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A refreshing alternative

Those of you that have carried out a direct mail campaign will probably recognise some of these problems...

Direct Mail ActionDirect Mail Problem(s)
You need to send your direct mail piece to a group of interested prospects

There are two problems here for the company running a direct mail campaign...

  • You need to find a list of people that are potentially interested in your product and buy that mailing list
  • A number of these people could be interested in your offer, but will not be ready to buy. So your mailing piece will be filed away and forgotten
You need to lay out your direct mail piece, then send it away to be printed

This brings another set of problems for the company running a direct mail campaign...

  • Your direct mail piece needs to be printed, so you need to factor in lead time for this
  • Printing is expensive. Direct mail pieces often cost between £1 and £2 each to print.
  • If the printing company makes a mistake, this will cost time. If the mistake is your fault, this will cost you extra money too.
You need to post your direct mail piece

This brings a final set of problems for the company running a direct mail campaign...

  • Stuffing envelopes and posting them is a significant logistical exercise.
  • The company has to pay for postage

 

That sounds like a lot of effort when you know that 98% of your work is going to go straight in the bin. And worse still, you have absolutely no idea why that 98% of people that read your direct mail piece dumped it.

Search Engine Marketing ... an alternative to Direct Mail

Let's look at the problems the direct mail campaign gave us, and see how search engine marketing compares...

Direct Mail ActionSearch Engine Marketing Advantage

You need to send your direct mail piece to a group of interested prospects

Unlike with direct mail, you never buy lists of people that just "might be interested" in your product.

You use tools to find popular phrases typed into the Internet's search engines. You use this data to design a web site that will attract people interested in your business.

When these people come to you, they are more likely to be interested in your offers.
You need to lay out your direct mail piece, then send it away to be printed

Not a problem. Once you have designed your direct mail piece, it is just uploaded to your web site.

No printing. And if there is a mistake in the copy, you just change it on your web site. You don't waste thousands of printed direct mail pieces.

You need to post your direct mail piece

No postage either. And better still...

  • Targeted visitors can be purchased for your web site. A visitor will often be less than the cost of just the postage on a direct mail piece.
  • There are also many ways of drawing targeted visitors to your web site for nothing.

 

Superior Trackability

Another key advantage search engine marketing has over direct mail is trackability.

When a potential client opens a direct mail piece and throws it in the bin (or files it away for later reference), you don't have many clues. The feedback direct mail gives you is limited.

When a visitor comes to your web site, you can often tell...

  • Exactly what they typed into the search engine that passed them to you
  • Where they came from
  • How long they looked around your site for, and which pages they visited
  • Which page they left from
  • You can adjust the layout of your web site so that this speaks volumes about why people are not buying from you. This is an extremely powerful tool.

Need more Information?

Want to know more about search engine marketing? Please feel free to email us on info@storevalley.co.uk or contact us using one of the other methods on this page.

Store Valley Internet Services, 31 Silverwood Close, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR33 7LX, UK. Telephone: +44 (0)1502 584888. Email: info@storevalley.co.uk