A tremendous amount of the effort of a successful direct seller is finding prospects for your product, and then quickly and efficiently qualifying their needs. Learning not to waste a prospect’s time, or yours, when your offering doesn’t fill their needs is one of the best skills you can acquire.

That said, you do want to continuously feed prospects into your “qualifying” machine. And, I don’t know about you, but I always seem to finish the season with a hand full of now outdated catalogs, brochures, etc. Don’t throw them away! These become excellent leave-behinds to get your product information into the marketplace.

First, make certain that your contact information is stamped, written, or labeled in the appropriate section of the material. In addition, I use my word processing program and make up a bunch of sticky labels that I put front and center on the catalog with the following:

“Please enjoy my catalog! If you would like to see the current edition, or find out more about our products, please contact me at XXX.”

Following is a list of place to leave your expired or out-of-season material. I didn’t make up this list – but I’ve had it for years, and you may have seen it before too. I suspect someone created it a long time ago, and it’s been edited and added-to, and grown since then. I added several ideas myself. I don’t take credit, but I also don’t know where to give it!

70+ Places To Leave Catalogs

· doctor’s offices

· dental offices

· mechanic’s waiting rooms

· laundry mats

· college campuses

· public restrooms

· library

· hair salons

· tax preparation offices

· orthodontist offices

· insurance offices

· dry cleaners

· Dairy Queen/Baskin Robbins

· bagel shops

· donut shops

· deli’s

· ATMS

· veterinarian’s offices

· nail salons

· day care centers

· retirement homes

· model new-home centers

· real estate agent offices

· 7-11’s or corner stores

· in front of magazines at check out lines

· with your tip at restaurants

· with toll booth collectors

· grocery store clerks

· video stores

· dressing rooms

· with bank tellers

· shoe stores

· kids resale shops

· Gymboree centers

· temporary staff offices

· flower shops

· restaurants

· pet stores

· dance studios

· grocery stores where you leave your ads

· mortgage offices

· computer stores

· school administration offices

· fabric stores

· the bakery

· print shops

· cashiers at dealerships

· tanning salons

· vitamin stores

· sales people at any store

· senior activity centers

· walk-in medical clinic waiting rooms

· credit unions

· restaurant supply stores

· park benches

· bus stops

· pharmacies

· bowling alleys

· clerks at post offices

· airline seat back pockets

· commuter trains

· law office reception area

· office break rooms (with permission)

· gas station attendants

· movie theater lobbies

· printshops

· furniture stores

· places where you pay your bills

· cable offices

· water and gas utilities

· any place where there are women receptionists or secretaries

· telephone answering services

*airplane seat back pockets

Copyright 2011

Source by Kimberly Bates

For most of us in Direct Sales, 10 new recruits equals a promotion – either for someone in our organization, or for ourselves. Sometimes it equals qualifications for a special incentive – perhaps a trip to some exotic locale, or maybe some designer jewelry.

Most of us, who follow the out-dated ideas that our upline offers have been spinning our wheels watching THEM earn trips and recognition, while we sit scratching our heads, wondering why we aren’t getting in on the action. I mean, after all, we’re doing exactly what they told us, exactly the way they told us to do it.

Is this happening to you?

Our upline said make a list of 100 people. Check.

Our upline said contact them all and ask them to “help” you get started. Check.

Our upline said it’s a numbers game, talk to everyone. Check.

Our upline said to stay away from running ads in the paper. Check.

Our upline said to do 3 way calls. Check

Our upline said bring our recruits to the opportunity meetings. Check.

Our upline said pass out 500 business cards each month. Check.

Is your team growing by leaps and bounds?

Our upline never told us to be an authority on our company’s best product (that would be YOU!).

Our upline never told us to market ourselves first, and the company second.

Our upline never presents us as the authority. They become the “guru” instead of us!

Our upline never told us we could use the Internet to build our businesses on autopilot.

