If so, make sure you call these convenient benefits out in your marketing and let your prospective customers know you are convenient to work with.
However, It All Starts With Scheduling A Service.

Allowing customers to conveniently schedule online is an important step in creating a great customer experience. With more and more consumers not wanting to pick up the phone, the convenience of having the option to schedule online is important and will appeal to all prospective customers. As we all know, the number of consumers who would rather schedule an appointment online has drastically increased in recent years.

When It Comes To Conveying That You Have A Convenient Way To Schedule Service On Your Direct Mail Marketing, Here Are A Few Powerful Tips.

1. Simply tell customers that scheduling service is convenient by letting them know they can either “Call Today” or “Conveniently Schedule Online”.

2. Provide a QR code that takes customers directly to your online scheduling tool. The key here is to have the right platform, such as AutoOps, that fully integrates with your shop management system. Not only does AutoOps provide a platform that allows customers to schedule live appointments according to your shop’s live calendar, but it can also provide valuable QR code insight to further enhance your marketing.

Interested in adding integrated online scheduling into your next mailer campaign?

The post Convenience is Key: How to Attract Auto Repair Customers by offering Convenient Ways to Schedule Service appeared first on Best4mailing.

With direct mail you can target the exact prospect you want, at their exact address with the ONLY MEDIA THAT GUARANTEES a 100% OPEN RATE and the highest attention rate of any media. Isn’t that the holy grail of marketing, being able to target the exact prospect  you want, at the exact time, with the exact message, and guarantee that they SEE IT.

This is exactly what direct mail delivers and just two of the many reasons that make direct mail so powerful when done right. Let me repeat that, when done right as there are so many things that will kill a direct mail campaign before it even begins. Furthermore, for most industries, direct mail is one of the easiest media to track response rate and ROI. Therefore, you can take if from does direct mail work to this is exactly how well it worked for my business.

With all that said, the reason behind asking the question “Does Direct Mail Work.” Boils down to either one or a combination of the following 6 reasons.

1. I have tried direct mail in the past and it just didn’t work.
2. XXXX told me direct mail doesn’t work. Often this comes from a digital marketing company trying to sell the direct mail or could be a friend or colleague has told them that direct mail doesn’t work.
3. I just don’t really understand marketing in general and/or do not understand the capabilities of direct mail and how it really works.
4. I just don’t think it will work for my business.
5. Let’s really break down each of these reasons and bring some transparency to the heart of the questions.
6. I’ve tried direct mail in the past and it just didn’t work.

If this is you, here are the important questions that need to be asked.

Do you know who and where your mailers were sent to?

There needs to be a sound strategy behind selecting the right areas and prospects to target. Nothing will kill a direct mail campaign more than a bad list and sending your mailers to the wrong prospects in the wrong areas.

Do you have a copy of your last mailer?

This is an easy checkpoint to identify If your direct mail marketing was designed properly both from an aesthetic perspective and content perspective.

If your direct mail marketing wasn’t easy to read, easy to scan, did not have a strong call to action, a compelling offer, contained technical jargon and did not include strategic ad copy that would resonate with your prospective customers, you might as well toss your money down the toilet.

How did you track and/or gauge the effectiveness of your direct mail response and ROI?

Tracking your marketing efforts and determining how customers are finding your business is arguably one of the hardest parts. This becomes even more difficult when deploying a multi-channel marketing approach.

I often hear that call tracking was used to a client’s direct mail response rate. Unfortunately, in 99.9999% of all cases call tracking is NOT an accurate method to track direct mail response.

The reason being is that many prospects who receive your mailer will go online, read reviews and call from the number on Google or your website. The minute a call is made from any number other than the call tracking number on your mailer, you have lost all accuracy.

Although call tracking will show some results and does have some merit, It will only show you those that called from the number on the mailer and is not inclusive or indicative of all calls made from the number on google or your website, thus making it grossly inaccurate.

However, for businesses such as Home Services, HVAC, Plumbing, landscaping, Power Washing, Construction, etc. Auto Repair, Dental Practices, Fitness Centers, Insurance, Financial, Education, etc. etc. etc. that acquire their customers address when they become a customer, it is very easy to attribute ROI.

