laird

Has anyone successfully managed to sell all their spots in less than 10 days or are you finding time constraints forcing it to take a longer time to sell out the postcard?

Devin X

One big issue that might have been resolved with the WSO, but not resolved here, was the issue of the layout of the ads on the postcard: 2 coupons on each side, making a total of 16 ads. See where I'm going with this?

Only 1 can be redeemed by a customer and since the layout allows 16 ads, there's going to be ads that have 2 coupons on each side. Since only one can be redeemed, that is a major problem for YOU and the clients you might have.

You cannot charge 500 for the coupons on the back of the postcard because they will most likely NOT be redeemed.

So how do we rectify this issue?

Well, what I did for the first 2 mailings was change the layout and the size of the ads to have the brand on the front and center, and putting 10 coupon ads on the front for 500/each. (around 2.5x3in per ad) I close the prospects on the fact that:

1. Social Media and Coupons are the #1 advertising mediums for small businesses.
2. Coupons are quantifiable and offer a solid method for measuring their ROI.
3. It costs them $2.xx/thousand impressions, and tell them that PPC online is much more costly than this.

Then on the back, (since those won't be redeemed) there are 10 more ads that are just ADS- not coupons. Those go for 300/each. This brings my net revenue to 8000 per mailing and after expenses is a lil over 5000...plus, it provides true value and a solid ROI for the clients.

Sure, you have to close more businesses on this method per community, but this way the layout issue is resolved and you're providing a true service to these businesses.

That's how I resolved this issue and so far it's worked out beautifully. I have another idea that involves changing the medium from a postcard to a large booklet with 16-20 coupons (booklet layout allows full redemption for all coupons, unlike a postcard) but at this time I'm sticking with what I showed you. I will let you know if I experiment with the other option.

Devin X

Hire 2 professional salesmen on a contract basis. Offer them 50% recurring commission and they will eat it up!

Devin X

Really now? Care to share how you do that with 16 total ads? No matter how you line them up, you'll have conflicts. (2 coupons per side) You can't line them up so all 16 ads can be redeemed.

Bruce Wedding

I'm selling one of these businesses on ebay if anyone is interested. See my sig file for link.

Doran Peck

Some solutions:



Mirror the front and back. Sell the spot sizes, as is, first come first serve.

or

Make all your ad spaces the same uniform size...save for maybe one spot on front and back that is much bigger ( to charge more)

or

Shift two rows of your uniformly sized ads againt one edge. Use the extra 3rd of space for eye candy and content, for example user contributed content or website tie-ins.

Ideally, you want your ads to have an educational element and a coupon element. You may not always be able to achieve this, but your creativity should be on alert to at least try.

You see, one of the massive advantages to saturation style mailings is that you are reaching everybody. Aside from the carrot thats being dangled in front of them...that not every one will bite on every time...You have the ability to help nudge or influence their thinking a few degrees closer to the ultimate sale....or spark someones interest enough that you cause them to secretly go looking for more information. ( then at that point hopefully you've got your clients ranked locally on google lol)

Most internet marketers think they've got the end all be all of marketing weapons be being able to rank someone on google....but then what...they have no power...they just sit and wait for people to decide on their own to go looking? really? sit and wait and hope?...thats the plan?

Wow..talk about being massively crippled.

Your postcard has power like nothing else, because it has the power to give power to all your other marketing efforts.

DP

Devin X

No. That doesn't work as I've stated in my post above {and copied below}. Clients in my area are especially hostile and want the works. They're also very narrow minded about business and are very suspicious of anything new or original. {like this method} You're ripping off the costumers who get coupons on the back.This solution above is garbage in their eyes. I wouldn't pay 500 for a coupon on the back when the one on the front will be the one that's redeemed. Plus, we're supposed to be providing the maximum value possible...your ideas presented here simply do not provide optimal value.

Again...No.

The client's brand I'm promoting with this marketing medium is a seat belt and highway safety campaign. This helps with sales because the clients are building goodwill by sponsoring the campaign, and it helps my client's brand because it's message is going right to the doors of 10,000 residents in each community I set up.

This is how I've resolved the layout issues and it's:

1. working very well
2. preserving my profit margins
3. giving true value to all the clients I get
*not just the lucky ones that get spots on the front*

Doran Peck

You are working with the assumption that the only way to redeem a coupon is to actually hand it in. Coupons can be shown & recorded, punched, barcode or QR scanned or even snapped with an iPhone camera.

Good work on your own solution.

seoconsulting1

This is an awesome concept. I heard with direct mail the conversion is at 2% i wonder what the conversion with this cool big cards are at? please let me know, if anyone has more info?

