How to Market When You Are Crazy Busy!

You are so busy that you don’t know whether you are coming or going! Your common sense tells you that you don’t need to market now because you are so busy, but your gut instinct tells you it could all crash tomorrow.

The fact is that when you are crazy busy that is the best time to advertise for three reasons. One, you will keep your sales going on an upward trajectory. Two, you have the money to promote. Three, when you are busy, you can afford to be pickier about the type of customer you chose to do business with. The luxury of being crazy busy is that you can afford to cherry pick customers.

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How to Market When You Are Crazy BusyWe have all experienced the roller coaster in the business cycle—up one day, flat the next and diving steeply the next, then only to soar the following week. To achieve sustainable growth and drive your business in an upward trajectory you have to first get off the roller coaster.

One way to do that is to promote smartly using direct mail. Direct mail offers a way for you to target your best prospects for your business. Direct mail allows you to dial-in your marketing and reach exactly who you need and want to do business with.

I know promoting when you are crazy busy goes against what your common sense is telling you. I mean you can’t even handle the business you have now – why, for the love of god, would you want to promote for more business?

You can and should promote more when you are busy, but you have to do so smartly.

By defining your target and narrowing your focus you can target the most profitable customers for your business. Bust defining and targeting your advertising is only part of the solution. You should do this also with your operation. Please note that “narrow your focus” does not mean cut back. If you cut back now you will cause an eventual crash. “Narrowing your focus ” means to get smarter in how you do things. Getting smarter in who you promote to but also in how you produce and deliver your product.

direct mail factsheet

FREE DIRECT MAIL FACT SHEET

The Effectiveness of Direct Mail vs Other Forms of Marketing!

    1. Qualify Your Targets

    When you are crazy busy, time and effort become more vital. You do not want to waste time chasing shadows, lost causes and prospects who really are not qualified for what you sell. The best way to achieve this is by qualifying prospects properly. To do this you need to take a look at who are the best prospects for what you sell more closely. Then you can get a direct mail list for your business that will reach your best prospects.

    2. Streamline What You Do

    Hone in on the most profitable products and services and promote these to the people who will buy them. Also look at how work flows through your business. Invest in your infrastructure so that you can deliver more products and services, but do so without taking on more debt. As we have all found in recent years debt is the anchor that will pull you and your business to the bottom of the bay. Plan smartly, save money and then invest. There are often things you can do to streamline your production that does not require spending a lot of money.

    3. Eliminate the Bad Apples

    When you get busy it is easy to overlook and make excuses for employees with bad attitudes. These people are the ones who always make excuses for not doing their job. They are the ones telling you why something cannot be done. These people find problems like there is a reward for them. They are not willing take ownership of their position and often are the cause of extra work for others. They may be the gossip hounds that cause upset. These are the people who are working to make things more difficult for you and are actually working against you and your goals for the company. They may have been with you for years. Unless you like working 70- and 80-hour weeks you need to get rid of them, now.

    Eliminating the bad apples also goes for customers. True enough that when times are bad and business is slower you need all the business you can get from wherever you can find it! But when business is good bad apple customers can make life complicated and a general hell for you and your employees. The bad apple customers are the ones who are the hardest to please and are never happy. They want the cheapest price, the best quality and want it delivered yesterday. The bad apple customers waste time and cause backlogs in delivery because they are so hard to please. Time to fire them as customers! The headache and upset are usually not worth it. By firing them you will unbog production and free up time to work with better customers.

    Bad apple employees and customers cause 80% of your stress and overwork. Your business is booming, now it’s time to promote, streamline and produce.

    4. Make Your Plan and Work Your Plan

    You are busy and business is brisk—it is more important that you set time aside each week to come up with a battle plan. Setting targets and working towards them makes it a lot easier to focus on what is vital to be done, what is necessary and what is not important. Doing so avoids wasting time on the wrong activities.

    Too often, small businesses either do not have targets or do not work towards them effectively and this can result in a lot of wasted time. If you know you are close to achieving a target or you are miles away helps you make the right decisions on which meetings to take and what other activity you need to make time for.

    5. Always Maintain Momentum

    No matter how busy you get, we cannot afford to let activity levels drop to zero! That is why it is vital that you keep promoting. It is a lot easier to keep activity going than it is to restart it.

    Too many businesses owners and managers only promote when they have very little or no business at all and then they find it difficult. No matter how busy you get, your marketing and promotion must keep chugging along.

    Wilson Printing USA can help you keep the momentum going with a target direct mail program.

     

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    Bulk Mail Tips – How to Save on Direct Mail Marketing

    Saving Money on Direct Mail Marketing

    You want to get the word out about your business. What is the best way to promote a small business? Or, for that matter to promote a large business?

    Direct mail, isn’t that old fashion? Besides, postage costs seems high, is there a way to save money on direct mail postage?

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    In today’s fast paced electronic age, direct mail is still one of the most effective ways for you to acquire new customers for your small business. Your message goes directly to your target market, and they will see it. There are still no spam filters or remote controls on your mailbox and the United States Post Office delivers regularly and reliably. This makes direct mail one of the most effective ways a small business can promote. There are only three things that can affect the response of a direct mail campaign. Other forms of advertising have many different factors that can affect response. Direct mail is by far the easiest form of advertising for success and results.