This is done with a very simple report called a match back report. The match back report takes the new customers your business acquires after your direct mail marketing has been sent out and compares It to the list of prospects who have received your direct mail marketing matching back a detailed list of every new customer acquired that was targeted with direct mail.

Of course, it cannot tell you if your direct mail was the only reason,  they became a customer. For example, the direct mail got their attention but your website and google reviews is what pushed them over the edge. The latter you will likely never be able to solve for at scale and you could spend a decade determining if you want to consider it first, touch last touch, etc., but it surely does give you the ability to  attribute direct mail as one of the touches, if not the primary touch that got them to become a customer at your business.

For other types of business such as restaurants, retail, etc. that are not able to acquire a customer’s address at time of purchase, it is likely you will never know your exact response rate. In these cases, the best you can do is count coupons or try and track special offers with unique codes to tie them back to an offer directly from one of your mailers. Many suggest look at sales as a determining factor. As intuitive as those sounds, I have seen a customer who are getting a response and have declining sales due to operational issues.

XXXX told me direct mail doesn’t work.

First, we must ask, who is providing you with this information. If it is a company trying to sell you another form of marketing and they are bashing another marketing channel, then you should probably just disregard it and/or ask them to provide you with fact-based evidence to substantiate their claim as opposed to what they think or what they say they are seeing. I’d be willing to be they can’t provide you with anything accurate.

If it is a friend, family member or colleague, it can only have come their opinion or from an experience they have had in the past with direct mail. If it is opinion based and not fact based than it can be disregarded. If it is based on previous experience, ask them the questions above addressed above to uncover if they executed their direct mail campaign properly and/or accurately tracked their direct mail campaign results to substantiate their feedback.

I just don’t really understand marketing in general and/or do not understand the capabilities of direct mail and how it really works.

This is a fair concern. Most business owners and managers aren’t marketing experts. Even those business owner managers that do understand marketing or have some expertise may not be the authority on a specific channel of marketing like SEO, Direct Mail, etc. Therefore, it’s always a best practice to find an expert in that field and rely on them to help you.

The key is finding the right expert which is the biggest challenge. Fortunately using google can help make this process much more efficient. I recommend by starting by looking for companies that have expertise with your specific industry and have the google reviews to match.

I just don’t think it will work for my business.

You may be right about this concern. Direct mail may not work well for your businesses, or it may work, but you may be able to

get a much better ROI using another form of marketing. This can only be determined by consulting with a real direct mail expert.

For example, let’s assume you owned an auto body repair shop. I would not recommend direct mail as the best use of your marketing dollars and the most viable way for your business to acquire new customers.

The reason being is that the need for auto body repair cannot be determined by someone’s demographic or where they live and there is no direct mail list you can buy that breaks down vehicle owners that may need auto body repairs. A vehicles owners need for an auto body repair will typically be determined by a recent event or immediate need they have to repair  their vehicle.
A better use of an auto body repair shops marketing dollars would be better deployed to channels like local SEO, optimizing your google business profile, executing PPC. These channels will ensure you are optimized so that when a prospect has a need arise and they head to google to find a local body shop that yours is at the top of the list.

In summation, direct mail is extremely effective when executed strategically for the right type of business.

To learn more about how Best4mailing can help your business strategically acquire and retain more customers the right way. Contact us today.

The post Does Direct Mail Work? appeared first on Best4mailing.

Unfortunately, more often than not, the majority of dental practices that have done direct mail in the past have never been educated and consulted on the topic of current patient suppression from their new patient acquisition mailings.

Not only is it a waste of your marketing dollars to send your current patients a new acquisition mailer, but it also sends your current patients a confusing message. When given the choice, you would never talk to a current patient the same way you would a new patient, so why do it with your practice’s direct mail marketing.