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]www.highqualitywriting.com

AfteraDream

A coupon doesn't have to be the size of an ad itself. It can be smaller stripe on the top or bottom of it. Then on other side you can have other add with coupon too without cutting into it because it's in different part of the ad.

The 13th Warrior

Glad to see Mail Order making a comeback, although some have been quietly doing so when the older model did not work.

This thread shows the re-tweeking of an an old proven system is what was needed for the 21st century of marketing.

Keep up the good work.

When you help "small" business owners and local business owners, you , here, are doing light years more than Government and its officials, so-called Economic professors, academics and experts put together.

When it was said "All Power to The People", this thread and others like it, is what it meant.

Brilliant.


P.S. I especially like , no, LOVE the part where he had to educate the Postal Officials and Post Master in THEIR OWN FIELD, HOLY F****** COW, dude, that's just too much and proves , eventually, everyone has to rely on themselves for education, information and leadership.


The 13th Warrior

thedog

This thread is huge... so, not sure if this has been asked or not...

What about promoting digital products? Like Clickbank? Like a work from home type thing, or paid survey product... or anything really...

There was a WSO a while back about this... marketing online products, offline... basicly using a redirect, so redirects to your long affiliate link.

IMANEW-B

AfteraDream is right. Why is everyone so worried about the coupon placement? You make each ad half coupon/half message and on one side you put the coupon at the top of the ad and the other side the coupon is at the bottom. It's not rocket science!

Nspire

wow! just came across this post and so glad i did! Some really great ideas here for anyone looking for a business model. Going to put this one on the list to do!

Nspire
Small Business Marketing Strategies
Web Design services

daveinva

What an awesome thread! Probably the most solid biz model I've seen here in the forum. Kudos to you Bob Ross!

Without having to go through every post on this, has anyone discussed fronting with telemarketers to initiate some interest from biz owners and then follow up in person by a sales rep to close?

Wondering if anyone had a script, etc. they shared...

laundrysoap

This is a really great thread, in fact, it is the thread that has motivated me to finally start my own business. I'm on the tail end of the license approval process as I type this.

I have just a couple questions about the finer details:

1) Those of you who have been running these campaigns, are you using a contract of any kind? I mean this in the sense of a basic agreement of services, etc, not a term commitment.

2) I've been running the EDDM demo tool and there is absolutely no combination of routes that adds up to 10,000. All of them end up in the mid 9,9xxs. How would you address this? It feels a bit dishonest to "round up" even by 40 or 50, but "9,954 giant color postcards" just doesn't roll off the tongue like 10,000.

Thanks in advance, and thanks to bobross for sharing this wonderful opportunity with so many.

keyuria

I thank you Bob for the inspiration and have started prospecting and this is completely new concept in our city and hence some resistance is there, but that is always there to be.

marketingtrenches

great info! thanks given!

tinyreal

1) No contract, just an intake sheet for us

2) we went slightly over 10k

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tinyreal

the WSO that Bob Ross did on this has finally brought in some steady revenue for my partner and I, but its hard work keeping things organized

we have 2 cards done and one more on the way and we have been doing it for about 5 weeks and completely part time

We hired salespeople, but no one sticks around which is crazy given the opportunity in front of them

Out goal is 10 cards a month. If you are going to dream, dream big

Mike

Click here now for 10 Strategies to give you all the traffic you deserve absolutely free.

J smith

Tinyreal how did you go about finding those sales people? I am having a hard time finding anyone (I get a few resumes sent to me now and then, but when I reply reiterating that it is a comission based job, they never reply)

akonzada009

Nice thinking outside the box, but what are you going to do if the postcard yeild no results for your clients? lets face it a postcard with only ads on them will end up in the trash pretty quick... how do you justify such a investment to your clients

PPC Consultant | PPC Consultants | Adword Consultant

snakez0r

Before I give you my feedback, please be aware my full time job is in print advertising. Also be aware that I'm trying to be constructive and mean well..

My advice to you would be to sell the coupons and the ads at the same price. Otherwise how do you justify them spending nearly double the price just so they can use their ad space as a coupon? It doesn't cost you any extra.

What I would do is charge less for the ads on the back but make the ads smaller. i.e. if the front coupon size is 50cm2 for $500, make the ads on the back 30cm2 for $300.

Oh and you'll make more money which is nice

If you're already doing it your way don't change it though. Obviously that's just gonna piss your clients off.

