Postal Mail Profits In A Digitally Obsessed Age
By David Foley
*A Book Review*
by Michael C. Gray
© 2023 by Michael C. Gray
With the excitement of new and different online alternatives, one would think mailed marketing materials are "so yesterday."
For local businesses serving local customers (and many other businesses as well), direct mail can be the more effective choice.
Have you received letters or post cards promoting Google advertising, products for sale on Amazon, or online recruiting services? Even some "online" businesses recognize the effectiveness of direct mail.
Effective marketing campaigns are based on a three-legged stool: message, market and media. Online delivery is simply a very important media alternative that can be used separately or together with direct mail to get the attention of customers and prospective customers.
Email delivery seems attractive because it is mostly free. Most of us have cluttered email boxes and we only open a fraction of the emails that we receive. Meanwhile, mailboxes today are almost empty. The return for effort expended can be much greater with direct mail. We are much more likely to open physical mail that is expertly prepared. Postcards don't even have to be opened, although the message that can be delivered with them is rather limited.
Mailed promotions can also direct recipients to a website in an offline-to-online promotion, including having a QR code to scan with a smartphone!
The experience of opening physical mail is quite different from opening an email or visiting a web site. It can include "grabbers" - physical enclosures - to spark the curiosity of the recipient to open a "lumpy" envelope. You can even have unusual envelopes, like a money bag or miniature garbage can, to make a mailed promotion stand out from other mail.
David Foley specializes in helping businesses make effective mailed promotions. He shares his experience in his book, Postal Mail Profits In A Digitally Obsessed Age.
The book includes:
- Why your business should use direct mailed marketing campaigns.
- Business-to-consumer and business-to-business campaigns.
- How to track the effectiveness of mailings by gathering recency, frequency, and monetary value statistics.
- The lifetime value of a customer.
- How to do testing to improve your promotions.
- Helpful examples of mailed promotions and spreadsheets for tracking marketing results.
That's a lot of information packed in a 124-page book!
Every business owner should have a copy of
Postal Mail Profits In A Digitally Obsessed Age as a desktop reference. Buy it at Amazon: Postal Mail Profits In A Digitally Obsessed Age.
For our new reviews of business and self-improvement books, subscribe to our newsletter, Michael Gray, CPA's Tax & Business Insight!
Home
Business Building Blog
Introduction
Seven Habits
Business Improvement
Book Reviews
Need Help?
Links