There?s More to Marketing ROI (return on investment) Than Meets the Eye
All too often people look at marketing ROI in terms of response rate: in other words, "I sent out 10,000 pieces of direct mail and only got 39 responses which is terrible." This is wrong think. When it comes to marketing ROI, you have to realize that the term means Return On Investment and the return is measured in dollars (or your local currency). Let's say you spend $2,000 to get out a bulk mailing of 5,000 pieces and you get 10 calls as a result. Doesn't look like much. But of these 10 calls you close 6 and get immediate sales of $12,000. That's marketing ROI! And that's not even taking into account the future sales to those 6 new customers. It could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The same simple mathematics apply to any other marketing efforts: radio ads, press releases or articles in magazines, print ads, yellow pages, web site, etc. Obviously you need to keep track of response from each marketing campaign you do so that you can weed out unsuccessful campaigns and strengthen successful ones. Case in point: Jeff Lee, CFO of a very successful consulting company, Measurable Solutions, has adopted a successful small business marketing strategy based on direct mail marketing. Key elements are mailing out a newspaper and full color postcards. The design is done in house and the printing and mailing is done by a specialized postcard printing company. In his own words... "We get our best response from mailing out a newspaper and back it up with postcards. Depends on the postcards. Some postcards have pulled better than others. The professionalism of the postcards is something that is effective: it gets attention, it keeps the image that we want to keep, it creates the reach, it creates the response and keeps our leads in a very high range. We probably average around 7,500 post cards per week. Out of 7,500 post cards we'll get in an average of 15-20 leads. Of the 15-20 leads at least a third of them come to our introductory seminar. So say 5 or 7 people show up and they pay $1,700 a piece. Off of that we close a further $30-40,000 for services. The money we have put into the postcards is like a drop in a bucket compared to what we get back. We know that the more promotion we send out, the more return we're going to get. It always works." That is excellent marketing ROI. Measurable Solutions spend about $2,275 for 7,500 full color post cards. That includes printing, postage, mailing (including the mailing list). From that they get between $8,500 and $11,900 in immediate response for an introductory seminar and an additional $30-40,000 follow-up sales. Spend $2,275, earn $40-50,000. You don't need to have majored in advanced math and rocket science to work that one out: that is what is meant by marketing ROI! Results of direct mail marketing vary from business to business but the principle holds and always works: if you send out enough promotion, you will make sales and maximize your marketing ROI. Don't worry about response rate if your marketing ROI is high. Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania in 1998; her only assets a computer and a phone. In 2004 the company did close to $9 million in sales and employs over 60 persons. She attributes her explosive growth to her ability to choose incredible staff and her innate marketing savvy. Now she's sharing her marketing secrets with others. For more free marketing advice, visit her website at http://www.postcardmania.com
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
The Marketing Recipe: Money, Marketing and Me ? 3 Keys For Success
You have a great product or service? Now, how should you market it?
Make More Sells With Colors
How Colors Effect Our Emotions?
Marketing Manual Sample Outline
The key to success in any business relies a large part in your ability to market your product or service. Often MBA students spend years studying marketing as it encompasses and relates to nearly all business operations. If you own a small business you know the value of marketing, even if you do not have an MBA or a specialized MBA in Marketing.
Marketing Yourself and Your Business to Thriving!
We all watch the commercials on TV. We hear them on the radio. We meet someone at an event or hear them speak and we are hooked. What has happened? Their marketing efforts have made the ordinary sound extraordinary. They have been successful at essentially creating something out of nothing! This is marketing at its best!
Make Your Mailing a Home Run, Not a Strike Out!
You can use great design and copy to get a better response.
5 Tips on Establishing Yourself As An Expert In Your Community
Wondering how to get new patients into your practice? Wondering how to distinguish yourself as unique from the other practitioners in your community? Here are 5 surefire ways to get visibility in your area.
An Easy Start to Mail Order
Listing names of Big Mail Requestors, and sending out packages ofBig Mail is an easy way to get your start in the business ofselling by mail.
Getting Personal ? Innovative Marketing for Small Business Owners
The small business marketing strategy you can't afford to miss
Everyone loves a story. Even if you don't particularly like reading them chances are you love watching them, either on TV or at the movies. Imagine if your marketing literature was like a great story: people would read it from beginning to end for one thing (as opposed to just throwing it straight into the bin), and they'd be more likely to tell their friends about it, too. Your small business marketing could be famous! Well, maybe?
The Bare-Bones Basics Of Multi-Level Marketing
Multi-level marketing is the biggest growth industry in the 1980's. It is the industry that has made corporate giants of Amway, Shaklee, Mary Kay and Herbalife. It has been termed as the last true rags-to-riches opportunity left in North America, and its ability to bring enormous incomes to almost anyone is legend. In fact, it is expected to make more new millionaires by 1990 than any other industry, and soon after will be the single most popular method of bringing new products to the consumer.
The Greatest Business Tips are FREE
The best way for someone to
hang on to a tip is on a business card.
How to Use Marketing Judo to Beat Big Competitors
If yours is a small business and you have big or even huge competitors, you may be laying awake at night wondering how can you possibly beat them. You can't out-advertise them, or out-promote them, and you probably won't be able beat to its prices. For example, think about a small business whose biggest competitor is Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Amazon.com or some other huge retailer. Is there any way to compete successfully against these Goliaths?
Tricks of the Trade: Design your Booth for Maximum Impact
The fight for your customer's attention at a tradeshow has never been so intense. Budget cutbacks in the travel sector means that buyers spend less time than ever at shows. To make the most of their time, they pre-plan their agendas and do their best to stick to them. The rules of the game are forever changed.
Stay in Touch with Leads and Get More Closes
How many leads have come into your business since the beginning of time that never closed? That is a salient question. Who knows how many, but I bet there are a lot.
Web Site Marketing Strategy: 8 Ways To Increase The Perceived Value Of Your Freebies
It is a well known web site marketing strategy: To attract
new customers and traffic, give out something for free:
e-zine, ebooks, software, services etc.
Mortgage Broker Marketing - Sell Problems, Not Solutions
Are your marketing messages to Realtors® guilty of these promises?
The Most Important Marketing Principles of All Time
As you have probably experienced there is a lot of hype in the business and marketing world. New concepts, revolutionary methods and the like land in our in boxes every day. But I'm going to confirm something you probably already know - the fundamentals of marketing haven't changed for decades. Here's my summary of the marketing principles that have stood the test of time.
Top Four Marketing Secrets of Building a Professional Practice
Building a coaching or consulting practice can be rewarding and lucrative. Sadly, many who get started on this path simply can't make it. Almost daily I talk to people who give up on their dream of "solopreneurship" and, resentfully, join the ranks of job seekers.
Two Steps to Improving Your Marketing Success
Since the human brain seems to be able to focus on only one thought at a time, it's difficult to evaluate an advertising idea from the perspective of both a marketer and a customer. That's why it's necessary to use a two-step process when developing highly effective ads, sales letters, web pages, and e-mails.
Loan Officer Marketing ? How to Target the Right Agents
Once there was a loan officer, who marketed his services to some Realtors®. His story went something like this...
How A Tiny 10 Year Old Girl Can Throw A 20 Stone Man - 3 Key Lessons In The Gentle Art Of Business
Half my immediate family trained in Judo and excelled in competition. I was always fascinated by the way in which my younger brother and sister (who were small for their age) were able to throw much bigger opponents with seemingly little effort.
|