My 2 cents

Chris_L

Thank you, Bob for this excellent thread. It has been 6 months since the start of the thread. Quite a few warriors have taken action and printed their first, second, third or more postcards. I'm very curious to know what's the turnover rate of the businesses that brought the ads? In other words, how many clients stayed with the program after the postcards have been distributed?

laundrysoap

As I sit here and enjoy a cup of coffee before I go to write a check to the city - my business license was approved - I figured I'd try and share the love. Not nearly as much as a lot of others in this thread, but just a little help for those in this thread that have been bringing up this issue.

Several posts in this thread are something like this:
The number one objection I got was that "direct mail doesn't work." / I want to go sell this, but how do I handle the myth that direct mail doesn't work?

Here's what I came up with to kill that objection, and it's what I'm going to use myself. I don't go full-on robotic, coming up with a script word for word and reciting it, but this is the general idea:

"Direct mail doesn't work."

"Mr/Ms Prospect, may I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure."

"Would you agree that part of the reason Target (they're big around here, you could insert other companies that constantly send out mailings) is so successful is that they spend their advertising budget on the methods they've found to be the most profitable?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Okay.... When's the last time you were driving down the road and saw a Target billboard?"

They'll say never, if they're honest. This is not so valid if you're selling to businesses in Times Square. Everywhere else, pretty much true.

"When's the last time you saw a giant ad in the Yellow Pages for Target?"

Since nobody even uses the phone book except to find businesses to sell to anymore, the answer is obviously never.

"Now, Mr Prospect, when's the last time you got that piece of mail talking about the sales they're running?"

"Well, I dunno exactly, my eyes glaze right over that stuff, but I'd say pretty often." Whatever they say here. Everyone gets coupon postcards and little mini-catalogs from Target all the time. If they plainly say they don't know, they don't care, they haven't checked their mail in three years, whatever, just let them know they do it all the time, because it's the truth.

"So there you have it. Apparently, direct mail works for Target, and other companies such as Sears, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Victoria's Secret (Macy's, JC Penney, you could go on and on here), because they send it out all over the country."

I'm still coming up with the part right after this. Basically that by joining this mailer you're doing what these mega-billion dollar companies are doing, but right in your own backyard and for a fraction of the cost. I don't know, maybe someone can firm the very end of it up some.

schazz

Not to mention that Google itself uses direct mail to sell adwords and more!

hardyfella

just looking at this in the uk where most houses dont have mailboxes, its all through a letter box. How bendable are these cards? Would the same size glossy fliers work the same...but I am guessing that large rigid postcard is less likely to be binned.

thanks, great work by some of you in here.

luke1213

I just want to say thanks to Bob and everyone else contributing to this thread. This idea is so simple it's ingenious. I have been following this thread for over 2 months and as of 2 weeks ago, I decided to hit this with full force! I have been involved in IM and MLM for a little while with little success and know this is the ticket to making a good income. So I saw this and thought to myself this is something that can work.

In the last few weeks, formed an LLC, created a mockup, compiled a list of potential local small businesses to target, created a script, have a rough draft of a sales contract,etc. Hopefully, I will only be about 2 weeks out before I can go to print.

I am going to try and expand on the advertising a little further. As part of the sales pitch, I am offering them services (upsells) on other avenues of advertisements such as ppc, online advertising, social media, etc. but my main priority is to sell them the ad on the postcard. If needed, I can create them a website but that will be another aspect of upsells once I get my foot in the door and the customer is comfortable with me and has seen that I have delivered them new and repeat customers.

I am wanting to do at least 2 cards per month until I get a little more established and can outsource some of the work and then get to maybe 4-6 card per month targeting other cities in my vicinity.

For anyone who has tried this, are you selling to the same customers every time or do you target different customers per mailing?
Are you getting repeat business?
Has anyone had success using a salesperson on a commission?
If so, what is a good commission to offer?

I am confident that this will work. My only bugaboo is having to do the sales. I am not a sales person. That's part of the reason I failed in MLM but I know this is different.

DiSossa

I want to thank you Bob Ross, seriously. Im just gratuated, and me and my gratuation partner are going to do this.
Ive already talked to a friend of mine, who is a business owner in my village, and he is SO enthousiastic.
He will arrange a presentation for me in front of all the businesses in my village, so that is in front almost 60 company's.
We are having plans to deliver to 7000 people for a price of €200 per coupon spot, per month (with a minimum of 3), and on the back we will place a couple of adds, we dont have decided to what price yet.

So thank you Bob Ross!

click here if you need CUSTOM HQ Amazon PRODUCT VIDEOS!

RRG

You will need to spend $10,000 to get started.

