Proven ways to increase customers and take your small business to the next level

by | Feb 19, 2022 | Analytics, Communication channels, Copy content, Creative strategies, CRM, Customer-centric strategy, Data, Database, Direct 2 Customers landing page, direct mail, Direct marketing mail, Email tactical, Headlines, Landing Page, Personalize data marketing, Sales, Selling, Visuals

I created question-and-answered marketing modules that are closely connected to accomplish overall goals for your company and customers.

I ask many questions. Share examples. Ideas are shared. It is a conversation. We both learn and understand about each other.
What is in it for you? A FREE E-book? Better business? Organization? Leadership? Success?You need to answer as many questions as possible. Why? My goal is to help you.

As I see how your questions are answered, I can provide content to you which can lead to solving a problem or two...

that are beneficial for you, so we can get you the best free content and the advice you need to succeed.

 

 

Plus, when you JOIN our community today...The first 10 companies that join, receive a FREE copy of my 6th edition Custom-Made Marketing E-book. (Expires last day of spring.)

Ready for a challenge?

How about building a Grade A marketing and/or selling model?

In the following four panels below are eighteen brief questions and twelve questions that will need a paragraph or two of your answers from each question. The more company info you can add to any of the questions is entirely up to you, but highly recommended. When we meet and discuss the questions, we both will pass on other information back and forward. This has always been one of the major successes of helping companies like yours.

The questions are also on a landing page.

OK, start building your list

and don’t forget to

send it to me via email.

You are on the clock!

  1. Define your product or service. Corporate marketing mission statement. Company goals.
  2. Did you use marketing research and analysis of your marketplace?
  3. What is the how and why customers buy?
  4. Do you have customer segments based on their buying habits?
  5. Your development of strategies, planning and advertising programs to profitability meets the needs of different segments.
01

What do you know and wish to

know about your marketplace?

  • Why do customers come to you and not competitors?
  • What common characteristics do they have?
  • List the benefits of importance to your customers.
  • Examine the marketplace’s wants and needs. What is a fit? Not a fit?
  • Examine your own strengths and compare these to your customer needs and wants.
  • Analyze the strengths of various competitors?
  • Do you try to be on the ground-breaking of industry trends consistently?
02

List advertising tools and tactics that you use.

If so, send samples. Such as;

  • Sales letters.
  • Sales visits.
  • Qualifying prospects.
  • Sales presentation.
  • Handling objections.
  • Closing the sale.
  • Follow up scripts to close a sale.
  • Customer databases or CRM.
03

What channels of distribution are you

using for marketing, advertising, and sales?

  1. Email.                     7. Brochures.
  2. Post cards.             8.Newsletters.
  3. Landing pages.      9. Blog
  4. Website.                 10.Digital.
  5. Social media.
  6. Posts.

Marketing and Sales Innovation

Small Businesses Served

Marketing and Sales Solution Providers Created

Years Of Experience

Custom-Made Marketing E-book

All the requested information above is from our Custom-Made Marketing E-book. It is a program I started building shortly after I started writing my small business and marketing plan in the Mid-eighties.

The book has a unique set of questions and facts for equipping your marketing tools to help you build a better business. I call it a custom company marketing and sales plan. All is based on your vision, teamwork, and your best customer experience. We’ll provide the fuel.

I created a tour of the E-book, so you can learn more about each module, and how Kristen, a small business marketing manager, got on board to help her boss get more business. Just follow the purple arrows on the left of the page, pointing downward after clicking on this page link.

The slide presentation reads like a walk-through on how to increase your efficiency of marketing, advertising, and selling using the first Module, A Situation Analysis, with thought-provoking questions, to get a better understanding of a company like yours in marketing, selling and other business operations. Check out the E-book table of contents on the second slide in the presentation.

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Exceptional Special

The slide presentation is a conversation between Kristen, an agitated marketer, and the MarketingDoc, the author of the E-book, who will help her get answers from the questions in the “Custom-Made Marketing and Sales” E-book, A Situation Analysis.

Kristen’s goal is trying to find the right combination of promotions and advertising tools to increase audience response and creating more sales. In this back and forward learning experience we both understand more about the company and management team and ideas generated and discussed. These are questions that make people think while using examples and thought-provoking ideas from both sides.

