In the last of our series on Investing in Your Marketing Materials, we’re addressing your outreach and advertising efforts including Direct Response Campaigns, Business Reply Mailers (BRMs) / Business Reply Cards (BRCs), Advertisements (web and print), and Media and PR plans.

While all of these items are important and can be very effective marketing tools, it’s important to remember the goal of each. None of these elements are going to make the sale for you. Their purpose should be something measurable, a midway stop in the sales process; not the end result. For example, your advertising should generate phone calls, increase web traffic, etc. (a goal that is established prior to ever launching a campaign). In turn, the increased phone calls provide more opportunities for sales conversions.

This brings us to another important point about your outreach tools – before launching any campaign, you should have methods of measuring effectiveness in place. This could be unique phone numbers, promotional keywords, etc. While it might seem like a simple concept, if it’s not addressed ahead of time and with much thought, you’ll find yourself spending a lot of money and not knowing if it’s been worth it. Additionally, you should also be measuring your conversion rates (how many leads are converted to a sale) as well. We’ve seen many advertising budgets cut or direct mail campaigns cancelled because “it’s not working; our sales aren’t increasing.” If you’re not measuring your conversion rates then you’ll never know if the problem really lies with the advertising or if it lies in converting a lead into a sale. In general, your lead generation (spurred by your outreach materials) and conversion rates should be increasing proportionately.

A final note that applies to all your outreach materials is about their design: all of your materials should be part of a cohesive campaign that is detailed in a marketing plan. Your direct mail campaign should look similar to your print advertising, which looks similar to your online advertising, etc. A consumer should be able to pick up any piece out of your mix and tell immediately that it is yours. If this isn’t the case, each outreach tool is simply a flash in the pan and doesn’t benefit from the bigger pull that a well-organized campaign provides.

Direct Response Campaigns

Perhaps the most important word in the title of this element is “campaign.” It implies that there is cohesion and strategy involved. A direct response campaign is anything sent to customers that elicits an immediate action on their part. For example – a visit to your website, purchase of a promotional package, returned BRC (more detailed info on BRMs and BRCs follows), etc. Direct response campaigns are commonly a series of direct mail pieces. These pieces need to each have a specific, defined goal, and they need to follow a consistent visual theme so that when consumers receive them, they recall the previous pieces sent. According to the US Postal Service, the typical rate of response for a direct mail campaign is around 3%. In other words, for every 1,000 pieces you mail, you should expect 30 responses. While this might seem low, direct mail is usually a very cost-effective form of marketing as it allows for very direct consumer targeting. One way to make your direct response campaign more effective is to personalize it. This is a trend that has been growing over the recent years as technology has developed to make personalization easier. Consumers are more likely to read and respond to a piece that is addressed specifically to them, references something specific about their lifestyle or state in life. For example: “Sandy, we know you’re busy with your 3 kids and spend countless hours chauffeuring in your SUV. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a community where you could meet friends at the corner café, stop at the grocery store, and pick your kids up at school all within walking distance of your house”? In that paragraph, Sandy, 3 kids, and SUV were all items that personalized this information for the consumer, which helps build credibility and trust with the consumer.

BRMs / BRCs

If you’re not familiar with BRMs or BRCs, let us fill you in – BRMs are pre-printed mailers used to return marketing leads, surveys, etc. They are used when you want to encourage a response and most often, it allows the mailer (you) to only pay the postage on pieces returned by customers. It requires a post office permit, but is well worth the time applying when used as part of a strategic marketing effort. The difference between a BRM and a BRC is simple – a BRC is a single card (like the ones that fall out of magazines). A BRM can be multiple pages, a brochure, etc., that usually has a detachable card or smaller portion that the customer removes and returns. For more marketing lingo like BRM/BRC, check out our Marketing Glossary.

BRMs are most often used by real estate and hospitality marketers to qualify sales leads. As we mentioned in our March 2009 newsletter, your sales kit can be a pretty expensive set of marketing materials. If you’re purchasing a direct mail list or testing the waters with a new project, it isn’t prudent to send your full sales kits to each person. Instead, you can send a BRM that allows customers to request further information. This ensures that the people getting your expensive marketing materials are really interested in your product.

BRMs are also a great way to gather information about your target audience. Surveys can be distributed and easily returned at no cost to the customer.

Advertisements

For the last several years, we’ve seen print advertising budgets being cut drastically in favor of online advertising. While the benefits of online advertising (lower cost, quicker and more reliable tracking, easy to demographically target, etc.) make it very appealing, we strongly encourage a mix of both to help you garner the best results. There will never be a replacement for the tactile quality of the printed word, and your brand almost always benefits from the tactile quality print advertising provides. This, however, is contingent on good design (for more on what makes good design, see our July 2008 newsletter). When strategically planned, the increased exposure across several media will leave a more lasting impression on your consumer.

Media and PR Plans

Included in your marketing plan should be media and PR plans. While this might seem like a lot of effort, especially for smaller properties who are mostly utilizing local media, if you don’t have plans in place it becomes very difficult to see what is working and have a big-picture view of the messages you’ve sent to consumers.

A media plan is traditionally a schedule of all your advertising (print, online, TV and radio). When this plan is being developed, all of your other outreach tools should be considered as well. As we’ve mentioned several times in this newsletter, you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck when you approach your outreach materials as a campaign. You want your advertising schedule to compliment your direct mail campaign and PR schedules so that consumers get maximum exposure across several media.

A PR plan is many times considered to be something separate from your marketing plan – it shouldn’t be. Public Relations is a form of marketing, just like advertising is; therefore, it should fall inside the marketing plan – not outside it. The primary reason for this is that your PR efforts should always complement your other marketing efforts. Be careful to not just assume press releases are part of a PR plan. While this is one element, and your press releases should be planned and scheduled so other outreach tools can complement them, there are many other elements to a PR plan. They might include press tours/FAM trips, press kit distribution, promotional events, etc. All of these items deserve well-thought out planning and scheduling so they can benefit from the cohesive nature of your broader marketing campaign.

This completes our discussion on investing in your marketing materials. Hopefully we’ve provided you with some sound tactics to consider while mapping your way through these uncertain times, shown you there are ways to continue your marketing so you’re not left behind when things improve, and inspired you to continue investing in your brand.

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