It means you need to position yourself as the expert. Set yourself apart and start thinking and acting like a leader NOW. Change your mindset – even if you’ve been in the business for years, start thinking like a leader at the next pay level. Already at the top of your game? Great. Start thinking like the owner of your company.

By the way, YOU are the owner of your company. You have the best product to offer anyone – and that is YOU. You can’t get that product from any other company.

Christie Northrup, the Lemonaid Lady, is a champion of ditching the FRANK list. She talks about using “WILMA” instead:

“Who

Is a

Likely

Marketing

Audience?”

Target marketing is the best way to see desirable results. The Shotgun methods still work, but the amount of time and energy you put into growing a business that way is, to me, excessive.

Let’s break down the numbers. ASSUMING you can buy 500 business cards for just the cost of shipping (there are online companies that run specials periodically), You’ve got a $10 investment in materials, plus the time it takes to deliver all of them. From here, we have to make a lot of assumptions:

• Assume you give away 30 at every party (3 to each guest – who needs 3 business cards?)
• Assume you have 8 parties per month (that’s pretty standard in Direct Sales)
• Assume you give away 1 to every person you meet outside a party (that’s another 260 people each month)
• Assume it takes 1 minutes to deliver each card outside a party (and really, you’re not building a relationship, you’re just shoving a card into their hand)
• Assume a 1% conversion rate

You’re spending 4 hours each month just giving away cards, plus the additional 24 hours you’ve spent preparing and doing your parties. And I must reiterate – who really needs 3 of your business cards? More to the point, who’s going to TAKE 3 of your business cards?

And if you give away 6,000 cards each year, you’ve got 60 new leads (about 5 per month) that may book, buy or recruit. Most of those will probably come from your shows anyway, to be honest. For $120 in business card expenses (plus other show and travels costs) and 336 hours of your life. Each POTENTIAL lead costs you $2 and 5.6 hours of your life!

Is your head spinning yet?

Now if you really, truly have no other method of building your business, it’s a start. But I hope you realize that there are other, better options to growing your business. You could definitely be putting that time (and money) to better use elsewhere.

Find a niche and fill it.

In direct sales, there are targeted groups of prospects for every product line available. All you have to do is ASK your home office what the target demographic is for your direct selling company. If they can’t tell you, you’ve got bigger problems. If you sell kitchen tools, who it your target market? Men? Women? What about age, income, ethnic origin? The more you focus, the smaller your market will be.

Smaller market=bigger return on investment

If you invest your time and money wisely in your target market, you can easily bring your time and money cost to less than half of what you would have paid for the shotgun business card method.

Think of it this way, would it be wise for a retailer to send advertisements to everyone in an entire city, when all they sell is children’s clothing? Absolutely not! A better use of their advertising dollars would be to focus on places where there are mothers of children who want/need their kind of clothing. Moms buy the clothes, not the kids (in most cases), so it’s wise to find out where they buyers are.

Think about your product? Who are the most likely buyers? Yes, contrary to what your upline has told you, it IS okay to pre-judge. At least for now. Focus in on that market. You know where they are most likely to spend their money (with you!), now figure out where they are most likely to spend their time. Go there. Market yourself THERE.

You’ve heard it said before that parties/demos are the life blood of a direct sales business. Your most targeted market is right in front of you – in a semi-captive group. This is a place where you would NOT want to pre-judge. Everyone is there for a reason. That reason may be you.

Source by Lisa Young

Direct Marketing produced $2.05 trillion in sales in 2012. That represents about 8.7% of US GDP in 2013. This implies several key points.

First, competition in direct marketing is stiff. With all those advertisement dollars being spent on direct marketing, you need to ensure your message is getting through and being heard. Second, with stiff competition, you need to craft compelling messages, not once, but repeatedly. You need to do this effectively and efficiently, if you want to do more than just tread water.

Thus, it’s important to develop a marketing strategy that optimizes your budget spend by employing direct marketing more effectively. Here are 5 essential components of successful direct marketing.

