Services > Direct Marketing

The Business Word can create a integrated direct marketing campaign for your brand and your company.

A successful direct marketing campaign uses letters, post cards, posters, white papers, books and energetic and smart sales people to sell services and products. We've helped clients with all of these.

Every campaign is different, depending on your company, your brand, your market and your budget. We tailor-make the plan to your specifications.

The key to success in marketing any product is establishing your brand name by mailing and calling customers and prospects as frequently as you can do so profitably. Frequent contacts are more important than contacting everyone in the market at the same time. Getting your brand in front of a prospect frequently is more important than overwhelming prospects with an expensive, one-shot mailing.

It is better to mail 12 times to the same 2,000 qualified prospects than once or twice to 20,000 to 24,000 prospects. And it's better to use post cards 12 times a year to drive prospects to your Web site and have them call for information than to ship an expensive package only once a year.

There is a reason why consumer products companies advertise frequently on TV. And credit card companies mail to their prospects once or twice a month. They know it takes many "impressions" to catch the eye of a prospect. And catching the prospect's attention when she's got the problem that you can solve is a hit-and-miss proposition. Some say you have to contact a prospect 27 times with direct mail, phone calls and meetings to turn her into a customer.

Let's say your company has a product it wants to market to hospitals or another important market. Here's what we might propose:

Your brand needs visibility

Because hospital CEOs and their materials managers want to comply with their GPOs' contracts, they are reluctant to let your company market its products to their nurse managers, risk managers and other users, influencers and decision makers. In hospitals, end users serve on standards committees that select the medical devices and supplies used in their hospitals and clinics.

Thus, your company wants to help its prospects and customers learn about the benefits offered by its new product line. It wants them to visit the company's Web site and to ask for samples and demonstrations.

Users and decision makers need to see your brand often

Physicians, nurse managers and other hospital executives are tough customers. They're extremely busy, hard to reach, impatient and very value-oriented. To make matters more difficult, in most hospitals, committees make buying decisions that are subject to various higher authorities, or decision makers.

When nurses and physicians buy, they want proof that they are making good decisions, and they are used to reading well-documented, scientific and quantitative articles and literature. In a hospital, they need to be able to justify their buying decisions. And they want to buy the best and most cost-effective products.

The challenge is to educate nurse managers, physicians and other users of your product without creating a perception that you're talking down to them or "wasting" their time. The goal is to create brand awareness and curiosity and to drive prospects to your Web site. You must generate invitations for your sales people.

How do you contact prospects and create interest?

1. Create an information-rich Web site for those interested in your product and company. Your site should offer a daily news briefing, or "blog" like the one on this site, www.BusinessWord.com. Publish white papers, article reprints, product information, proposed legislation, laws, regulations, court decisions and links to other sites offering more information. A strong search engine for the site must have prominent display on the home page. Your site must be easy to navigate.
2. Mail postcards every month to prospects. The cards might give tips on using your class of products as an industry service. Each card invites a visit to your Web site for more information. Postcards are used to announce new case studies, which are posted on your Web site. Your Web site address and your brand name must appear three or four times on each card. Postcards can also be used to invite prospects to attend a seminar on their specialty and your product line. (Postcard mailings also can go to securities analysts and institutional investors who follow or might follow your stock.) Publish your postcards' copy on your Web site.
3. Mail posters four times a year. The goal is to provide checklists that can be posted on small staff bulletin boards. Put your brand name, Web site address and appropriate phone numbers on the poster. Recipients are given an 800 number and e-mail address so they can order more posters at no charge for each nursing station, etc. Distribute the posters at trade shows and related meetings. Post them on your Web site so hospitals can download them.
4. Create spreadsheets that can be used by your sales staff and prospects to cost-justify your product. These can be posted on your Web site and promoted in post card mailings, product literature, etc. Users will be asked to register and provide contact information before they can download the spreadsheets. Your sales staff will use the registration information to make sales appointments. Show the spreadsheets at tradeshows and build sales seminars around them.
5. Promote your products to educators and students by putting the educators on your mailing lists. Try to locate educators who are experts on the problem your product or service solves. You might want to hire them as consultants and feature their research and articles on your Web site. Just as drug companies give samples to medical residents, your company should grab the attention of young users early in their careers. In a few years they'll be nurse or hospital executives and important to your future.

The primary advantage of direct mail over media advertising is that direct mail is more targeted. It reaches more real prospects and many fewer non-buyers. So called "wasted circulation" is minimized. Direct mail is especially efficient when you are trying to reach only a few thousand critical prospects frequently.

Thus, your Web site, postcards, posters and safety seminars will:

• Put your brand name and concept in front of customers at least 16 times a year.
• Establish your company as a primary and credible source of information about your core competency.
• Give sales people another reason to call the prospect and ask: "Did you get the Brand Name's tips poster? Would you like to be on Brand Name's mailing list? The Brand Name's posters are great reminders for your staff, and they are free to our customers and friends of the firm."
• Provide platforms for promotions or other hooks that will generate inquiries from prospects.

Summary

For an affordable investment, The Business Word can produce and manage a brand name marketing communications program that will generate productive and profitable new business leads for your company.

The actual cost of a campaign, of course, will depend on a variety of marketing and promotional decisions that your company will make as we develop and implement a strategy and plan. What's important is that your company needs to increase its visibility among end users, influencers, technical buyers and final decision makers.

Increased visibility will help generate leads and will make it easier for your sales people to get inside customers' organizations. Every warm lead becomes a sale for someone within six to 12 months.

Given the potential sales to a organization or department, it will not take many leads for this strategy to pay for itself. And the longer the campaign is run, the higher the returns. This is because top-of-mind consciousness and good will increase over time.

For a free consultation and more information, call Don Johnson at 303-967-0129.