The only caveat to this is, if you are considering using the post office’s EDDM Retail program or if your direct mail partner is utilizing the post office’s EDDM BMEU method. These methods of sending out direct mail by carrier route do to not use a physical address on each mailer. Instead, they contain the same generic address message on each piece. With the absence of a physical address, you are not able to remove any specific addresses.

If your goal is to communicate with active patients, I suggest a separate, more personalized campaign using variable messaging that allows you to address your patients by name, along with a more personalized message suited for them.

Now that you have clear direction on how to track your results, learn about direct mail response rates and ROI specific to dental practices. Click here for access to our Dental Practice “Definitive Guide to Direct Mail Response Rates & New Patient ROI.”

The post Dental Practice New Patient Acquisition Direct Mail Tip appeared first on Best4mailing.

As part of the process, you will want to identify and thoroughly vet the industry’s top dental direct mail providers.

However, it is challenging for most dental practices to inherently know the right questions to ask these potential direct mail partners. For this reason, the dental marketing experts at Best4mailing have created a list of some important questions for and answers you will want to hear from the companies you are considering.

Use this list while interviewing your prospective direct mail marketing partners and you will be on your way to making a strategic, fact-based decision that will set your practice up for success.

1. How do you know what works for dental practices?

The response you are most likely to hear is: “We work with other dental practices.” This is, of course, something that you want to hear, as it demonstrates this prospective company has some experience executing direct mail marketing campaigns for other dental practices.

However, what this doesn’t provide is any real transparency to the actual strategy that is used to create effective direct mail marketing campaigns for dental practices.

There is one strategy and set of best practices that should be used for just about every single dental practice, which is that your prospective direct mail partner has done their research in order to understand what is most important to the dental patient consumer.

Once these important consumer details are identified, you can begin leveraging this information to align with what your practice offers in order to craft strategic ad copy that will resonate most with these dental patient consumers. The importance of producing this kind of focused ad copy cannot be understated.

Below is a list of many important factors that influence consumers during their decision-making process. If your prospective direct mail partner does not provide you with several of these factors from our list below, they are more than likely not the right partner for you.

• You accept their insurance or have other options.
• You have financing options available.
• You are conveniently located.
• Your use of advanced technology.
• You take immediate appointments.
• You have extended and convenient office hours.
• You have great customer ratings or reviews.
• You offer the ability to schedule appointments online.

2. How many prospects should I target?

This is something of a trick question, as it cannot be answered without two pieces of additional information. If the company you are vetting tells you how many prospects you should mail without first asking for information from you, they are not the right partner.

The two pieces of information needed to be able to strategically answer this question are as follows:

A: Identify your budget, or a ballpark figure, to determine how many prospects you can afford to target with direct mail.

B: Complete a full market analysis to determine how many viable prospects are in your local trade area.

Once you have solidified a budget and have completed a comprehensive market analysis, your direct mail partner can begin to provide you with some concrete numbers that will make the most sense for your practice.

3. How many times should I target these prospects?

You are looking for your direct mail partner to have a conversation with you regarding frequency and reach. Frequency refers to the number of times you plan on contacting each prospect with your direct mail message and reach refers to the number of prospects you plan on targeting with your direct mail message.

You may have heard marketing statistics like, it takes 8 times for a prospect to see your advertisement before reacting. There are all sorts of numbers floating around out there regarding how many times a prospect needs to see your message before reacting to your advertisement. The actual number is up for debate. However, what I can tell you in no uncertain terms is that this number is definitely more than one.

That being said, you can still send out one postcard and get a return. However, the more that you mail to the same people repeatedly, the more your response rates can significantly increase.

Here is an analogy that we love to use to help demonstrate the importance of finding the right balance between frequency and reach.

If you were a farmer and given 100 seeds after being supplied with only enough water to water each seed once, what would you do: plant all 100 seeds and water each seed one time, or plant twenty-five seeds and use the water on those seeds four times each?

The same principle applies to your dental practice’s direct mail marketing campaigns. For example, let’s assume that you have an annual budget to target 30,000 of your best prospects. When faced with the decision of either mailing one direct mail piece to each of these 30,000 prospects or mailing 5,000 prospects six times, think about the fate of those 100 seeds that you can water only once. Your decision should be to choose a balance of both frequency and reach.