1) Deliver a Compelling Sales Message

Several elements go into creating a compelling sales message. Successful sales letters and other marketing content must be relevant, useful, and persuasive. Marketing content that works grabs your prospect’s attention, shows uniqueness, and builds trust with your prospect. Employ these three elements in all your direct marketing content.

· WIIFM – Tell your prospect exactly what’s in it for him or her.

· Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Clearly describe why your solution is the superior one.

· Testimonials – Let your satisfied customers “sell” for you.

2) Follow-up Leads Promptly to Attract and Engage Your Prospect’s Attention

You might have a lead-generating sales letter, but if you don’t follow-up, valuable leads will slip through the cracks. Follow-up a live event with a phone call, an email, or a letter that invites the prospect to take the next step.

Offer a free demonstration of your product or service. Set up an appointment with a subject matter expert who can go into greater detail on how your company’s solution works, and why it’s better than the competition’s. Then, before the scheduled demonstration, send a white paper that explains your product in detail.

Follow-up, engage and spark your prospect’s interest in your solution.

3) Promote Your Brand

Benefits from branding give companies and edge over competitors that don’t brand. Branding helps position your product or service favorably. It also gives you pricing and distribution power. The takeaway is: never miss an opportunity to brand.

Direct marketing affords you many online and off-line media to build brand awareness. Online media: (1) Banner advertising; (2) Blogs; (3) Email; and (4) Website. Off-line media: (1) Print advertising – sales letters, postcards, brochures; (2) Press Releases; and (3) Public Relations.

4) Nurture the New Customer Relationship

Lead nurturing is just as important as lead acquisition. Most companies want to develop long-term relationships with customers. That’s because they become repeat customers. And, over time, repeat customers generate more sales and profits to your bottom line.

Outbound marketing provides many ways to build and maintain a thriving lead nurturing program. You can employ email, direct mail, social media, mobile, podcasts, seminars, phone calls, and videos.

5) Integrate and Synchronize Online and Off-line Direct Marketing

To optimize your message and direct marketing budget, success lies in finding the right mix of online and off-line methods. One method isn’t necessarily better than another. Instead, the secret sauce to successful direct marketing depends on how you weave these various methods together.

You can integrate and synchronize these methods along the sales cycle beginning with message delivery. Start with a sales letter, follow-up with a phone call or email. Refer your prospect to your website for deeper marketing content, and don’t forget to brand throughout this process.

Achieving the right marketing mix produces a “multiplier effect” that helps you close sales faster and easier. Employing different media in a consistent and coherent manner working towards the same goal optimizes your marketing efforts.

Don’t Overlook the Value of Direct Marketing

With so much attention focused on inbound marketing lately, it’s easy to overlook direct marketing’s benefits. However, as you can see, it still commands the lion’s share of sales. Therefore, it’s prudent to examine your marketing strategy’s focus and align your budget accordingly.

Before you undertake a direct marketing campaign, employ these five essential components to compete effectively and efficiently for that $2.05 trillion market.

Source by Alex M Milo

What is cardboard engineering? The term doesn’t exist on Wikipedia. Web searches for “definition of cardboard engineering” and other similar questions find no results. You will not find “cardboard engineering” on any US site (they call it paperboard but “paperboard engineering” cannot be found either.) And yet, if you put “cardboard engineering” into Google.com it reports over 3,000,000 results, whilst a search for “cardboard engineers” produces 1,740,000 results.

So, back to the original question – what is cardboard engineering? In order to find out, let’s take a look at these diversified examples – all producing quite different things but each area describing itself as being involved in cardboard engineering.

Companies who make cardboard boxes and packaging employ cardboard engineering skills to create products which might range from a fairly ordinary rectangular box to a highly innovative product to act as a presentation pack. The term “cardboard engineering” also seems to cover closing mechanisms with names like crash lock bottoms, side panel locks and tuck lock tops.

Companies involved in producing point of sale products also utilise cardboard engineering techniques in the design of POS units from giant floor standing displays to counter top dispensers. Larger POS companies employ highly sophisticated CAD design systems, cutting plotters and large format printers in their design departments and work in a variety of materials which can include corrugated board, display board and folding box board.

