Unsolicited Marketing, by Post

martinn123

Hi All,

this morning I got an envelope by post, containing a nice A4 folded 4 page brochure plus a Business card, for a business offering Web based Marketing, Web Development, App Development, and Training.

The usual promise of being NO.1 on Google Searches

No covering letter.

Addressed to ''The Manager''

So the address is as listed on our Co Web-Site so I assume it was some trawl of Business's in the County or area

Couple of points, I am part of a National Co with 14 outlets,
the Co Web-Site lists all 14 locations, including the Head Office, ( not Me )
It has the name of the CEO. General Manager,etc.
It also gives the business name of the Web-Developer who manages the site

The Envelope gets the Co name, wrong, similar but Wrong.

My name is on the Web-Site, under my location, but it's addressed to ''The Manager''.

If this Co is selling Web-Marketing, why are they using the Post, is there no understanding of basic research before engaging in such a postal campaign/ waste of money.

So I would welcome any comments, with a view to sending a link to this thread to the Director, nothing nasty or too critical please, maybe some pointers which might prove helpful, as I understand this Forum is contributed to by people in Web Development, Marketing etc.

Cheers

mathepac

I'm confused.

You want better / more accurately addressed junk mail?

You want to prove to the Director what an eejit he is wasting money or how good you are and that you should have his job?

I'm obviously missing the point somewhere so what is the point?

mathepac

I'm confused.

You want better / more accurately addressed junk mail?

You want to prove to the Director what an eejit he is wasting money or how good you are and that you should have his job?

I'm obviously missing the point somewhere so what is the point?

martinn123

mathepac wrote: »

I'm confused.

You want better / more accurately addressed junk mail?

You want to prove to the Director what an eejit he is wasting money or how good you are and that you should have his job?

I'm obviously missing the point somewhere so what is the point?

No I don't want his/her job, I am in a different sector, I suppose I am looking for a discussion as to why Marketeers do so little research, before wasting hard earned cash on what you call ''Junk Mail''
If you think I have any other motive or want to prove someone ''an eejit'', I do not, this is a Business Management Forum, so discuss, or not as you please.

Peterdalkey

The vast majority of such promotional mail is junk mail..... badly targetted, badly researched and so obvious that it is mostly binned unopened. The reasons are simple enough, there are very few really good professional Direct Marketers out there. These kinds of tasks are often given to junior staff/interns etc to execute after the expenditure and print artwork has been approved by the more senior people.
The primary objective and the toughest to achieve , is to get your mail piece opened. Once this has been achived, then the contents should be interesting enough to the recipient to elicit some action, a call, and email, a website vist. With a 3-5% respense rate, even for quality work, it is an expensive activity. It is extraordinary how much spend is wasted by the failure of firms to understand that they need to learn the rather simple basics of how to deliver a professional DM campaign.

ssbob

I definitely think junk mail works because for the very simple reason is you have to look at it to throw it in the bin! It's all about getting the customer to recognise the business before you pursue it in other ways.

Of course the message needs to be short and sweet but well thought out junk mail can lead to increased business. I don't have exact numbers but I am sure businesses wouldn't be wasting there money if it wasn't the case.

Bandara

ssbob wrote: »

I definitely think junk mail works because for the very simple reason is you have to look at it to throw it in the bin! It's all about getting the customer to recognise the business before you pursue it in other ways.

Of course the message needs to be short and sweet but well thought out junk mail can lead to increased business. I don't have exact numbers but I am sure businesses wouldn't be wasting there money if it wasn't the case.

I rip any junk mail looking envelopes in half and bin them without a second thought.

sandin

info is go from company records - all automated, if they get 0.5% response it would probably pay them.

The Corinthian

First system I ever developed commercially was to manage direct marketing via post.

The most obvious flaw in what these guys did was that they clearly did only a minimum of research into the companies they were contacting, perhaps doing as little as working off a list of companies and addresses, without any contact names, let alone if the company was a good candidate.

For example, if your business builds Web sites, it really does not take that long to check if your lead has a Web site to begin with, or if it's one that could do with updating; it's amazing how often such material is sent to companies who have just spent €20k updating their site three months earlier and who frankly will not be in the market for more work for the next few years.

And getting a contact name only requires a quick phone call; you can be honest and tell them that it's marketing material when you ask and I've found that 95% of the time, they'll happily give you the name of whomever handles that on their end - not always the manager; sometimes it can be even the secretary who manages a lot of suppliers.

Secondly, without a cover letter, it is and will be treated as junk. You don't want to make it too long, but you do want to be able to greet the contact directly, let them know what you're sending them and potentially add something custom that deals with them directly.

Finally, I suspect their brochure was probably pretty generic. Mistake. If you're going to do a mailshot, you want to make some effort to tailor it; perhaps not to each specific company (although you may learn something during the above phone call that would merit adding a personalized paragraph to the cover letter, via mail merge). Mailshots are, IMHO, best sent to specific industry sectors at a time; send the letters to, say, landscape gardening companies and pitch something that would interest their specific business, rather than generic service.

Including a special offer (e.g. free two hour consultancy session) can also help.

Putting in a tiny bit of effort on things, such as the above, will make a gigantic difference to the success rate of any marketing campaign, and at the end of the day, they're probably paying a Euro plus per letter - so it's their money down the drain if they don't. I've seen conversion rates hitting 40% in well managed campaigns, while what you got would be lucky to get any conversions at all.

If I were to advise the senders of this mailshot, I'd probably point out the above and that as a result, their mailshot will end up with a negligible conversion rate. Suggest they farm future campaigns out to a professional company and if they used a 'professional' company to do that mailshot, that they may want to change supplier.