Best media to use for reaching decision makers in a company?

xha1r

Hey there,

We're putting together our own advertising campaign. It is important that we find the right balance between costs and the ability to target the decision makers in a company. So far we've looked at using the following media:

i) The business section of RTE.ie & Ireland.com
ii) Business Plus magazine
iii) Use of direct mail (how would companies be likely to respond?)
iv) The Sunday Business Post

Would you have any more suggestions or ideas on how to conduct this type of campaign?

Regards,
JB.

PS. Apologies to moderators for the double-post; I am looking for as much response as possible with this problem. If there is a problem, please PM me or take action yourselves.

failsafe

Just print? What do you want decision makers to do? If your selling them stationary or something direct mail would work, if you're persuading them to change insurance providers a high class advertisement might be better.

When you ask how would companies be likely to respond to direct mail, it really depends what the direct mail says, what you're trying to sell them, and what type of companies you're trying to target.

growler

what is the objective of the campaign? and how will you determine if it was a success or not?

Without knowing that we couldn't advise you, however the best campaigns (depending on the objectives) will comprise all relevant channels to market:
ads
online
DM
Telemarketing
email

+ whatever else is relevant: sponsorship / events / tv / radio / exhibitions / posters / ambient / guerilla

DublinWriter

It really depends on your product and your marketing budget.

To be honest, I've never had great results with the SBP or any other print media, although others I know have. Again, this is always reliant on the quality of your copy.

Don't discount radio - advertising with the likes of RTE Radio 1 and Newstalk isn't as expensive as you might think, but you'd need to run a sustained campaign unless your ad is particularly striking.

Direct mail is an interesting one. One director of an software company I worked for always insisted on using stamps rather than a franking machine to give the shots a personal touch. He'd also sign the letters personally with a dark blue pen as he reckoned people could tell a copied signature from a real one due to the indent in the paper that a real pen made.

At least with mail shots, if you know the names of the persons to be targetted, you can be assured that they'll at least receive your ad copy. The same can't be said of mass-media advertising.

leftofcentre

Business campaigns generally have really poor results.

Go for direct response, pr and adwords.

Print will just p*ss your money away.

watersprings

What are you trying to sell to the Decision makers?

Sonnenblumen

xha1r wrote:

Hey there,

We're putting together our own advertising campaign. It is important that we find the right balance between costs and the ability to target the decision makers in a company. So far we've looked at using the following media:

i) The business section of RTE.ie & Ireland.com
ii) Business Plus magazine
iii) Use of direct mail (how would companies be likely to respond?)
iv) The Sunday Business Post

Would you have any more suggestions or ideas on how to conduct this type of campaign?

Regards,
JB.

PS. Apologies to moderators for the double-post; I am looking for as much response as possible with this problem. If there is a problem, please PM me or take action yourselves.

There are several choices each with its own pros/cons. Media advertising (Press/Radio) is diverse, costs are high and varying degrees of success. If its B2B selling, this is probably unlikely to be the best route.

DM on the otherhand is a relatively similar approach to media albeit with much less costs. generally accepted that the success rate for DM (Junk marketing) is at best 2-3%, so you can do the cost-benefit analysis!

A more prudent (cost/management) startegy might be targetted marketing, ie you must do some initial research to identify the key decision makers but if you have this info you can prepare a 'personalised' mailshot to specfic groups with broadly similar needs. in otherwords avoid one standard letter going to a diverse audience with discreet needs, the more you effectively TARGET prospects, but be prompt with follow-up tel canvass, the better the end results are likely to be. TM is very cost effective, very important that you archive all responses, which can be reviewed on an ongoing basis and valuable for fine tuning future campaigns etc.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the web, an incredibily dynamic and modest cost for targetting prospects but you have to dress the core issues (USPs etc).

Finally, writing articles in trade press/web can also be an effective way of pulling the customer to you. Conventional marketing is heavily biased towards a push to customer but reverse gear is also worthy of consideration.

Dundalk Daily

Try paid for editorial or a company profile type thing dressed up as editorial in the SBP, they will get a journalist to write it for you. You can then use this piece on your website, marketing literature etc All depends what you are selling and to whom. If you need a contact in the SBP pm me, wont cost you anything to get a few quotes.

donalf

you can build and manage an direct email campaign and communicate with 1000's of potential customers simultaneously by using something like...

http://www.dbase.ie/Attachment.ashx?AttachmentId=80

Millionaire

A typical response rate for direct mail is (0.5% - 2%) so if you get 2% that is considered to be very good.

I found in my own experience, sending a personalised letter to a Named decision maker, worked much better, that a blanket FAO Managing Director letter, which usually get binned before it reaches the decision maker.

I also found, that if I hand wrote the letter, and was personalized with decision makers name...all the better.

Depends on your opininon on this...if you hand write letter, and write Private & Confidential, an even better chance of getting through. I used to do this, and my view is what I am proposing is confidential between me and decision maker... it is for no one elses attention, as only decision maker can decide on it. Also if you follow letter up with a call, you really increase chances.

I used to send out 1000 letters a month and would get any where from 4 - 9 leads from this, in a very competitive sector. thats leads, just someone phoning me or emailed saying yeah I am, interested tell me more ...not sales.

For good information on direct mail, Jay Abraham (google this) has some good books.