There are lots of cardboard engineers who utilise their skills as a hobby, creating models and automata. This group is closely related to others with crafts and hobby interest in paper engineering, card making, making books by hand and origami. These groups actually account for the largest numbers of participants with millions of world-wide enthusiasts.

However, there is one area where cardboard engineering can create quite a stir – particularly in the world of Business to Business promotional marketing. Using a combination of skills gleaned from the various worlds of paper engineering, promotional packaging, paper crafts, structural packaging and the technology involved in designing pop-up books; the cardboard engineered items produced for the promotions and advertising market are perhaps the most intriguing.

Products in this area have the most amazing movements. There are pop-up products which are powered by rubber bands which come in all shapes and sizes. They are often used in direct marketing and jump out of the mailing pack to give the addressee a big surprise. There are other products with really sophisticated movements that grow bigger when opened or they can turn and spin. There are many interactive products designed to hold the interest of the B2B customer. One UK company with a large range of examples such as these is Whitney Woods.

So, what is cardboard engineering? Well, having taken a long, hard look at the top results for the search of “cardboard engineering”, it seems to boil down to a term that covers the design of any three dimensional object that is made out of cardboard – from boxes and display units to making models and to producing promotional advertising products.

Source by Paul Whitney

We’ve all heard the statistics about first impressions: when you meet someone for the first time, only 7% of their impression of you is based on what you say, 38% on how you say it, and a massive 55% on their appearance and manner. No wonder we worry about choosing our clothes for that all-important meeting or job interview. But nine times out of ten when you go into a business meeting, the person you’re encountering for the first time has already formed an impression of you based on your communications with them up to that point. Most often that will include some form of printed material: a brochure, letter, business card, or all three.

As with face to face meetings, only a small proportion of your prospect’s impression will be based on what is said. A little more comes from how it is said: is the tone confident and professional, and have you checked for spelling and grammatical mistakes? But the bulk of your prospect’s impression will come from the appearance of your communications, so doesn’t it make sense to focus the bulk of your attention there?

Just as poor grooming – dirty shoes, crumpled clothes and untidy hair – gives the impression of an unprofessional individual, so poorly presented marketing materials – cheap, off-colour paper, low quality printing, free clip-art and silly fonts – suggest an unprofessionally run organization.

It’s not only the quality of the materials that will concern your prospects, though. Once you’ve got past the first hurdle of proving that you pay attention to detail and value quality workmanship, you still need to show that you’re the kind of person they will want to work with. Just as an interviewer will look for someone who seems to fit in with their company, based on their experience, their manner, and the clothes they wear, so your prospects will be looking for the kind of supplier they like to do business with.

What do your business materials say about you?

Even the choice of paper can be telling. Ordinary white paper suggests a straightforward, no-nonsense approach. Thick, textured paper implies a more traditional, personal touch. Coloured papers are fun and funky, suggesting a lively, innovative organization.

Then there’s the layout. Images or not? There’s a school of thought that says it’s always good to include something to draw the eye, but sometimes the wrong image can be far more off-putting than no image. It’s not an accident that cheap kebab shops and burger joints often adorn their menus with vivid cartoons or photos, while smart hotels tend to rely on words to do the work. A simple burger or hotdog can be sketched in a few well-chosen lines, but it would take a truly expert food photographer to live up to the mouthwatering promise of a description like ‘Fillet of sole meuniere served on a bed of wild rice with an asparagus garnish’.

Everyday products such as tools or household goods, even well photographed, may not be exciting to look at, and while some companies try to get around this by including pictures of attractive models demonstrating their use, some people view this as exploitative or inappropriate.

There’s no easy way to measure how much business you gain or lose by well-chosen marketing materials, but you can try to gauge their effect by trying out your design on a test audience before you have hundreds of copies printed. Look for people as similar to your target market as you can – what appeals to your mates down the pub might be quite different to what would impress Mum, Dad or Auntie Joan. Ask them, not just whether they like the look of it, but what impression it gives them of you and your organization.