I can help you with that. Let me know.

RRG

As to the front and back issue:

There is no front and back.

If you design your card properly, it's "this side" and "that side."

And the ads can be designed so one coupon being clipped leaves the coupon on the other side unscathed.

RRG

Let's face it: no one is going to click on your spammy sig links. How do you justify such a lame approach?

laundrysoap

My efforts have been productive but not yet successful since Monday - yesterday I did very little because I had a lot of personal errands to take care of:

Went in and talked with someone at about 20 businesses (less than I'd like but it's a start)

Dropped off information to two owners who had requested it today

Sent an email to the owner of an optometry practice that advertises HEAVILY after a phone survey with the office manager -- no response yet but I feel that's a hot lead just by virtue of the fact that they do a lot including direct mail already

Spoke with the owner of a "everything's a dollar" store that is opening Saturday, she's obviously very busy, but had spent money on radio ads for the grand opening and doesn't feel it targeted who she needed it to... Promised to call me back after reading my info packet which I actually believe because we had a great, long regular old conversation. Pretty much the same story at a gift shop that offers a lot of specials on Facebook.

The sales pipeline has begun to flow, my friends. I really haven't had one negative response yet, so I am fully convinced that in due time and by cultivating contact information when the decision maker is unavailable, I will be able to fill a card and make ALL of us a lot of money.

somacorellc

I'm revisiting this idea because one of my clients needs a boost in a "smaller" area. I do mainly SEO stuff for local businesses, but one of my clients wants to target an area in a smaller city just outside our main city. That city gets like no search volume, instead they search for the main city when they want to find something.

The solution is that we need to spread the word that my client exists in the smaller city so they'll know to look for him there. There's really no other way to do this than traditional advertising at this time since search volume and social media can only take you so far.

So then I got thinking - I bet some of my other clients would appreciate having a mailing to about 10,000 homes in that area, and it would save my initial client the burden of having the full cost of the flyer on him, plus we could put out a bigger flyer for less money with the Bob Ross method.

I have about 6 clients at the moment, so getting them to pay about $300 each for an ad spot is a no-brainer and I bet they all know some people...

If each of my 6 clients signs up, and they each refer one business and they sign up, that means I only need to personally wrangle 4 new clients on my own. I can probably do that in an afternoon! I might even put an ad for my business on there - score!

That said, don't make this any more difficult than it is - use the excellent resources in this thread and put together a 2-3 week timeline for getting this done. You all know people that run businesses, talk to them first. Get some people on board and ask for referrals. This should be cake. I'll keep you guys updated on my progress.

You'll find that you very rarely will get a negative response, even if you're cold calling. People are generally friendly.

Web Design Columbia SC

sodomojo

Greg did you end up doing your April Mailer like you had planned?

Daley

I just found this thread, Now I know what I am going to do tonight. Sounds interesting. I went to the last page, Did this turn into a WSO?

Thanks Dale

mcpdontknow

Has anyone successfully done this for a few mailings? I just ordered my second round. The first time I mailed out I didn't give myself enough time to sell and made the decision to print one sided. I lost money but I think it may pay off. This second edition, I practically broke even but selling the spots is a lot harder than it seems everyone else is letting on. I would love to hear from someone else who has actually tried this.

J smith

I am in a similar situation to you mcpdontknow. Didn't give myself enough time at first so had to push it back by about a month. Then I didn't account for fickle business owners (the number of people who say "Oh yea, this sounds really good, we'll probably want to do this, give me a call in a week or two and I'll let you know for sure" to the number of people that actually sign up seems to be about 5-10 to 1)

So it looks like I won't have enough spots sold this time around either, but I can't push it back any more, so I'll just have to eat a loss. I am doing some per client type deals with a few local companies just to get them on the postcard (more businessses = more useful postcard to people who get it, plus I should be able to make at least some money from leads/sales they generate)

I should have enough to fill up the card for the next run though, assuming all the current people stay.

bob ross

14.5 cents now, the postage increased but it's no big deal.

I just completed over a dozen interviews of people who have at least one card out, with many of them at 5+. One guy is on his 13th card since January. I'm on my 6th personally.

I can't spill their exact methods because it's published privately and I don't have their permission but most of them are using social media and email to quickly get advertisers. With a good prospecting system in place you should have at least 16 spots filled in two or three weeks, with only a few hours per week work.

For a first card, there definitely should be some extra time factored in to prospect especially considered printing. If you plan to prospect today (end of June), you should be planning your card to hit doors around July 15th and an expiration of either 7/30 or 8/30.