There are 18 modules, and 75 pages in our E-book. I invite you to read each slide in the presentation. Each slide is less than 30 seconds reading time.

Module number one, Your Situation Analysis, is available in a free download in the slide presentation. I will give a FREE question and answer session of the Situation Analysis module with recommendations to improve your marketing and sales. Plus, I’ll toss in a free copy of Custom-Made Marketing E-book, a $79.00 value, upon completion of the module.

EXPIRES ON THE LAST DAY OF SPRING!

Here’s how to enter our free e-book, Custom-Made Marketing drawing.

Send your name, email, with “Module One Drawing” to Mdoc@direct2customers.com. If you are in the top 10, we will send you an email if successful.

If you are successful, here’s what happens.

I’ll interview the 10 companies to complete Module One.

This is a FREE question-and-answered session of the Situation Analysis module.

Once the Situation Analysis are completed and you were in the requested top ten, we’ll send you a copy of my E-book, Custom-Made Marketing.

MarketingDoc

Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are from my experience as a small business owner and a marketing entrepreneur in marketing, advertising, and selling content, articles, reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2022 J. Mike Deuerling
If you are serious about marketing and sales, that will increase revenue…

If you are serious about marketing and sales, that will increase revenue…

by | Jan 21, 2022 | Creative strategies, Customer-centric strategy, Direct marketing, Direct marketing mail, Sales

If you are serious about marketing and sales, that will increase revenue…

then you build a custom direct marketing and selling strategy. Here's how.

For starters, you will need to appoint…

A marketing manager uses the best strategies to accomplish the goals through planning as created by the management team and consultants. There are many tactical tools to select with a variety of channels to meet the goals set forth by management as it pertains to selling product and services.

“There are many direct marketing strategies for consideration now days, but none are one for all. So, before you wrap your hands around a direct marketing strategy, first do your homework. Follow along in this typical scenario that will make your selected direct marketing strategies work for you as you expect.”

The first step is the hardest

Attracting attention is marketing and is extremely important. You first attract the attention of your target buyers with your company logo, corporate colors, and tagline. When you design your company “look,” define the type of business you are marketing. Is it friendly or austere? Do you offer bargains or firm practicing? Make your company colors and logo a reflection of your business personality.

Creative marketing strategies outline a broad plan of action that best uses the organization’s resources to achieve a marketing goal. Marketing strategies are the specific actions taken by the organization to communicate with the select primary target groups. Here are at least two major marketing strategies to consider in your direct marketing. 

  • Market Penetration. Getting more customers for the present product/service. Tactic- communicate more effectively and frequently. 
  • Market expansion. Getting more customers from new target groups and marketplaces. Tactic- Understand client needs and wants and offer solutions from product/service offering towards the target.

In conclusion, you and your team must carefully design a marketing strategy to meet a marketing goal and the demands from a client base to be effective. For example, in a growing business, market penetration can be very successful. Next, we will analyze several tactics available to achieve a strategic goal. 

Onward to the next challenge.

For starters, use a name of action, such as money-making for the next marketing planning project. Analyze the captured marketing data from previous advertising campaigns, looking for the good, the bad and any mistakes you want to avoid. A small business needs as much information as possible to meet the company sales goal for the direct marketing program and advertising tactics. Don’t count this action short.

Marketing strategies defined are the specific actions taken by the organization to communicate with the selected primary target groups. The very nature of a direct marketing strategy is to get your marketing message to a prospect and customer, easy to read, and acted upon by the recipients. A sales goal for a direct marketing strategy could be x amount of dollars received, number of products sold in y amount of time, and on a what specific communication channel.

So, what is a marketing tactic? We’ll tell you one week from today via email and blog post.

Click Here FOR PART TWO

Please share with others–except your competition!

Direct marketing copy is like a puzzle.

Sharing my time with you is not over at the end of a post. There are many ideas I experienced in owning a small business. My ideas about using and writing direct marketing and customer-centric copy are from my experience as a small business owner and a marketing entrepreneur in marketing, advertising, and selling content, articles, reports based on my philosophy of people learn by reading, then learn by doing.

Please join our Direct2Customers Marketing Community today!

This is what I do and what I love to do.

Thanks again for reading. Questions?