Once you have a look that represents you well, you can be confident that when you walk into that vital sales pitch or presentation, you’ve already made a good first impression.

Source by Jake Gourd

Business cards are necessary for anyone that has their own business. Much of your success can come from networking and business cards are part of that. The first step is to design effective, memorable and effective cards using a professional service. Think outside-the-box for optimal results. The next step is to hand out your business cards and create a network of business contacts.

Don’t stop there. Come up with some unique ways to distribute your biz cards so as to get maximum exposure. Always carry a stack of business cards with you to hand out and to distribute if the right opportunity presents itself. There is no way to know when someone may need your services and they just so happen to come across your card. Read on for some unique ways to distribute.

Restaurants

When dining out at a nice restaurant, consider leaving one of your biz cards on the table after you finish eating. Another way to do it is to put a card in with the cash when paying your bill. If you have become friendly with staff at a specific restaurant, hand out your cards to them.

Correspondence

Even if you aren’t doing direct marketing, there is no reason why you can’t put at least one of your cards in virtually anything that you send to clients or potential clients. The only time that you should avoid doing so is when sending out greeting or holiday cards. Put business cards in with any bills that you pay.

Car Windows


While most people think of putting flyers or brochures in car windows or underneath window wipers, there is no reason that you can’t put business cards there. Another idea is to attach the business card to a brochure or flyer and place them underneath the windshield wipers. Your contact information is on the flyer but a card allows them to carry it with them or hand out to someone else.

Local Businesses

A unique way to distribute your cards is to make a deal with businesses in your area. Ask them if they will allow you to put your cards in their store or business. In return, offer to perform a service for them or allow them to do the same with their promotional materials. This type of networking can pay off well.

Bulletin Boards

Make it a goal to put your biz cards on every bulletin board in your city and in nearby cities. This means to put them on bulletin boards in local libraries, coffee shops, grocery stores and community centers. Research the possibilities and begin distributing your business cards. Always ask permission if you’re unsure if it’s allowed.

Source by Walter A Warner

Leaflets and flyers are regarded as a very effective form of direct marketing and had being widely used in Singapore by many companies to put across and to draw attention for their business. Currently there are many leaflet formats to be found. Some examples are:

• A4 (roughly letterhead size)
• A5 (roughly half letterhead size)
• DL (comp slip size)
• A6 (postcard size)
• CC (credit card size)

Leaflets & flyers response rates are about 1-2% on average. Leaflets are not expensive and can be an extremely good way of targeting your target market through placing information about your company directly into their hands. There’s a number of ways that may help increase the response rate to your leaflet, flyer, postcard or brochure campaign. I had clients that got 6% return.

• Size and type of the leaflet
• The Offer
• Distribution methods
• Tracking the Results

Size and type of the leaflet

A proper cost effective paper type and print type should be selected. The flyer size that you choose depends on your type of services, flyers distribution area (Island wide or just a town) and your budget. If you are providing a similar service in the region and your competitors are also doing flyers distribution in that region, try having a bigger size leaflet (e.g. A4 size) and stand out from the rest of your competitors. For mass distribution (Island wide) to households leaflets usually take a form of A6 or A5, depending on how much information needs to be put across as it is more cost effective. For MRT or street handing out leaflets, A7 leaflets small enough for the recipient to put in their wallet and DL will have a more profession look. Most Flyers are printed on glossy paper in colored ink. Choosing quality paper and printing ink can give added value to your flyer among the audience. Try finding a more knowledgeable and experienced commercial printer who can offer you a wider variety of paper types, printing quality, faster printing and at a competitive prices.