You must keep this in mind when comparing the suggested strategies from each of the vendors you are vetting to determine which one you feel has the right mix of frequency and reach. This will set your direct mail marketing campaigns up for success. Just remember, Reach without Frequency = Wasted Marketing Dollars.

4. What type of mailing is best for new patient acquisition?

There are two types of mailings for a new patient acquisition strategy. (Not including targeting the new residents that move into your area)

Option 1: Carrier Route Mailings

Carrier route mailings allow you to reach all prospects in a specific area by strategically targeting postal carrier routes. A postal carrier route is simply a further breakdown of a zip code and the route your USPS postal carrier walks or drives each day to deliver the mail. This averages about 500 addresses per route.

Mailing carrier routes allows you to be very strategic about the areas and neighborhoods that you would like to target.

With a carrier route mailing, you are choosing to target most of the residential addresses in the postal carrier routes you choose. I say most because you can remove certain types of dwelling units such as apartments, drop addresses, trailers, college students, seasonal addresses, etc.* Furthermore, you can also remove your current patients from your mailing. Below is an example of a carrier route map.

*The only caveat here is that removing these types of dwelling units is unavailable with the USPS EDDM program. This is one of the reasons the EDDM program is not typically recommended.

Option 2: Targeted Consumer List Mailing

A targeted consumer list consists of developing a profile of what your ideal patient looks like. This is typically done by applying several demographics such as age, gender, income, presence of children, etc., and then procuring a list and targeting only those individuals.

Which option is best for your practice?

To truly answer this question, a consultation is required. However, for general dental practices, I typically recommend a carrier route mailing, compared to targeted consumer list mailing.

Here are a few reasons why:

• Cost Savings: One thing I can assure you is that you should never shop your marketing on price alone. However, a carrier route mailing can cost over 20% less than a targeted mailing because the cost of postage and consumer mailing lists are both much higher for a targeted mailing.

For example, if your practice had a $3000 budget and wanted to mail an oversized 5.5×10.5 postcard, a carrier route mailing would allow you to target 1472 more prospects than a targeted consumer list mailing for the same budget.

Product	Type Of Mailing	Budget	# Of Prospects Targeted
5.5×10.5 Postcard	Carrier route	$3,000	6,977
5.5×10.5 Postcard	Targeted list	$3,000	5,505

Additional # of Prospects Targeted with Carrier Route Mailing: 1472

• Although you are targeting everyone in a specific carrier route, the carrier routes are still selected very strategically. For example, quite a bit of demographic information is available to help select the best carrier routes, including median or average income, age, % of children, % of owners vs. % of renters, and education.

All that said, I would like to reiterate that some practices would benefit from a targeted consumer list mailing. This should be easily determined by your direct mail partner during your consultation. Use the above information to explore both options if what your provider is recommending doesn’t seem like the best fit to you.

5. How much will it cost?

Request all quotes and proposals to include your pricing expressed as an all-inclusive price per piece. The only thing that matters from a cost perspective is your total net costs, inclusive of all costs and fees. This will also make it much easier to compare quotes with other vendors you are vetting.

Below is a list of the line items that should be included in your total cost per piece:

• Custom Design (unless you plan on providing your own artwork)
• Printing Costs
• List Costs
• Addressing Costs
• Handling Costs
• Postage
• Any additional fees

6. Who owns the design you create for me?

As crazy as it sounds, there are quite a few companies out there that will hold the rights to the design that they create for you and will not allow you to use that same design unless you are using their services. The only answer you are looking to hear from your vendor is that you have full rights and ownership to the design and ad copy created for your dental practice.

7. Do you offer flexible mailing options and payment plans?

Most dental practices don’t want to mail and pay for their whole direct mail marketing campaign in one shot. Paying all at once in a larger lump sum certainly isn’t budget-friendly. Furthermore, most dental practices prefer a drip marketing plan that allows them to send out and pay for their direct mail marketing on a spread out, weekly schedule of their choice. This means a steady flow of marketing going out each week, which can also make it easier to schedule patients in a timely manner.

