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Hub You - B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation Success Needs Planning, Testing, Measuring
You’ve hung out your shingle and are ready for business. But what if something unforeseen were to occur? Is your business truly ready for all that being in business entails? It only takes one catastrophic event to adversely impact a once thriving business. Recent world events: 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, the tsunami in Asia, along with other natural disasters act as a constant reminder that being well-prepared is often our best line of defense.What’s that, you say? Your business isn’t located in a city likely to be a target of either natural or ma
Unless your management wants to grow the business outside of your city, or grow the business in an aggressive way in your city, you may have a hard time convincing them to try DM. This is especially true if your city is small, since your prospect po
One of the most powerful business marketing tools out there is on paper. These include pamphlets, portfolios, and business cards. Using all of them is a plus, but business cards remain the cheapest (and arguably most important) way to market your business. Launching a business requires money from the start, and many may seek to cut corners and save whenever appropriate without sacrificing the integrity of their business. Plus, with inevitable changes to contact information and design for business cards, it is important to save money. One site that offers free business cards is VistaPrint, a
Is direct mail useless at helping direct mail businesses generate leads?
That’s the question I was asked last week by a reader of Alan Sharpe’s B2B Direct Mail Tactics newsletter. Here is her unusual challenge, and my response.
“My biggest challenge in generating leads from direct mail is to convince our marketing people that direct mail should be used. This is a completely ironic situation given that we are a DIRECT MAIL HOUSE. Yes, that’s right. I’ve been told that ‘direct mail is not good for our business.’“Apparently, direct mail was tried once long ago and had a bad response rate. Our other lead generation methods include sales outreach activities (prospecting, networking, etc.) and community involvement - charities, boards, councils, etc. Our word of mouth reputation is excellent - we've been in business for 18 years, our turnaround time is excellent, our customer service people are top notch, our team really knows their stuff . . . . However, it seems to me that a larger outreach should be done as well . . . am I barking up the wrong tree here?”
Myth #1: Direct mail doesn’t work for us
The only way to convince management to use direct mail over the long term to generate sales leads is to prove that direct mail either outperforms other methods or increases the effectiveness of other methods. You can only do this through testing and measuring results.
After all, the telephone, not the letter, is the number one tactic to generate leads according to the Direct Marketing Association's 2005 Response Rate Report.
Your firm sounds like it is content to do business in your city only. That’s why they rely on “networking, community involvement - charities, boards, councils, etc.” These methods of meeting prospective clients are not sustainable nationally or even regionally. They are too expensive.
Unless your management wants to grow the business outside of your city, or grow the business in an aggressive way in your city, you may have a hard time convincing them to try DM. This is especially true if your city is small, since your prospect po
A quick story:During the annual meeting, the CEO of a manufacturing company informed her executive team that she wanted to achieve a 10% growth during the next 12 months. The VP of Operations made plans to purchase new manufacturing equipment for new products while the VP of Marketing & Sales began to implement a plan selling existing products. The CFO decided to cut budgets to capital improvements and marketing. All three executive team members believed that their actions would help achieve the 10% growth.And the results of their actions are only symptoms of a greater, real pr
“Apparently, direct mail was tried once long ago and had a bad response rate. Our other lead generation methods include sales outreach activities (prospecting, networking, etc.) and community involvement - charities, boards, councils, etc. Our word of mouth reputation is excellent - we've been in business for 18 years, our turnaround time is excellent, our customer service people are top notch, our team really knows their stuff . . . . However, it seems to me that a larger outreach should be done as well . . . am I barking up the wrong tree here?”
Myth #1: Direct mail doesn’t work for us
The only way to convince management to use direct mail over the long term to generate sales leads is to prove that direct mail either outperforms other methods or increases the effectiveness of other methods. You can only do this through testing and measuring results.
After all, the telephone, not the letter, is the number one tactic to generate leads according to the Direct Marketing Association's 2005 Response Rate Report.
Your firm sounds like it is content to do business in your city only. That’s why they rely on “networking, community involvement - charities, boards, councils, etc.” These methods of meeting prospective clients are not sustainable nationally or even regionally. They are too expensive.
