Small Business Direct Marketing

Ain't Nothing Like Getting it Straight From The Horses Mouth.

These days they may incorporate a couple of twists to take advantage of new technology however print advertising, good old-fashioned salesmanship and direct mail are still some of the most effective ways to market your business, whatever the size.

Let's Start With Print Advertising.

It allows you to tell everyone in a particular market that you're available.

It's not direct marketing but does a good job of boosting sales.

You may put an ad in a local newspaper or specialized publication that caters exclusively to your market.

While this may be great for those with high marketing budgets, chances are this method will be cost-prohibitive for small businesses.

And... depending on the size of your business, a really good response could do more damage than good.

You may not have the ability to handle a large number of responses.

You will want something more direct, where you can control the amount of people seeing your message.

Door Knocking.

Usually, the owner or key management takes on the sales role. They need to have strong people skills, and be somewhat assertive without being aggressive.

This usually involves a large amount of cold-calling before one can get their foot in the door to meet their potential client face-to-face.

Although not cost effective, this option is one of the more successful strategies for small business direct marketing .

You control how many people you talk to, you receive immediate feedback and you can ask for the order on the spot.

Direct Mail.

Although this option is generally considered to be the best, many companies are concerned with the cost.

The best thing about direct mail today is that there are many options for personalizing your letters that you can do yourself, in-house.

Keep in mind however that direct response copywriting is an art and there are very few who can do it successfully.

To start, you'll need to purchase a list or you can use your business contacts.

Next, design and print your marketing piece.

It can be as simple as a postcard, or as complex as any of the multi-page, personalized sales letters that most of us have seen from time to time.

The postcard is the least expensive and, with today's technology, these can be personalized as well.

There are many ways you can use print for marketing.

For mailing, it may be advantageous to get involved with a mailing house, as they may be able to save you money on your postage and are familiar with some of the extremely complicated mailing regulations.

You may need to mail to your list a number of times ensuring that each letter has a very strong call-to-action to get your phone ringing.

Now that you have an idea of the small business direct marketing options available, its time to get out there and give it a go.

Experiment, test & measure to find out what works best for you and never be afraid to talk to other business owners about small business direct marketing, you’ll be surprised at what you may learn.

Modern Net-Wit:

"I thinks it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly"

..........................................................................Steven Wright


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