Getting In Print
A Step-By-Step Look At Direct Marketing
Know Your Options But direct marketing isn't your only offline alternative.
Guerilla marketing, requiring you and your employees to distribute
your company-branded merchandise to customers face-to-face, can
increase traffic. Outdoor ads, like placing posters, postcards and
stickers in highly-visible locations are another form of guerilla
marketing. Also, make sure to put your URL everywhere, including
stationery, promotional materials, packaging, receipts and
more. But as important as offline advertising is, experts say the best
way to get Web site customers is a combination of online and
offline promotions. And the messages have to jibe: If your online
message says one thing and your offline another, you'll confuse
customers. Content Continues Below
"You can't have a flashy tag line with smart graphics
online, while maintaining a less sophisticated program
offline," says Andrea Grenadier of Kirshner & Co. Inc., an
agency in Alexandria, Virginia, that works with Web start-ups on ad
strategies. "The two really have to work together to get your
message out properly." Direct Hit! Wanna' see how the offline direct-marketing thing works?
Here's a step-by-step look at how Jim Daniels of JDD
Publishing, implemented his campaign: - First, Daniels decided how many catalogs to send out. Then he
went to the local post office to purchase a yearly bulk-mail permit
($115). This permit enables him to mail hundreds of catalogs at
inexpensive rates.
- Daniels fed the names and addresses from his substantial
database into a bulk-mail program that processes his mail into the
format required by the post office. After researching a few of
these programs, Daniels went with MyDeluxeMailList and
MyPostageRateSaver CD (www.mysoftware.com) for a total
cost of $149. These software programs let him receive automation
rates by filtering out non-U.S. addresses, purging duplicate
addresses, setting up and bar-coding labels, and sorting bulk mail
by ZIP code for processing.
- Daniels used an in-house designer to design his catalog (cost:
less than $1,000 for the whole job), and made sure his
company's bulk-mail permit was printed on every copy.
- A reasonably priced printer was hired-and 5,000 catalogs were
printed for $1,450. Daniels made sure to print some extras.
- Daniels slapped address labels on each catalog and took them to
the post office for shipping.
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