    Postage cost is easily your biggest cost of direct mail marketing. Having a understanding of how the post office sets postal rates will help you to get the lowest postal rates.

    Bulk mail, as defined by the United States Postal Service, is “quantities of mail prepared for mailing at reduced postage rates.” The key word here is “prepared” because essentially we do the work for the USPS, and in return they give you a break on postage. Bulk mail provides the lowest postal rates for you, but still the mail has to be prepared to get these rates. There are two ways you can prepare direct mail:

    1.      Use a Direct Mail House

    A direct mail house is a business that has the equipment and expertise to sort and process your mailing list and mail piece to get the lowest possible postage. There are many guidelines to follow and requirements to meet before your mailing qualifies for discounts. A direct mail house knows the guidelines and how to get you the best deals on postage. Wilson Printing USA has a division or our company that is a direct mail house.

    1.      Go Your Own Way

    This means you are going to do the sorting, labeling and paper work the post office needs. Going your own way will save you the money the direct mail house will charge for this service.

    If you are really going to do this, understand it will take several hours to get the work done depending on how many pieces you intend to mail. You may need an employee specifically to handle the direct mail for your company. Or you can get your whole crew to stay late and have a bulk mail preparation party! You will also need a mailing permit from the post office.

    Usually if you are going to mail 1,000 or more pieces it is worth the investment to hire a direct mail house like Wilson Printing USA to sort and process your direct mail for you. If you go it on your own you will need to get a mailing permit, buy mailing labels and stick the labels on your piece.

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    Understanding the basic types of bulk mail postal discounts:

    Standard Presort

    Standard presort letter rate will average between .26 – .30 cents per letter or postcard. Your postal rate mostly depends on the number of zip codes you are mailing and the number of zip codes you mail to. The piece will need to have a standard mailing indicia and be bar coded. The standard delivery time is 7 to 12 business days. You will also get no returns of undeliverable postcards. The minimum number of pieces the post office requires is 200.

    First Class Presort

    First Class Presort postage will average between 33 to 40 cents per piece. The delivery time is 5 to 7 business days. Once again the amount of postage depends on the number of zip codes mailed to and the number of pieces mailed to each zip code. With first class presort you will get returns of the undeliverables.

    Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

    EDDM, as it is called, will give you the cheapest postage rates. Postage will run 17 to 20 cents per card. You also do not need a mailing list with EDDM. Read the related article on EDDM for the pros and cons of this type of mailing

    There are other types of discounts, but the above three are the most common for most small business marketing. The types of direct mail pieces you can use to promote your business are very large and will be the subject of a future article.

    I hope this article helped you to promote your business.

    Mark Hale

    CEO

    Keep in Touch with Direct Mail Postcards

    Happy People using direct mail postcards

    Your best source of increased sales is from your current customers. The people most likely to purchase your products and/or services are the ones who have paid for them before. They know you. They were happy with their last purchase and you got to bypass that whole “get to know you” step you typically go through with new prospects.

    Combine Google & Social Media With Your Postcard Mailer, Learn More!

    It also costs you far less money to keep a customer than it does to go out and get a new one. The above are the main two reasons that using postcards to keep in touch with your customer database is a must.

    The following are tips to help you get the most out of your direct mail postcards marketing program for existing clients.

    Rule #1: Make sure you get all your customer’s data.

    It sounds like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised at how many businesses do not collect the most basic information from their customers. The more basic rule here is that the more information you have on your customers, the easier it is to market to them. There was a book written by Harvey Mackay who ran a large business envelope manufacturing company. Harvey had what he called the Mackay 66, which basically was 66 pieces of information that they had collected on all their customers.

    Rule #2: Don’t treat your customers like prospects.

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    A customer is different from a prospect and a suspect is different from a prospect. Differentiate between people who have placed an order in the past and people who have not.

    It is bad PR to send a customer who has placed a few orders a “10% Discount for First Time Buyers” postcard. It makes you look like you do not know what is going on in your own business. Customers will feel unappreciated. Bottom line, if they don’t qualify for an offer you are sending out, do not send it to them.

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    Rule #3: Don’t let your designs get old and stale.

    When you are mailing to databases of people that you have never spoken to before it is OK to send them the same postcard multiple times, repetition sells.

    Repetitious mailings will help to increase recognition, making people aware of your business and it will eventually increase your response rates too. However, in dealing with customers and prospects that you have already spoken to, you should mix things up a bit. The first rule of marketing is to get noticed so you want your postcard mailer to get attention and also be informative.

    If the promotional mailers that you send to your database get too repetitive, your customers will lose interest and at that point you are just wasting your money on postage because your postcards will not get the attention that you want them to.

    It is a dog-eat-dog competitive market place out there and just being great at what you do is not always enough to keep the customers that you have already earned. You have to find ways to constantly remind your customers that you are the best at what you do. Direct mail postcards are the best way to give them that reminder. We have other tools you can employ to stay in front of your customers as well.

    Click Here for Pricing on Postcards!

    Personalize everything that you can and make sure that what you are sending to a past client actually pertains to them or their company. There are several unique direct mail programs we offer that are personalized and attention getting. If you would like samples or more information on these unique direct mail programs please contact us.

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