One of the challenges faced by small businesses looking to maximize marketing ROI is that they don?t always have the time or budgets to experiment with multiple tactics. Whereas larger organizations can try many different approaches and measure what works best, small businesses may only be able to deploy one or two tactics in a given marketing period. Even in situations where small business can experiment with different tactics, it can be difficult to find the time to review all the results and draw conclusions.
A recent survey by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) brings some useful data to the ongoing search for the best use of small business marketing dollars.
What they found may come as a surprise for advocates of newer digital channels. It turns out that for response rates, direct mail marketing is top of the list, achieving response rates that are a whopping 10 to 30 times those of digital channels like email and online advertising.
Why does direct mail marketing perform so well? An official from the DMA cites the quality of direct marketing data and the ability to hyper-target recipients as major factors. When you can be so precise with your targeting, your message and promotions simply resonate better with recipients, increasing the rate of response.
Balancing out this finding is the qualification that from an ROI standpoint, direct mail works best mainly as a tactic for reaching new customers.
If your objective is to target existing customers, email is better from an ROI standpoint (even though it has a lower response rate) because it generally costs less to send emails to your house list than to deploy a direct mail campaign.
For small businesses who don?t have the time or budgets to set up their own measurement and tracking programs, the study provides some helpful guidance on which tactics are likely to deliver the best response rates and ROI for a given objective.
This post revealed some helpful findings about the response rates and ROI of direct mail marketing. For help on maximizing the effectiveness of your own direct mail campaigns, see our 5 tips for better direct mail marketing campaigns. If you are looking to reach current customers with an email marketing program, read our tips for small business email newsletters.
What about you? Which tactics have been most successful for acquiring new customers for your small business? Please share your experiences below.
Rohan Gandhi is a Manager, Global SMB Digital Strategy at Pitney Bowes. In his role, Rohan helps drive the content and promotional strategies behind the pbSmart Essentials website. He is a staunch believer in the power and benefits of social media, and invites discussion of any type on both his? View?full?profile
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