Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It’s the end of a typical work day, and you’re excited to come home. On the way in, you grab the mail stack and set it aside as you walk in. After getting comfy and settling in for the evening, you lounge on the couch and check social media, then your inbox. While dinner is simmering, you peruse your mail, then go back to your phone.
How many ads did you just see? And more importantly — how many do you remember?
This daily process is so routine to all of us that we rarely think twice about why we trash some mail and keep others, why we scroll past some social ads more than others, and which emails we save. However, there’s a reason behind why some advertisements stick and some don’t.
I’ve been in marketing since 1995 and have built my $119 million business on reliably turning neutral and unaware prospects into leads — nearly 4,000 a week — and then into buyers.
Take a look at these road-tested marketing strategies I’ve used over the years that have worked for my clients thousands of times over.
Related: The 3 Greatest Lessons I’ve Learned After 25 Years in Business and $100 Million in Revenue
Always include an offer, since 92% of U.S. consumers actively search for them
There is one way to ensure people take a good look at your ad, and it’s by including an offer. You love free stuff or a good discount, right? Your audience does, too.
Case in point: Our most successful offers are all freebies. Free samples or free add-ons when you purchase something.
We mail over 232,000 postcards a week for our own marketing, and over four million a week on behalf of our clients. Response is always higher on the mailers with a great offer. Physical advertisements are easier to store and keep in sight around the home. A person may click on a digital ad in the moment, but if they don’t save the link for later, it’s going to get lost in the World Wide Web void.
Consider this: The average person doesn’t quickly throw away mail when there’s a coupon or free gift included. In fact, they probably stick it on the fridge for later.
Overall, studies show that coupons in mailings can increase response rates up to 13%.
The offer you place on your mailer doesn’t have to be massive, but ideally, it will stop prospects in their tracks. Buy-one-get-one (BOGO) or offering something for free is a great way to grab attention.
If you’re in ecommerce or retail, consider mailing special promo codes to people who abandoned their shopping cart. You can do this automatically by connecting your online shop to a direct mail automation platform. It’s something you can program in a short period of time that will continuously follow up in order to bring people back to finish their purchase.
Related: 3 Marketing Trends You Need to Capitalize on Now Before Your Competition Beats You to It
Focus on the marketing channels that grab attention for the longest periods of time
I spend over $100,000 every week on marketing across every channel, but there’s still one that feels like a cheat code or hack for generating high-quality leads reliably every week, and sometimes its performance still surprises even me — and that’s postcards.
Direct mail has a higher return on investment than digital ads. We analyzed 115,393 leads that converted to sales last year and found that direct mail leads generated 6x more revenue than digital leads.
Here’s my theory on why: When that moment comes and people are going through their mail, you have an opportunity to make a deep, long-lasting impression that you can’t replicate through online ads or an email inbox.
Studies have confirmed this — people are 70% better at recalling a brand when they’ve seen a direct mail piece compared to an online ad. Research also shows that nearly two out of three people (63%) give mail their undivided attention.
This all means that you aren’t competing with a big screen or a little one. So, if you want to try your hand at direct mail, make sure you use these precious few seconds of undiluted attention to be direct with your message — ensure your headline plainly states the benefits of your product or service, and choose an image that immediately communicates what you’re selling.
In my decades of experience, too many marketers try to get clever and use messaging that has nothing to do with their products or services. Yes, pictures of puppies will always turn heads, but if you’re selling lawn mowers, you’re going to confuse your audience first and foremost.
Even if you aren’t sold on direct mail, I encourage you to test a clear and direct ad (with an offer!) against a more clever one to see if this advice holds true with your business as well. Just make sure you’re tracking closely, and let me know if the clever ad ever works better.
Personalize your advertisements for a 40% increase in revenue compared to those who don’t
There are two ways you can personalize an ad online or in print: Provide some personal information about you and your business, or create a buying journey for prospects that is personalized to them.
I recommend doing both to maximize response. Approximately 97% of direct mail users see higher response rates with personalized/customized direct mail, and 56% said that response rates were significantly higher with personalized/customized direct mail.
Adding personal details to an online ad will also increase your responses — about 72% of consumers report engaging only with personalized messaging. You can accomplish this by utilizing targeting tools. For example, Google Ads allows you to set specific targeting parameters based on demographics, location, interests and behaviors.
The more unique details you can place on your postcard or digital ad, the better. If you must use stock photos, that’s better than no photos at all. However, it’s most ideal to show off what your business looks like or real images of your products and/or services.
I suggest you take it a step further and even include photos of yourself or key members of your staff. Prospects love seeing a real person’s face. It builds trust and evokes a positive emotional response.
When it comes to direct mail, you can customize each design to feature the recipient’s first name in the headline, and even some of their previous actions, like filling up a shopping cart and not checking out.
An automated direct mail marketing campaign makes this easy. Just connect your CRM (customer relationship manager) to your direct mail automation platform and program these mailings based on triggers. For example, if your prospect goes two weeks without answering a call — boom, that triggers a postcard saying, “We’ve been trying to reach you about a special discount, give me a call.”
There are so many ways to utilize this technology to personalize the customer journey. Your CRM already has this information, so make the best use of it.
Whether you are creating an online ad or postcard, personalize it! You’ll get more responses and more opportunities for fast revenue.
It’s the end of a typical work day, and you’re excited to come home. On the way in, you grab the mail stack and set it aside as you walk in. After getting comfy and settling in for the evening, you lounge on the couch and check social media, then your inbox. While dinner is simmering, you peruse your mail, then go back to your phone.
How many ads did you just see? And more importantly — how many do you remember?
This daily process is so routine to all of us that we rarely think twice about why we trash some mail and keep others, why we scroll past some social ads more than others, and which emails we save. However, there’s a reason behind why some advertisements stick and some don’t.
The rest of this article is locked.
Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.