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You don’t use real stamps

Your direct mail pieces - of any kind - should be using regular first class stamps most of the time.

While I will admit that I use CASS bulk mail postage for some newsletter mailings (at client request to save postage), this happens ONLY after having sent at least one mailing using a real first class stamp.

Why? 3 reasons: Deliverability, address service and speed

If this excerpt from “Privatizing will improve mail service posthaste” doesn’t help, I’ll clear it up in a minute.

As journalist Jonathan Franzen recounted in a detailed portrait of Chicago’s postal crisis in the New Yorker last year, a letter carrier helping a coworker start his truck in a post office parking lot stumbled onto 100 sacks of undelivered mail in the rear cargo area. Chicago police in 1994 found 200 pounds of relatively recent mail burning beneath a viaduct and 20,000 pieces of vintage mail (some pieces dating to 1979) in garbage cans behind the house of a retired mail carrier. Last May, Chicago firefighters found 5,670 pieces of flat mail and 364 pounds of bulk mail in the attic of postal carrier Robert K. Beverly. And in October, Washington firefighters discovered four truckloads of mail in the apartment of postal carrier Robert W. Boggs

Other than because of postal workers like this guy and because of post offices like the Chicago one described above, a first class stamp in conjunction with a valid return address (sort of) guarantees you a returned mail piece with a corrected current address, or an indication that you should remove that name from your mailing list.

Speed. Bulk mail is not guaranteed to reach your destination anytime soon, if ever. In fact, isn’t guaranteed at all.

One last aspect of this: Choose your stamps wisely. Mailing to women? Use stamps most women would like.

Mailing to NASCAR viewers? Use stamps that fit their profile. Patriotic? Cars? Think about it.

Not making sure that mail only goes to the right people

Sending the same letter to the entire population of the United States: Bad idea.

Sending the same letter to your entire client list: Bad idea.

Are all doctors the same? You know… chiropractors (yes, that was intentional), heart surgeons, thoracic surgeons, dermatologists, general practitioners, podiatrists, sexologists, psychiatrists, ophthalmologists, and so on. They all need malpractice insurance, medical office software, furniture, etc.

Are all mechanics the same? Is a diesel mechanic the same as a HVAC mechanic? Ditto for single engine airplane mechanics, heavy equipment hydraulics mechanics, boat mechanics, jet engine mechanics, or …

Are all painters the same? Home painters vs automobile painters, detailed “pimp my ride” paint artists, industrial painters, high rise building/tower painters, and so on.

If you were trying to sell each member of these groups accounting services, a website, tools, furniture or rubber bands, would you have the same conversation with them?

Not likely.

Is it more work to create different sales materials for different groups of people? Sure.

Is it more profitable? Almost always.

“Almost?” - What kind of comment is that? The kind that leads to our next mistake…

Leaving out a way to measure response

If you can’t measure it, you’d better not mail it. Otherwise, how will you recognize what works and what doesn’t?

Failing to send another mailing to the same person for the same thing

Yes, I mean follow up.

But how many times should I mail stuff to my mailing list? When do I know to stop?

WHEN A NEWLY ADDED STEP LOSES MONEY.

Getting a 1% response to a mailing is your goal

You’ve undoubtedly heard that 1% is an average response for direct mail.

Or maybe you heard 2% is what it takes to make a profit (h*mm, like $0.01?).

Or you’ve heard some other number.

Forget them all. Percentages mean nothing. Return on investment is what you care about.

If you spend $100,000 a month to mail 100,000 pieces of mail (yes, per month) and you get 1 sale, that’s a response rate of 0.00000000001% for each mailing.

If you’re selling $2500 custom trailer hitches for big expensive RVs, you have a big problem. You’re spending $100,000 a month. Even if you sell every lead, you’re spending $100,000 to get $2500. Unless there’s a pretty successful upsell process, or very large lifetime customer value, this just isn’t wise.

On the other hand, using the same numbers, if you sell boats - especially boats like these - then selling 1 of the 56′ boats per month is a ROI of somewhere in the neighborhood 13 times your investment. In other words, if you average 1 boat sale a month from your mailing, you’re spending $100k to get $1.3MM. Seems like a good idea.