8. What type of return should I expect?

Many direct mail companies will provide you with response rates based on the DMA’s (Direct Mail Association) latest statistics, which show household direct mail average response rates are 5.1% (Site DMA Source Here).

Unfortunately, there is very little transparency as to how this number was calculated, what industries it was based on, what calls to action were used, what duration of time these figures were calculated over, what mediums were used, how many touchpoints were executed, etc. Therefore, these figures cannot simply be arbitrarily applied to your practice.

You want to hear a response that is based on your industry specifically. For general dental practices, the minimum expectation for direct mail response rates is between 0.25%–1% over the short term. The short term being a 0–3+ month period from the time your mailers are sent out.

It is also important to note that these are minimum expectations. Practices that are consistent with their marketing and have the right creative, ad copy, call to action, mailing list and strategy can exceed a .25%–1% return on their direct mail redemption rates.

9. What is the best direct mail piece to use for dental practices?

Postcards around the size 5.5” x 10.5” have been a direct mail staple for dental offices, as well as many other industries, for years. However, today there are more direct mail options than ever. There are many other products that should also be considered and evaluated. Below is a list of some specific direct mail pieces that you should consider and request samples of:

• Plastic Mailers
• Postcard Magnets
• Jumbo Postcards
• Brochures
• Envelope Mailers

That said, I highly suggest creating a strategy that consists of targeting your prospects with different pieces to keep your prospects engaged and your marketing fresh. This strategy has been proven to work time and time again.

10. Does your company do printing and mail, or do you act as a broker and outsource this?

Many marketing companies don’t print and mail anything and outsource this to other 3rd party companies that fulfill the actual printing and mailing. There is certainly nothing wrong with this business model. As a matter of fact, Best4mailing acts as a print and mailing service for many marketing agencies and brokers.

However, the concern is that when you outsource the fulfillment side of the printing and direct mail, there is less transparency and accountability because your agency or marketing company does not have hands or true visibility on each project.

If you are between two companies that you feel are at the same level, this could be the deciding factor.

11. How long have you been in business?

There is nothing wrong with selecting a startup company or a newer business if they meet all the criteria you have set for a direct mail marketing partner. However, you may have more confidence and comfort in partnering with a company that is well established and has a long-standing, proven track record of results.

Reach out to Best4mailing today to get a custom quote or request samples! With over 12 years of direct mail experience we are more than just a printer. We have all of the instruments you need to design, target, and track your customized Dental direct mail campaign!

The post How to Choose the Right Direct Mail Marketing Partner for Your Dental Practice appeared first on Best4mailing.

Primarily, “The bottom feeders are the customers that don’t see the value in the quality of your work at a fair price” and will only come to get their vehicle serviced when they have a coupon.

Because of this, shop owners are hesitant about offering coupons, specials, or discounts to attract new customers. They feel it will attract the wrong type of customer, the “bottom feeders.”

Below, we will look at the typical strategy used to avoid the “bottom feeders” and why it is a flawed one; we will see why coupons are not the actual problem; and, finally, we will address the best way to keep the “bottom feeders” away.

The Typical Strategy Used to Avoid the “Bottom Feeders”

The typical strategy implemented to avoid attracting the “bottom feeders” is to target prospective customers that have higher incomes,

the reason being that consumers who earn more money spend more money to repair and maintain their vehicles. This is echoed by many of our auto shop clients, as well as some of the latest consumer market research provided in Mintel’s 2019 Auto Service, Maintenance and Repair Industry Report, as illustrated below.

However, the biggest flaw with this strategy is it assumes a prospect with a higher income level who won’t have a “bottom feeder” mentality. Unfortunately, this assumption is quite wrong.

Only using services with a coupon or haggling has more to do with a customer’s mentality and decision-making process than it does with their level of income.

Therefore, targeting higher-income prospects is not a sound solution to avoid the “bottom feeders.”