The Offer

Even flyer distribution is inexpensive advertising, that doesn’t mean you should care less on great content and quality printing. Unprofessional leaflets will reflect badly on your company, possibly doing more harm than good. Does it right and you’ll enjoy a profitable flyer campaign! Invest in professionally designed leaflet but if your budget is low, try printing in smaller quantity instead, print more when you success. Create a headline that catches interest (e.g.” Save 70% on your PUB bill!”); don’t focus too much on your company name as flyers are not name card. Headlines are the most important component to attract the prospect’s attention and your flyers campaign success depend on it. Your leaflet content should consist of:

• What you are offering
• uniqueness of your business over your competitors
• An interesting photos or graphics picture
• motivate reader to take action
• contact details

If you don’t feel confident enough in your product to spend a little money and effort promoting it then why should people feel confident in ordering from you.

Distribution method

It’s important to carefully consider methods of leaflet distribution, choosing the right methods ensure the highest possible response rate.

• Letter box
• Door to Door (Mostly HDB and landed property)
• Sing post (Private Apt and condo)
• Placed on Car Windscreens
• Handing out Leaflets
• Inserted in Local Newspaper

There are advantages and disadvantages of each of the above flyers distribution methods. Make sure you are comfortable with your budget as you may need your flyers to be distributed more than once if you are serious in targeting a certain area with your flyers. Leaflet promotion was hit by hard criticism that it has no way of conforming that the leaflets do reach the right customers in the right time. There are a few leaflet distributors who will deceive you with cheap offers to get your deal and then turn your leaflet distribution to the nearest bin. Choose a leaflet distribution company that will update you once they distribute an area so you may do some block checking yourselves. Positive or negative doesn’t matter; you need results to know what to do next. Try choosing a good flyers distribution company that specialise on flyers distribution to ensure a higher response rate. Printing company that provide distribution service normally outsource their distribution to them on commission basis. You will find cheap package deal from printing company (e.g. ‘4000 print with free delivery at $99’). This cost-effectiveness is often countered by the lower effectiveness of the leaflets. You may be given least printing and distribution quality. Be sure to check what your package consists and if it will ensure high responsive rate.

Tracking the Results

The common way to check the effectiveness of your leaflet is to experiment with different headlines, offer, and type of size, colour choice and distribution methods. Keep track of the effectiveness of the various types of leaflet and improve your flyers marketing skills. You may want to use a different phone numbers or promotional codes for each type of leaflet. Print as many as you can to cover more area in Singapore because in the end it is a numbers game, but test, test, test your marketing message before committing to a big quantity. If properly used, flyers can guarantee instant publicity for any product or service. All that needs to be done is to design the flyers smartly enough to impress potential customers and to find a good distribution company that will ensure your promotion reach them on time.

Source by Stephanie Mei

As any businessman or woman would know, brochures and flyers are important in order to let people know of the service or product that they provide. For small companies and businesses, it is ideal to utilize the great response and feedback these materials provide.

Brochures and flyers are important in a business because it raises the public’s awareness for the company or the brand name. It may be small, but it should never be underestimated as many businesses have thrived thanks in no small part to the awareness raised through the distribution of brochures and flyers. In order to get high quality promotional materials, a great flyer printing service is required.

Flyers and brochures are also important because they help in associating an image with a company, product or service. A good, glossy brochure that stands out will help in the retention of a company or product’s name in the mind of a consumer.

Brochures are also important because they give additional data or answer additional questions regarding the service or product that it promotes. A brochure that answers little or no questions at all is bound to lose potential prospects. This is because of the change in the mindset of the modern consumers. Consumers nowadays want to know exactly what they are purchasing and it falls on the hands of the product producer or the company to answer questions and to assure potential clients that they will be getting their money’s worth.

Because of the continuous surge in business, flyer printing or brochure prints are no longer limited to just the usual industries that use them. Other businesses, not usually seen as the type to give brochures and flyers have adopted these inexpensive and important business tools.

Source by Earl Maghirang

Any business owner that is experiencing financial difficulties from the recession, or anything else for that matter, should definitely consider adverting with flyers. You can benefit from this type of advertising in several ways. Here are seven of them to help you determine if this method of advertising is right for you.