Mdoc@direct2customers.com or 800-251-3608

JOIN US

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2022 J. Mike Deuerling
SUBSCRIBE NOW!

SUBSCRIBE NOW!

by | Jul 18, 2021 | Creative strategies, Direct marketing mail, Sales

I bet when you hear the word subscriptions; you may think about magazines, newspapers, and newsletters. But did you think of SaaS? Software as a service.

Netflix? Amazon? Microsoft Office 365?

Today, it means more. So, let us start by redefining what a subscription is.

A subscription is a sales growth tool in which customers and clients pay today for goods, services, programs, or benefits they will receive. If you are in the service business, it is a good customer service tool. Customer retention? You bet. Personalization? Right on.

In terms of your business, subscription marketing could help you create a valuable and predictable future revenue stream. Just think how nice it would be to know that you have money in the bank right now to cover your fixed overhead for six months or more.

The benefits of subscription marketing are that you accelerate your cash flow today at the same time you build customer loyalty and connect your customer to your company and services. In addition, you add value to the products and services you sell, and you develop good will. Both the customer and the business stand to gain from the venture.

Options to use in building your subscription base.

Interestingly, the best way to build a subscription base is using a communication channel you are comfortable with, as well as your target market. It can be social media. Direct mail. Email. A blog. A community you may belong to. Depending on the type of your company, anywhere your customers and prospects hang out.
But why? Historically, look at the previous twentieth century of magazine subscriptions, such as Time, Saturday Evening Post, Life and a variety of men, women, and child’s magazines. They were hot on your trail months — sometimes years — before your subscription was up for renewal.
Service maintenance contracts work extremely well in several industries — both consumer and business-to-business.
For example, an air conditioning or a heating service company would offer an inspection regimen that includes two inspections and free service throughout the year. This type of maintenance contract is really a subscription for services paid for now, to be performed at some future date.
When you use direct mail to sell a subscription of any kind, you are selling prepaid services. You are getting paid today for services you may not have to provide until some future date… if at all. If they never need you, it is money in your pocket.
Subscription marketing connects your customer and clients to you. After all, they have already paid for you. So why would they ever think about calling someone else for their air conditioning? Heating service?

Marketing and selling are a best friend when using a subscription.

There was a time when the world predicted that the postage stamp would follow in the dinosaur’s way, disappearing entirely from the face of the earth to be replaced by an electronic upstart called email.

But the fact remains that email ––and the internet ––are a relevant and powerful ally with direct mail for building customer and client relationships. Opportunities for greater frequency and contact with clients and prospects. Encourages consumers to interact with you, speeding transactions, better personalization with marketing and sales. Plus, everyone has a mailbox.

The key to build a better business is your marketing and selling campaigns should mirror everything:

  1. customer and prospects communication channels,
  2. copywriting,
  3. design,
  4. offers,
  5. content and
  6. your call to action.

The tone of your marketing message should reflect the same tone as your corporate marketing and selling tactics. The best way to accomplish this is to think about your writing and design as a continuation of your corporate message. It’s like a part of an ongoing conversation that you are having with a friend.

 

Second, give the subject lines and titles as much care as you do with direct mail headlines. As in the world of direct mail, the headline, or subject line, can make or break you.
Finally, use body copy that reiterates the benefits you describe in your direct marketing campaign. But keep in mind that website visitors and email readers are scanners. To get your message through, you want to keep copy short and concise. Keep paragraphs short with space between them. Include direct marketing most effective words such as free, guaranteed, and limited time offer.
Email is not going away. Direct mail is not going away. They are many communication channels used with a variety of marketing tactics to reach your customers. Ask them. They each play a vital role in you and your business marketing campaigns.
Reminder-
Subscription payments lower the barrier to entry for products and services and allow more potential customers to purchase your product. While they may pay a larger amount over the long term, they can get immediate access to the product.

I helped thousands of companies build successful marketing and sales. So, when I share my information with a company, I always base it on my experience. So, when you read my articles, I share as much information as possible. Don’t be like the direct mail companies of the past. Throwing money against the against the odds of failure is a no-win situation leading to poor business.

Visit our “Build A Direct Path to Customers” today.

Email Mdoc@direct2customers.com.

800-251-3608.

Join our community today!
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