That said, the strategy of targeting prospects with a higher income is still the recommended strategy for most shops. Since we cannot preclude “bottom feeders” from reacting to marketing, you will at least want to target new prospects who are more apt to get their vehicles serviced and maintained more frequently based on their income level.

Why You Should Use Coupons to Attract New Customers

Most shop owners see the value of offering a reasonable discount to attract a new customer to their shop. This is because these shop owners understand the true lifetime value (LTV) of their customers as opposed to valuing them solely on the basis of the amount they may spend on their first repair order.

For example, if a shop has an average repair order of $350, and each of their customers come into their shop two times per year and remain a customer for five years, their actual value, or lifetime value, is $3,500.

This number doesn’t even account for the additional potential revenue that many of these clients will generate from their other family vehicles, as well as any other referrals they have made to their neighbors, friends, and colleagues.

Having a full grasp on your shop’s customer LTV will help you make strategic fact-based decisions about your marketing, including:

• How much is an acceptable amount to offer as a discount?
• How much should you spend to acquire a new customer?
• What marketing efforts are paying off?
• Are you generating an acceptable ROI?

The Wealthy Use Coupons

Ironically, individuals with higher incomes may also be likelier to use a coupon than those with lower incomes, based on numerous case studies and research. One such study conducted by the University of Arizona found that wealthier shoppers tend to use coupons more frequently than those who are not as well off. This, of course, contradicts many longstanding beliefs on the topic.

CNBC’s article, “5 millionaires and billionaires who still use coupons,” and a Money Talk News article entitled, “10 rich and famous people who use coupons,” have also documented a number of extremely wealthy individuals and why they still use coupons. I’m sure you would be ecstatic if any of the below mentioned, were a potential customer at your shop. Here are just a few examples.

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates

Even the world’s richest men have been spotted using coupons.

In Bill and Melinda Gates’ 2017 annual letter, Bill recalls when Buffett took him out for a particularly economical lunch years ago: “Remember the laugh we had when we traveled together to Hong Kong and decided to get lunch at McDonald’s? You offered to pay, dug into your pocket, and pulled out . . . coupons!”

Carmelo Anthony

“I go to the supermarket, make sure I get the newspaper and tear the coupons out, save a dollar or two,” said Anthony, who is worth about $90 million. “I’m human, too.”

Tim Hasselbeck

When the ladies of The View discussed the topic of men who use coupons on dates, then-co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck spoke up for her husband, retired National Football League quarterback Tim Hasselbeck:

“I married a coupon guy. In the long term, he is so on top of things. He’s very aware of what things cost and what it means to our situation, and I thank him for that.”

Hilary Swank

Movie star Hilary Swank told Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa on what was then Live with Regis and Kelly that using coupons is in her blood:

“When you open up the paper and see those coupons, it looks like dollar bills staring you in the face. . . . It’s how I grew up, and why not?”

Of course, this is not to say these wealthier consumers are “the bottom feeders.” They may just be like many financially-conscious consumers who look to save when they can. The bottom line is coupons, or special offers, are frequently the catalyst for a new customer first-time visit to your shop.

Finally, How Your Shop Can Try to Avoid “The Bottom Feeders”?

The solution to helping avoid “the bottom feeders” is more of a reactive one. As we discussed above, there isn’t anything you can do to stop attracting the “bottom feeders” to your shop for their first visit, whether they use a coupon or redeem a special offer.

However, you can stop the “bottom feeders” from coming back to your shop if they only come back when they have a coupon.

All you must do to accomplish this is remove these new customers, who came in because of your direct-mail marketing, from your future new-acquisition direct-mail campaigns. If you do, they won’t again be receiving the discount used to attract new customers. This process will naturally allow the “bottom feeders” to weed themselves out, as you are not conditioning them to use a coupon on every visit.

Removing your current customers from your new-acquisition direct-mail campaigns is also a best practice for another reason. You don’t want to communicate with new prospective customers the same way you do with your current customers.

One of the primary reasons is that, once you have acquired new customers, you have their names and additional pertinent information about them and their vehicles. This gives you the ability to create and send personalized messages to them. This personalization will increase response rates. According to a survey provided by Epsilon that polled over 1,000 consumers between the ages of 18–64:

“The appeal for personalization is high, with 80% of respondents indicating they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences and 90% indicating that they find personalization appealing.”

