Direct(ish) Marketing Question

Hi,

I believe it was the famous US bank robber, Willy Sutton, who replied to the question, "Why do you do it?" with, "It's where the money is."

So go where the money is.

I recommend against sending emails. Coaches probably get enough promotional emails, I'm guessing. Here's a nice little test you can do.

Craft a professional query letter, not a sales letter. Present your product: good description of what it is; a nice list of features and benefits - be sure you know the difference; answer how it will help those involved in sports; and do not include the price.

Give full contact information including phone number. And then invite them to call or email you with questions or to discuss how your product can help them.

Here's where the money is: The top 50 most expensive private high schools.

Most Expensive Private Schools - Business Insider

If you can get some sales, and you know they can afford it, then you can mention the exclusive schools who have bought your product. Out of courtesy, request permission to mention them in marketing materials. Not a testimonial, just indicating what school bought it.

Make sure you create high quality prints of your letter. It's only 50 letters which will not cost much to mail.

Thanks for the reply, Ken.

The query letter I emailed was pretty much exactly as you described. Not salesy. Introduced myself and my (relevant) background. A handful of benefits. Even a couple quick quotes from a couple other highly regarded coaches. No price included either. An invitation to talk more.

Which was perhaps why I was surprised I got such a poor return.

Anyways...

Awesome suggestion on the private schools. A couple of them are already on my list, but quite a few were not. Thank you.

The only difference is you emailed it. Try snail mail and see what happens.

And try all 50!


Ken

Try direct mail and email both. There are some people will open email and some will delete it. Using direct mail will make sure everyone read what you want to offer.

When you deliver your direct mail, what for response. if there is no response, you send another mail and include discount or special offer in your mail.

There are limitless options as to how how you package this.

My scaling up is a little higher than Ken Thompson's above but you will need to split test the below suggestion as normal.

Every sport has a governing body or association that represents it so you have a zillion possibilities here, you would be surprised how many associations there are in relation to this. Not only does this offer access to the participants in the hope of kitting them out in your attire, it also offers access to the governing body. If you add in screen printing and embroidery services you may have the chance to be seen as sports outfitters for the coaches too. This also applies to all education facilities.

I think you will achieve more success with this via direct mail. Looking at the cost of envelopes, posting, time, etc I would go for a double whammy. If you look at the time involved with letters, envelope stuffing etc I would give post cards a go instead but where they are being forwarded in a more official capacity, education facilities etc, I would hit the the bursar and the head of section too.

You will need to take into consideration seasonal variations with each of your planned campaigns. Schools in the UK spend their budgets during the summer holidays so everything is prepared for the commencement of the school year but my badminton club starts their season at a different time to my squash club and so on so an understanding of the sports seasonal variations will help maximise your exposure and returns.

Most industries have seasonal variations but I see with this model there will always be a new season starting and don't forget gyms get there biggest influx of new customers in early January.

With the sports clubs I would start out with a higher price for the products than you actually desire but offer them say a 10% discount if they forward an email out to all members containing your details. This email should link to a dedicated opt in landing page that is specific to that sports niche so it is targeted to the users interests. So for each field you are targeting you have a dedicated landing page. This will increase the likelihood of sales as the message being passed on is going to the end users from a trusted source, as in the actual clubs they frequent. Get a discount code built into the emails forwarded out via this route to offer an incentive to these visitors.

You have an exciting opportunity in front of you within this field. Good luck.