Unless your management wants to grow the business outside of your city, or grow the business in an aggressive way in your city, you may have a hard time convincing them to try DM. This is especially true if your city is small, since your prospect po
How do you go about building a knockout brand? Here’s the one two punch of brand building, and it might not be what you think. Think values and trust, not just colors and logos.Building a Brand is about (1) what you stand for and (2) the value that brings to those exposed to your brand. If what you stand for is a value system that others want, and want to identify with, you will be able to make your brand easily recognizable.1. Start by developing a mission statement. This will be the reason you exist and the value you create. In order to become recognizable, your mission s
Myth #1: Direct mail doesn’t work for us
The only way to convince management to use direct mail over the long term to generate sales leads is to prove that direct mail either outperforms other methods or increases the effectiveness of other methods. You can only do this through testing and measuring results.
After all, the telephone, not the letter, is the number one tactic to generate leads according to the Direct Marketing Association's 2005 Response Rate Report.
Your firm sounds like it is content to do business in your city only. That’s why they rely on “networking, community involvement - charities, boards, councils, etc.” These methods of meeting prospective clients are not sustainable nationally or even regionally. They are too expensive.
Unless your management wants to grow the business outside of your city, or grow the business in an aggressive way in your city, you may have a hard time convincing them to try DM. This is especially true if your city is small, since your prospect po
Ask yourself this question: “Do I like what I do for a living?” If you answered “no”, what are you doing about it? Maybe you have a “good” job, but it’s not very rewarding to you personally. Maybe you have job with good pay, but bad hours or worse – a job with good hours, but bad pay. Perhaps you’ve just done your job for too many years, or are excited to work in some of the new careers that just weren’t available when you finished school.Whatever the reason is for you wanting to switch careers, there are some practical considerations to take into account.How long will it
After all, the telephone, not the letter, is the number one tactic to generate leads according to the Direct Marketing Association's 2005 Response Rate Report.
Your firm sounds like it is content to do business in your city only. That’s why they rely on “networking, community involvement - charities, boards, councils, etc.” These methods of meeting prospective clients are not sustainable nationally or even regionally. They are too expensive.
Unless your management wants to grow the business outside of your city, or grow the business in an aggressive way in your city, you may have a hard time convincing them to try DM. This is especially true if your city is small, since your prospect po
Glass computer desks are sleek, well-designed, professional-looking computer desks for modern offices. Apart from looking great, they are just as functional as wood or metal computer desks. They accommodate all the benefits of regular computer desks like flexibility, versatility, and style, and they are ideal for office as well as home use.Glass computer desks can be made to fit any room and budget. Glass desks are usually made with durable materials comprising of environment-friendly blue tempered glass and are supported by strong, power-coated, heavy-duty steel frames. In many mode
Unless your management wants to grow the business outside of your city, or grow the business in an aggressive way in your city, you may have a hard time convincing them to try DM. This is especially true if your city is small, since your prospect pool is so limited.
Myth #2: We tried it once and it didn’t work
You say, “Apparently, direct mail was tried once long ago and had a bad response rate.” Business-to- business lead generation using direct mail is a program, not a campaign. It consists of a plan, a year-long series of mailings, and a way of testing methods and measuring results. I would suggest that if you have not tried direct mail consistently for at least a couple of years, testing different packages against each other, testing DM against your other lead generation methods, and measuring your results to see which method is most cost-effective, you have abandoned direct mail prematurely.
Myth #3: Direct mail delivers poor response rates
You say, “Apparently, direct mail was tried once long ago and had a bad response rate.” Direct mail response rates are misleading if you read them incorrectly. Your response rate only tells you part of what you need to know. It tells you the percentage of people on your list who responded and nothing more.
Your response rate doesn’t tell you how much you had to spend to generate one lead. Or how much you had to spend to make one sale. Your direct mail response rate does not tell you if the sales people who followed up on the leads closed any sales. Or if you broke even. Or if you made a profit.
So don’t be fooled by a low response rate. Unless you measure these other things (cost per lead, cost per sale, break even, return on investment) and compare your results with your face-to-face prospecting, community involvement and other methods, you will always be relying on feelings and not facts. One of the things that I like about B2B direct mail lead generation is that it is empirica
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