In both examples, 1 response was the result of your mailing that month. The response RATE in both was the same. A terrible 0.00000000001% per month. Yet the ROI for the boat example was 13 times the investment.

A loss of $100,000 or a gain of $1.2MM cost $100,000, despite one response.

This happened despite both mailings having the same response rate. Don’t fall for the 1% trap. Or even the 2% trap.

Those are the common direct mail mistakes that come to mind for me… What other direct mail mistakes always jump out at you?

Download audio file (FiveDirectMailMistakes.mp3)

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A convenient excuse these days is “Well, the market is down” or “Business is slow”.

Really? Isn’t that the time to step up and out and as Perry Marshall says, “lean into the fear”?

Whether you decide to participate in the media’s gloom and doom is your choice, but you still have to consider the reality of the impact of the Wall Street, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts. I don’t mean to minimize the obvious problems that many businesses - much less business sectors - are having.

CHOOSING to participate in them, or make them even worse, is another story.

Given that, will there be a time where the so-called bottom is closer, where money is tighter, where MOST people would expect things to go even worse?

Maybe, but my guess is not in your business lifetime.

So now, more than ever, is the time to do something flippin’ huge, to try something new, to listen to the multitude of suggestions you’ve received and see if one of them works.

What have you got to lose? More importantly…what have you got to gain?

Download audio file (ThatJustWontWorkInMyBusiness.mp3)

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Want to see what happens when you say the wrong thing to moms?

• 5,700 hits (as of noon Monday Nov 17) on #motrinmoms, which is a tag for people blogging and tweeting on the subject - that is, Motrin’s misguided website ad about moms who carry babies in a sling.
• 61,300 hits on motrin+baby+carrying+ad+mom
• At least 16 people went to the trouble to make a YouTube response video.

You might be thinking that it’s hard to imagine that people give a rip about something like this, but when you insult the same people that your marketing is supposed to attract, it’s not hard to wonder who in your business is on the same wavelength as your clientele.

Peter Shankman has a pretty good angle on this Motrin thing as well - particularly as he wonders who is writing the ad, 23 year old guys or 20-30-something moms, but more importantly that there either isn’t anyone listening, or the right kind of person isn’t listening.

Though it took a while, McNeil has posted this apology on the Motrin.com website:

With regard to the recent Motrin advertisement, we have heard you. On behalf of McNeil Consumer Healthcare and all of us who work on the Motrin Brand, please accept our sincere apology. We have heard your concerns about the ad that was featured on our website. We are parents ourselves and we take feedback from moms very seriously. We are in the process of removing this ad from all media. It will, unfortunately, take a bit of time to remove it from our magazine advertising, as it is on newsstands and in distribution. Thank you for your feedback. It’s very important to us.

Sincerely,
Kathy Widmer
Vice President of Marketing
McNeil Consumer Healthcare

I suspect the folks over at McNeil have been taking some of their own medicine over the last few days.

Once again, I’ll say it: Enter the conversation already going on in your customers’ minds. If you can’t relate to the situation of the person you are trying to sell to - find a way to get yourself to relate to it. McNeil could have saved themselves a lot of pain by showing this to 5 moms who work at McNeil.

You can - and should - do the same. If you can’t understand your customers, their problems, their wants and their needs, you’d better find someone who can.

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Here’s a summary:

Chasing aspirational 16-year-olds and new money in emerging markets is “out,” while pampering the wealthiest and most loyal customers is “in,” according to luxury retailers at the recent Wharton Marketing Conference. Said one panelist: “The core for a luxury brand is a customer with very considerable wealth.”

Read the rest of the Wharton Marketing Conference story here.

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If you are already using pay-per-click advertising in your business, the time to get your strategy figured out for this new search/ad opportunity is now, not a year from now. The lead dog has a better view.

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Something got me on a meme of talking about marketing to women this week - including on today’s Hotseat Radio show, so I figure I may as well finish Friday that way.