I suggest adding these new customers to your current customer acquisition marketing/communication strategy, whether that be email, another targeted direct mail campaign, and/or whatever other marketing channels you are utilizing. They should then receive a different and personalized message containing content or other specific offers that have been developed specifically for customer retention purposes.

To help you better understand and calculate the lifetime value of your customers, as well as to learn about direct mail redemption rates and short-term and long-term direct mail ROI, check out our Authoritative & Comprehensive Guide to Auto Repair Shop’s Direct Mail ROI, and use our ROI calculator to analyze these figures based on your shop’s exact numbers.

Sources

1. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/10/rich-people-who-still-use-coupons.html
2. https://cals.arizona.edu/fcs/node/3148
3. https://www.moneytalksnews.com/slideshows/10-rich-and-famous-people-who-use-coupons/
4. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-ways-you-know-rich-people-are-cheap-2019-01-09
5. https://www.businessinsider.com/best-advice-i-can-give-you-about-money-2015-9#4-use-coupons-4
6. https://us.epsilon.com/pressroom/new-epsilon-research-indicates-80-of-consumers-are-more-likely-to-make-a-purchase-when-brands-offer-personalized-experiences

The post Auto Repair Shops & “The Bottom Feeder” Customer appeared first on Best4mailing.

This is certainly not the outcome you are looking to achieve with your business’s marketing campaign.

To ensure this doesn’t happen to your direct mail marketing, there’s a tried -and -true formula for creating effective sales and marketing pieces that has been used for years. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s called the AIDA formula. AIDA is an acronym for:

To accomplish a direct mail piece that is effective at gaining your prospects’ attention, creating interest, building desire, and requesting action, it’s critical that you have the right ad copy, strategy, offer, and CTA, as all elements of your direct mail campaign need to work in conjunction to be effective at accomplishing this.

However, before your design, ad copy, offer, and call to action, are considered, the first decision that needs to be made, is the selection of the best direct mail medium to effectively gain your prospects’ attention.

With so many options to consider, it can be confusing and difficult to choose the right direct mail product for your business. That said, one direct mail piece that is arguably the most effective at gaining attention and giving your direct mail campaign/s the edge in the mailbox, is a scratch -off postcard. Scratch-off postcards can differentiate your shop’s direct mail marketing from your competitors, as well as from the other mail your prospects are receiving in their mailboxes. Why are scratch-off postcards so effective at gaining your prospect’s ATTENTION?

Scratch-Off Postcards Are Interactive

With the allure of a special offer, discount, or valuable content under the scratch off, as a consumer, it’s almost impossible to resist scratching it off, to see what’s underneath. Think about it, would you be able to resist an exciting scratch-off postcard offer? Not only do scratch offs create excitement, but they also differentiate your mail from the other mail in the mailbox.

Our Scratch-Off Postcard Features a Variable Printed Message

Under your scratch-off sticker is a variable printed message that can be changed on every single card. This allows you to strategically customize your offer or promotion. You can certainly choose to run one static offer on every card; however, many shop owners opt to test a few specific offers to see which one performs best. Insight from this testing can help you strengthen future offers to increase redemption rates on your next campaign.

The Scratch-Off Piece Is Just One Element

Although the scratch-off element is the hook that grabs your prospects’ attention, the great thing about our scratch-off postcard is that you still have the entire backside of the postcard for additional ad copy and other special offers. You got their attention with the scratch-off; now help them to react to your call to action with additional and strategic compelling ad copy.

We have two great scratch-off postcard options for you to choose from. We offer a 5.5×10.5 size card and an 8.5×10.5 size card depending on your business’s specific needs.

Oversized Scratch-Off Postcard
5.5” x 10.5”

Jumbo Scratch-Off Postcard
8.5” x 10.5”

If you want to compare our scratch off postcard to over 16 of our other direct mail products like our highly effective plastic postcards, our postcard magnets or other interactive mailers, give us a call today or visit our website for your FREE samples packet and FREE market analysis.