1) Instant results. There’s no waiting for your advertisement to be published when advertising flyers person-to-person. Your sales will increase the same day as you launch your advertising campaign. This is the number one reason why every business owner should be thinking about using this form of advertising right now.

2) Low priced. No matter how large of an advertising budget you have to work with, this form of advertising allows you to promote your products and services within your means. Advertising flyers person-to-person is the cheapest form of flyer advertising. You can design and print your flyers in house to save hundreds of dollars on unnecessary costs.

3) Quite simple. Other forms of advertising require months of planning and preparation. This strategy eliminates the timely process of searching for professional graphic designers and copywriters. Simply put, you can launch your advertising campaign the same day.

4) Consumer feedback. Talking to people face-to-face off the streets allows you to ask serious questions about your business without having to hire an overpriced survey service. You can find out what people really think of your products and services, allowing you to immediately correct any serious issues you may have. On the other hand, this also gives you the opportunity to inform people of all the positive changes and improvements you have made.

5) Viral injectors. Advertising flyers person-to-person on the streets is proven to generate word of mouth buzz and referrals. In fact, a struggling business can be back on the road map to success within weeks of launching the first promotion. There’s even the possibility of your promotion being picked up by your local newspaper.

6) Moral boosters. Advertising flyers on the streets to people is a great way to liven up the spirits of your team when times are hectic. The positive energy from your promotion will bolster the performance of your staff and spread to your customers like a wildfire. Your team will feel a since of pride as people start to complement them about the positive changes you made in your business.

7) Highly Effective. Since your talking to people in person, response rates can be as high as 50% in comparison to other forms of advertising. In addition, you’re more likely to convince consumers into purchasing whatever it is you have to sell with this strategy. The results are always phenomenal considering the price and time it takes to advertise flyers.

Advertising flyers person-to-person is just one of the ways you can recession proof your business while making a sizable income in the process. Think about using this strategy to sell your products and services if your advertising budget is small, and you need a way to generate sales quickly.

Source by Robert Nugent

Every Door Direct Mail is a smash hit for the USPS. Business advertisers across the country are mailing more ads and saving money. This is great for homeowners who enjoy local offers, the business owners who profit, and the economy as a whole. But how long does this new program take to deliver into homes?

Typically, the design process is what takes the most time. Whether it is customizing a template or starting a design from scratch, the aesthetic aspect of your mailers are critical to your success in the mail.

The design of your mailer is important in many ways. It is your selling tool to your customers, it represents your company, and it displays your products and services. Making this one of the top priorities of your mailing process will ensure a design that is appealing and rewarding, and help drive more leads and sales conversions.

Targeting your mailing may take some research and time. Advertisers must diligently determine which areas will respond best to offers. Your offer is only as good as the customer who receives it. Choosing areas that are in need of your services the most will generate the interest and sales that you seek. Aiming for the right audience is crucial to developing your business with direct mail. Targeting is extremely easy once you know where you want to mail.

You can use the FREE online Every Door Direct Mail mapping tool to “point and click” on your preferred target areas. It only takes a few minutes to complete, and is actually quite fun to use.

After you have chosen your carrier routes for mailing and scheduled your expected mail drop dates, it is time for printing and shipping. The printing and shipping to the local post offices usually takes about a week to a week and a half.

This is when the company that is handling your mailing will use your saved carrier route map to automatically generate the documents for your mailers. This new automated process makes certain that any errors in the paperwork will be caught and rectified. It’s always smarter and more efficient to use a “turnkey” print and mail provider to do the heavy-lifting for you. Why spend hours filling out paperwork and driving to the USPS when you can place one simple order online instead?

Once your mailers have been delivered to the Post Office, it only takes a few days to actually hit homes. By then, you should be starting to prepare for the inflow of customers, leads, calls, and clicks.

Direct mail is still the top form of direct marketing and it will drive sales to your business when used correctly. Utilizing this program to it’s fullest will not only increase cash flow but also generate lasting relationships with your customers and give your brand more authority.

Good luck and happy marketing!

Source by Chris Barr