Kaiser Permanente took Michelle’s song and created a wonderful piece of imagery around it - perhaps better than Michelle’s original video for the song.

The 1 minute video reminds me of my grandmothers, two amazing women that I miss very much. My paternal grandmother had breast cancer twice. Beat it both times. Strong woman. Never owned a car that had power brakes. Think about that for a minute:)

KP’s video takes a painful - or at least uncomfortable - experience (mammograms are not typically pain-free, even though they aren’t invasive) and turns it into something totally different.

Not just health care.

Long-time readers are no doubt wondering where the measurement is. How do we know this is effective? Note the URL. Yeah, it’s too small, but it’s there.

If they are tracking the markets where this appears, are they also sending an email or postcard to their patients to reference the commercial, perhaps point them at YouTube and get them in for a mammogram?

Hard to say, but that’s what should be happening.

The main reason I wanted you to see this was so you could absorb and ponder how they took a cold, sometimes painful (or at least uncomfortable), sterile procedure and turned a discussion about it into a warm, kinda-wow experience.

And how you can do the same if you have something of that nature that you sell - particularly if it is as important as a mammogram.

Download audio file (WhenIGrowUpIWantToBeAnOldWoman.mp3)

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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I enjoyed this and thought I’d share it with you. I found it over on Mark Nickolas‘ blog. He used it in a political context, but I think it fits just as well in a small business owner’s mind.

Consider it a soothing mug of hot chocolate for your mind before you go back to battling the beast.

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Hunting and camping gear is one that comes to mind, but there are plenty of others. If you sell the various types of gear used when hunting and camping, your business probably targets men.

Every year, new hunters and campers are “created” when kids reach the age where they can hunt (usually 11-12 after taking a hunter safety course), or where their parents feel comfortable taking them camping - or allowing them to go with someone else.

That might add a fair number of new clients to your pool of prospective customers, but it doesnt add a group who are ready to spend a pile of money at your place of business. Sure, their parents might buy them some items or might “hand me down” a few items, but the serious financial impact from these new hunters and campers won’t be felt until they are employed and have some fun money.

Maybe when they reach high school age, maybe 10-15 years later, depending on the person.

There is a place where a male-oriented business can easily find a group of prospective customers who can have an immediate financial impact. The problem is that your man-oriented business may not be doing enough to attract them or may be using the wrong lingo to attract them.

It’s not really a place. They’re all around you.

With all the election season commentary about VP candidate Sarah Palin fishing, hunting, “field dressing a moose” and such, it should have become obvious in recent months.

I’m talking about adult women.

Bottom line: There are plenty of ladies out there who like to fish, hunt and camp - and that’s just a start. Don’t forget archery, target shooting and fly fishing (and there are more). Even so, that doesn’t mean that they wear camo jeans to the office, when going out with friends or when working in the yard.

Here’s one example of a business that figured out that women want gear just for them.

They’ve found or created outdoor and hunting clothing tailored for the shape of a woman. Pay careful attention to the models, the words used and the way that the site is designed. It clearly isn’t aimed at attracting male buyers. The fit is clearly for a women, not a man.

If you’re a guy, ask any woman about the differences between their clothes and yours - besides the obvious torso shape differences - and they’ll be able to reel off a list of differences that are major to them. They’ll also likely tell you that the lack of choice in some types of clothing annoys them, and that your outdoor clothes are uncomfortable, unflattering and possibly a little bit painful in some cases.

Likewise, if you look closely at the gear available for motorcyclists - particularly Harley-Davidson branded gear - you’ll find that they too have figured out that gear for women must be designed, tailored and described in ways that are going to attract a woman’s attention - and her money.

If your business is largely oriented toward men, you probably already do some business with women, but it might be simply because there isn’t a place in your market that is targeting them.

If your business - or a part of it - is carefully designed, with products, marketing, merchandising and staffing focused solely on attracting female customers, you might just be able to open up a whole new market within your existing business.

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Before you start selling gift cards ( sometimes called stored value cards ) in your business, it’s important that you understand the difference between the types of cards that are available. Knowing these things will allow you to decide which type of card is best for your business.