The post Scratch Off Postcards Gain Attention appeared first on Best4mailing.

That said, one piece that I always recommend including into your plan is a Jumbo 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard. It is many times overlooked by its smaller highly effective younger partner the 5.5″ × 10.5″ postcard.

There are several reasons we recommend a Jumbo 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard:

Legibility

Many times, auto shop owners want to include more content than a smaller size postcard can handle while remaining legible.

The quickest way to kill a direct mail campaign is to make it hard to read or make it confusing with too much poorly written ad copy.

Therefore, it’s critical your direct mail marketing be legible to the masses. In many cases this means you must remove content or increase the size of your direct mail piece.

Rarely is cutting strategic and necessary ad copy from your direct mail marketing, due to size constraints, the right idea. This is where the Jumbo 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard is the perfect solution. The larger size card not only allows for more content it gives you the extra spaced needed to increase the size of your ad copy to ensure maximum readability.

The takeaway here, no matter what you choose legibility is king…

Stick Out More in the Mailbox

The larger 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard will stick out from other envelopes and smaller 4″ × 6″ size postcard style mailers.

Remember the success of your direct mail campaign is based on all aspects being executed properly including, your design, your mailing area and list, your strategy, your CTA and most certainly visibility is critical piece.

After all, if your mailer doesn’t grab your prospects attention, it may immediately be overlooked, as is the case many times with small 4″ × 6″ cards as they fall behind a larger piece of mail.

A Jumbo 8.5″ × 10.5″ or comparable size postcard will help ensure that your prospects won’t miss your advertisement in their mailboxes.

Here is an example of three direct mail pieces I received last week, with the addition of a Jumbo 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard behind them to give you a better perspective of the size of your card plays regarding visibility. Take note the 4.25″ × 6″ Postcard that has just about zero visibility as it is stuck behind a larger envelope mailer. Yes, your prospects are going to see the smaller card, but they certainly do stick out and grab your attention.

Keep Your Marketing Fresh

If you keep sending your prospects the same direct mail marketing advertisement repeatedly, your marketing risks the chance of getting stale and diminishing its potential impact.

This is the problem many times with shared mail that comes in an envelope or shared mail that comes all jumbled together with things inserted into other things, inserted in to even more things. It’s typically the same ads repeatedly in the same medium and in my case, I toss it out every time for this very reason.

As a matter of fact, we are asked repeatedly by clients if we can stop their mail from being delivered the same day that this jumbled up inserted shared mail does.

This certainly isn’t the outcome we are looking to achieve for your auto repair shop.

Who Should Not Use Jumbo Postcards?

• Specialty Shops That Want to Target A direct Mail Campaign to Owners of Specific Vehicles

  For these shops, I typically do not recommend this larger 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard because it mails at a much higher postage rate to the tune of about 10+ cents more per piece due to this type of targeted list mailer based on its size as compared to the postage rate on a smaller 5.5″ × 10.5″ postcard for example.

  If the 5.5″ × 10.5″ postcard isn’t large enough for the content you want to promote, I recommend you consider a 10.5″ × 17″ brochure.

  The reason being is that a 10.5″ × 17″ Brochure’s finished size after being folded Is 5.75″ × 10.5″ which still gives you increased visibility in the mailbox. Furthermore, when unfolded it gives you 2x the amount of marketing space than the 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard, making a brochure a great solution.

• General & Specialty Shops That Want to Deploy a Targeted Direct Mail Campaign to Their Database of Customers

  This type of targeted mailing has the same increased cost in postage for the larger size 8.5″ × 10.5″ postcard, exactly like it does for targeted vehicle list mailings.

  In the case of a database mailer the 5.5″ × 10.5″ size card is usually sufficient. However, our plastic postcard mailers are the number one choice for targeted database mailers and all three of our sizes mail at the lower postage rate.

For samples of our Jumbo Postcard, as well as over 14 other high impact direct mail marketing pieces, give us a call today.

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