Small Business Marketing Strategies All-In-One For Dummies

Chapter 4

Snail-Mailing and Emailing Your Customers Directly

IN THIS CHAPTER

Defining one-to-one marketing terms

Setting up for direct sales

Using direct mailers to market your product or service

Creating and sending your mailers by surface mail

Marketing through email

Although television ads win awards and build awareness and social media wins buzz and launches relationships, direct mail wins customers and return-on-investment contests.

Direct mail is called one-to-one communication because it delivers your marketing message to carefully selected prospects and customers one at a time. One-to-one communication is the exact opposite of mass media advertising, which uses the shotgun approach — that is, you create an ad and use newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media to spread the message far and wide. One-to-one communication aims your message only at specific and well-defined individuals.

Most marketers believe that the two approaches work best in a tag-team arrangement: You use mass media advertising to build awareness, desire, and perceived value for your products, and then you use one-to-one marketing to call for the order.

If you can only afford to do one or the other, however, consider placing your bets on the one-to-one marketing approach, which this chapter discusses, aiming each dollar you spend straight at qualified prospects rather than scattering your budget through mass media to reach prospects and non-prospects alike.

Using One-to-One Marketing

When you employ one-to-one ...