First, let’s look at the 3 different types of gift cards.

Private label / store-only gift cards

Usage: A private label (or store-only) gift card is a card that works only in your store(s). An example of this would be a Best Buy gift card or a Barnes and Noble gift card. You can’t use a Best Buy gift card at Wal-Mart, nor can you use a Barnes and Noble gift card at Borders.

Point of sale: Typically, your point of sale (POS) system has to be setup specifically to handle these cards, both when selling the gift card (and storing value on your POS system), as well as when using it for payment. Ask your point of sale vendor if they have this sort of functionality before you order thousands of cards. If they don’t, you’ll either need to use a network card (see below) or get a different POS system. The big advantage to these cards is that your only cost is the card itself (assuming your point of sale system handles private label cards).

Authorization: No credit card network is used to authorize these purchases. That means that your point of sale system must provide all the functionality to let you register and activate the cards, store value on them, properly account for the sale and the unspent stored value, pay for purchases, and deal with lost and stolen cards.

The benefits of all that extra work are not having to pay for the network fees for purchases made with gift cards and knowing that your customer will have to spend their gift card at your business rather than anywhere and everywhere.

The nice thing about store-only cards is that you can typically have complete control how the program works. Like all the other types of gift cards, you can sell gift cards online via your website and in your retail location.

TIP: If you order this type of card and your point of sale is capable of processing them like any other credit card, I strongly suggest ordering cards whose number starts with 1, 2, 7, 8 or 9. Reason: American Express card numbers start with 3, Visa cards start with 4, Mastercards start with 5 and Discover cards start with 6. Don’t start the card numbers with zero, you’ll just find it annoys your point of sale and probably your staff as well.

Private network gift cards

Usage: A private network gift card is one that (sometimes) works using the regular credit card network, but there are some that don’t. I suggest you avoid those so that you don’t have to deal with additional point of sale hardware, possible manual transcription errors (moving info from the terminal to the POS system), and related issues. Normally these cards work similarly to private label / store-only gift cards, specifically that they can only be used within the specific store(s)  that put the card system together.

Point of sale: Most private network cards use the regular merchant account authorization systems, so your point of sale system shouldn’t have to be changed assuming that you already use it to accept credit cards or debit cards.

Authorization: The big difference between these cards and the private network store-only cards we spoke of a few minutes ago is that these cards are authorized over the regular credit card network (such as Nova’s). It’s not unusual to find resort areas, small towns and shopping malls that offer these types of cards and set them up so they are only authorized for use in those areas. These cards aren’t as popular as they used to be, because of the growth of credit card network gift cards, which I’ll cover next.

Credit card network gift cards

Usage: These cards act just like a regular credit card except that the spending limit is the amount of value stored “in” the card. The value really isn’t stored in the card of course, it’s stored on a computer system at the card issuer (eg: Mastercard, Visa, Discover or American Express). These are the same gift cards you can purchase at any bank.

Authorization: The same credit card authorization network that you use with regular credit and debit cards is used to authorize purchases using this type of gift card.

Point of sale: One substantial upside to these cards is that they can be used in any existing point of sale system or credit card sales terminal. Many of these act as debit cards, though I have found that these cards do not always work at gas stations, particularly 24×7 unattended gas pumps.

Designing your cards

Typically you can get these custom printed with the image of your choice. Don’t scrimp on the effort you put into making your cards look great. A couple of hundred bucks spent on a skilled designer will go a LONG way toward making your cards sell, as attractive gift cards sell much better. Maybe it doesn’t make all that much sense, but a card that fits the image of your business will simply sell better. If the products you sell are visual, you definitely want to make sure your cards show off your product.

Optional features of gift cards
Some options to consider (again, talk to your point of sale vendor):  a printed barcode (which will scan via your point of sale terminal), with a magnetic stripe, or both a stripe and a barcode. You can also get a unique card serial number printed on the back, or embossed into the card like a regular credit card. Credit card network gift cards don’t typically offer these options - you get what you get, but it doesn’t really matter because they’re already integrated into your POS system.

RELATED TOPIC: Why should a small business sell gift cards?