Almost every piece of marketing advice I see today centres around how to market your company online.
“Content marketing” is the only kind of marketing, if you read many so-called experts. Account-based marketing and marketing automation are the only game in town. Books, Youtube channels and entire courses are devoted to the art.
Few companies have the resources to do it right. Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging, guest posting and outreach to other media channels all take time and skill. (Side note: finding a good rights-released or stock photo to use in your post takes an inordinately long time.)
But it’s a key way to rank in Google and many, many people are searching there for what your business sells. The bountiful riches of appearing first in search results are tantalising to many a harried Marketing Manager, so Content Marketing gets a lot of attention.
But it’s still possible to cut out the middle man and go straight to the source.
If you’re like me, you want to talk to managing directors, general managers and CEO’s. Those people are easily identifiable, it’s possible to obtain their postal address in seconds and they’re very responsive to direct mail.
I’m running a campaign at the moment which has seen literally millions of dollars of opportunity enter my client’s pipeline as a result of direct mail combined with a phone call afterwards.
The secret? Making the mail package impactful. When the CEO receives it, the first thing about it is the size. It’s a C4 envelope, not a bill-sized DL. It is unusually-shaped; you can tell there’s something inside it – so it gets opened.
Inside, there’s a small gift. Not a voucher requiring action to take advantage of it. Not a free taste of my client’s services, but an actual, useful, completely self-contained real world gift.
It makes the mail package memorable and because the gift is genuine, there’s a built-in social reciprocity that enhances it. When the sales team phones the CEO afterwards, there’s a high degree of recall and an increased propensity to talk to us.
So far the campaign has generated above 10% conversion rate between sending the mail pack and nailing a meeting with senior decision-makers. In anyone’s language, that’s a winner.
Direct mail still works. In fact, the recent increases in postage mean your mail pack is even less likely to have competition when it arrives, making it more memorable. But it has to be memorable and worthwhile. Bulky packages with a highly targeted letter and a genuine gift combine to give you a platform for success.
Want to know what the gift is? Contact me and I’ll tell you.
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