You should not need to break even, you should be at least $2,000 profit even if you can't fill the spaces. Somewhere there's something you need to fine tune, most likely with your pitch and how you're demonstrating value.

Congratulations for getting to a second round though, it's great that you went out and took action! It's also good that you have proof of other local businesses advertising to use as leverage.

You've got to build urgency in your pitch and make them an offer that's difficult to refuse. That way the think about it objection gets handled better. Good job though getting a card out!


Yes we've had a bunch of products related to this system created. This thread has tons of info though!

mcpdontknow

I don't want to make this sound any less promising than it is. This is an amazing opportunity for everyone and Bob Ross, you deserve so much credit for putting this out for everyone. But I have to say, if someone thinks they can easily run this alone while working a full-time 9 to 5 job, they're kidding them self. You need someone out there doing your running around (selling, collecting checks, getting ads approved). The reason I messed up so bad on the first round is because I couldn't get any ads sold without promising an urgent deadline and giving a huge discount. But I was okay with that, because it was an investment that would give me real results from local businesses and it created GREAT relationships with most of the owners. The feedback was fantastic and most of my new customers are referrals from happy customers!

bob ross

thanks a lot for the nice words, I do appreciate it a ton.

I do have to respectfully disagree with you about being able to do this easily while working a 9-5. I'll try to get some of the private members to offer their experience on here because I know they don't really frequent this thread anymore.

Caroline for example is a stay at home with 2 kids and managed to put two cards out working 5 hours per week, and Chris H. works a 9-5 with a one hour commute each way and managed to sell his first card out in 4 weeks with one week being at the beach.

Email prospecting is really the answer to this. Now I have to agree with you about all the running around because that's how it was for me when I first started but with the knowledge that's out now there's no reason someone shouldn't be able to do it all within a few hours a week.

J smith

"You've got to build urgency in your pitch and make them an offer that's difficult to refuse. That way the think about it objection gets handled better. Good job though getting a card out!"

Can be pretty hard to create urgency when most business owners don't even want to talk to you. Granted maybe I should change my pitch from "High my Name is _________, I own a local marketing company and we have a new, exciting product coming out. The product is ...." to something more crafty and exciting (your wso did provide some good pitches.)
But I duno, I am fairly bad at small talk and I just feel if I am asking for a business owner, they want to know what do I want, not have a discussion with me about their business. (certainly some do want to talk about their business)

Just seems most business owners don't make a connection between marketing and more business. I mean, here's a company (local deli meat store) they advertise in a bunch of print stuff, supposedly get good results. I get the owner to say yes, if you spend 1k on advertising and get 3-5k from it, wouldn't you want to advertise more. yet, he manages to follow up on that with "but we've been in business for years, so we are looking to cut our advertising spend"

Anyway, sorry for a bit of venting, but it can get pretty annoying. I guess it's just a matter of going to enough businesses, seeing who you can connect beest and who's most interested, and then working with those owners.

I am curious though how do people use socal media to fill up spots (well, LinkedIn I suppose can be used for that) and my experience with email so far has been that no one ever replies to it or even looks at it.

Just talked to a guy who'll be on the next postcard but couldn't make it on this one (not enough time for a franchise to get it all done) I sent him an email about a month ago and he never saw it. If I've called or visited his business instead he'd be on this postcard. So email seems pretty horrible way to get to business owners.

yellowarmour

Great idea. Thanks for sharing

bob ross

You're absolutely correct about the urgency thing, you can't expect owners to commit right then and there unless there's a strong reason to do it now and not later.

You're right about how frustrating it can be to get owners to correlate marketing with more business too.

I'm a social media idiot and never thought it could work but there's a few people who totally convinced me otherwise. If you can build a strong relationship with your community and businesses, it definitely works as a lead generator.

I never thought that prospecting by cold email would work either but I swear there's people doing it using email as their prime method. Yes you have to send A LOT out.

Maximizing email, direct mail, social media, cold calling, referrals, and cold walk-ins can all be used together in combinations so that you don't run into the issues like you mentioned, where one method didn't reach someone but another did.

I don't do much email prospecting myself but my biggest spot sold ($2700) was through email and I was turned down on the phone prior by them.

I also was turned down on the phone by one advertiser but I walked in one day (even though he had a "no-soliciting" sign) and he told me he only deals with salespeople who come talk to him face to face. He said if they have the balls to walk in here and talk to me then they deserve it. He's one of my best repeat advertisers and now a friend.

So the point is, don't be quick to dismiss other methods because they all work, and they work even better when you combine them together strategically.