Postcard Marketing Model #15: To Sell a Low-Priced Product, Influence Big Shots
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Postcard Marketing Model #15: To Sell a Low-Priced Product, Influence Big Shots
by Marcia Yudkin
Return-on-investment math often unnecessarily turns away marketers of low-priced products from using postcards as a promotional vehicle. Yes, if the goal is to sell copies of a $24.95 paperback book, sending even the most exciting, irresistible postcards about the book probably won't garner enough sales to earn back the expense of a postcard campaign.
(Roughly, sending 2000 postcards would cost nearly $1800 in list rental, printing and mailing of the cards. If you assume the book costs you $3 in manufacturing costs, and you charge buyers the full cost of shipping a book, you'd have to sell 82 books to break even, which represents a highly unrealistic response rate - 4.1 percent of postcard recipients purchasing the $24.95 book.)
However, when you shift the premise and imagine pitching a low-priced item to key individuals who each are in a position to influence thousands or tens of thousands of others to buy it, the picture brightens. Here are three scenarios illustrating smart, strategic marketing of a low-priced product to influential players using postcard marketing.
1. Media pitches. If an editor or reporter writes about the product or a talk show host mentions it on the air, it gets exposure to thousands upon thousands of potential buyers - many more than you could cost-effectively reach sending postcards to them one at a time. Also factor in the credibility provided by media coverage that can be put to work in all kinds of promotions.
Most people approach media people via email or by using news release distribution services, and in that context, a colorfully designed, enticingly worded postcard arriving by mail stands out.
Companies like Easy Media List (www.easymedialist.com ), Media Mailing Lists (www.listsyoucanafford.com/media.html ), and others sell targeted contact information for media folks. For instance, contact information for 1,290 editors at African-American publications costs $149 from the latter source. Add the cost of printing and mailing postcards to them, and then conservatively assume that a lucky 13 of the recipients (1 percent) publish something about the $24.95 book that each triggers at least five purchases. Now the postcard campaign is profitable.
2. Influencers. Other professionals besides journalists have great sway with those in their sphere. Imagine these leaders as the hub of a bicycle wheel, with spokes extending from the center to dozens of points on the rim of the wheel. Here too approaching the influencers involves a multiplier effect, since each might not only purchase a copy of the item for themselves but also recommend it to their patients, clients or customers.
For example, when I published a book for small business owners, it wouldn't have made sense to target them individually in a postcard campaign, even if I'd been able to afford mailing cards to millions of people in that category. However, I happily sent postcards about the book to more than 500 executive directors of Small Business Development Centers throughout the United States, who were each in a position to hand the postcard to their in-house librarian and/or recommend it to workshops full of their small business clients for years to come. Again the math becomes favorable in this scenario.
Influencers for real estate agents would be mortgage brokers. Influencers for parents would be pediatricians. Influencers for wine producers would be restaurateurs. Got the idea?
3. Bulk purchasers. A third scenario in which unfavorable postcard math turns favorable is where you pitch a low-priced product not as a one-off purchase but as something to buy in a large quantity. To take the book example again, this might mean sending postcards to parent-teacher organization leaders to purchase copies for all the board members, to human resource executives to suggest buying hundreds of copies for employees or to private school administrators about buying one for each graduating senior.
When it comes to postcard marketing of a low-priced product, success comes from thinking large!
Veteran postcard marketer, consultant and author Marcia Yudkin is the creator of The Mighty Postcard Marketing Course, which teaches the strategic, logistical, design and copywriting secrets of successful postcard marketing (www.yudkin.com/postcardcourse.htm ).
by Marcia Yudkin
Return-on-investment math often unnecessarily turns away marketers of low-priced products from using postcards as a promotional vehicle. Yes, if the goal is to sell copies of a $24.95 paperback book, sending even the most exciting, irresistible postcards about the book probably won't garner enough sales to earn back the expense of a postcard campaign.
(Roughly, sending 2000 postcards would cost nearly $1800 in list rental, printing and mailing of the cards. If you assume the book costs you $3 in manufacturing costs, and you charge buyers the full cost of shipping a book, you'd have to sell 82 books to break even, which represents a highly unrealistic response rate - 4.1 percent of postcard recipients purchasing the $24.95 book.)
However, when you shift the premise and imagine pitching a low-priced item to key individuals who each are in a position to influence thousands or tens of thousands of others to buy it, the picture brightens. Here are three scenarios illustrating smart, strategic marketing of a low-priced product to influential players using postcard marketing.
1. Media pitches. If an editor or reporter writes about the product or a talk show host mentions it on the air, it gets exposure to thousands upon thousands of potential buyers - many more than you could cost-effectively reach sending postcards to them one at a time. Also factor in the credibility provided by media coverage that can be put to work in all kinds of promotions.
Most people approach media people via email or by using news release distribution services, and in that context, a colorfully designed, enticingly worded postcard arriving by mail stands out.
Companies like Easy Media List (www.easymedialist.com ), Media Mailing Lists (www.listsyoucanafford.com/media.html ), and others sell targeted contact information for media folks. For instance, contact information for 1,290 editors at African-American publications costs $149 from the latter source. Add the cost of printing and mailing postcards to them, and then conservatively assume that a lucky 13 of the recipients (1 percent) publish something about the $24.95 book that each triggers at least five purchases. Now the postcard campaign is profitable.
2. Influencers. Other professionals besides journalists have great sway with those in their sphere. Imagine these leaders as the hub of a bicycle wheel, with spokes extending from the center to dozens of points on the rim of the wheel. Here too approaching the influencers involves a multiplier effect, since each might not only purchase a copy of the item for themselves but also recommend it to their patients, clients or customers.
For example, when I published a book for small business owners, it wouldn't have made sense to target them individually in a postcard campaign, even if I'd been able to afford mailing cards to millions of people in that category. However, I happily sent postcards about the book to more than 500 executive directors of Small Business Development Centers throughout the United States, who were each in a position to hand the postcard to their in-house librarian and/or recommend it to workshops full of their small business clients for years to come. Again the math becomes favorable in this scenario.
Influencers for real estate agents would be mortgage brokers. Influencers for parents would be pediatricians. Influencers for wine producers would be restaurateurs. Got the idea?
3. Bulk purchasers. A third scenario in which unfavorable postcard math turns favorable is where you pitch a low-priced product not as a one-off purchase but as something to buy in a large quantity. To take the book example again, this might mean sending postcards to parent-teacher organization leaders to purchase copies for all the board members, to human resource executives to suggest buying hundreds of copies for employees or to private school administrators about buying one for each graduating senior.
When it comes to postcard marketing of a low-priced product, success comes from thinking large!
Veteran postcard marketer, consultant and author Marcia Yudkin is the creator of The Mighty Postcard Marketing Course, which teaches the strategic, logistical, design and copywriting secrets of successful postcard marketing (www.yudkin.com/postcardcourse.htm ).