Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’. The featured article by Troy White is titled “How About a 75% Open Rate with Them Apples?”. [Article]


Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’.

The featured article:

How About a 75% Open Rate with Them Apples?

by Troy Whit

Fellow Business-Builder,

Some interesting stuff in the past week.

Love to see the immense interest, passion, and emotions flaring up over some of The Total Package articles.

My question to some of those who commented on those posts … “Do you put the same amount of time and passion into your marketing?”

I sure hope so!

Amazing how much passion is being put into debating some of Daniel and Clayton’s posts.

If some of those who are leaving page-long comments are investing half that time in their marketing, they would most certainly never be without lots of paying customers.

As well, thanks for the great feedback and ideas left based on my “Going Postal” article from last week.

I found some great stuff in the past week I wanted to share.

First, a quote that I loved:

“Not everyone actively uses e-mail or has a MySpace or Facebook page, but they have a mailing address and they do want to know about sales, particularly right now with the state of the economy.”

– Jon Berg, Web sales and marketing manager for gravitypope.com

That’d be me!

Someone who has e-mail (a flaky e-mail account at best), but doesn’t respond to sales pitches from it … very rarely anyhow.

Let’s talk about inexpensive ways to get to your buyers:
Are you leveraging community newspapers?
And yes, this does apply if you are in a business-to-business market. You just have to look at what papers and newsletters (print ones) are going out to your ideal target market.

But, if you are targeting consumers, have a look at these numbers:

Community newspapers reach:

77% of affluent Canadians
75% of women
76% of parents
75% of homeowners*
(Community Media Special Report 2008)

(This is from a study in Canada, but the numbers would be the same anywhere else for those using quality community newsletters).

Who reads them?

The most recent survey showed that 74 percent of Canadian adults read the last issue of their community paper. That figure was even higher in some provinces; in Saskatchewan, it was a record 83 percent. The study also revealed that 76 percent of adults with household incomes over $75K are regular readers, as are most adults with a university education. 50 percent of the surveyed readers do not read any daily newspaper at all.

Think about this now.

If you target a higher income family that you cannot reach via e-mail or newspapers, this is a potential goldmine. 74 percent of your ideal buyers read the community paper regularly. They earn more money, they are better educated, and they are looking for appropriate products and services (see the survey below for more details).

The best part?

The price of community newspapers! To get a quarter-page ad – $50. Full page (with color) – $150. That gets you in front of thousands of targeted prospects (you can choose which community you advertise in by the average income in the community, choose communities that have a higher percentage of golfers, have more than average numbers of school-aged children, or have a significant number of boomers and seniors).

All it takes is a little research on your part and you can tap into a very powerful source of potential buyers.

To add to that … community newspapers are filled with crappy advertising! Yours done right, using the information you pick up for free through The Total Package, and you can get some exceptional results.

Definitely worthy of some testing.

Right now, with the economy as it is, people are traveling less and spending more time at home, and in their yards. What better way to reach them than through a paper that 74% of them open every chance they get.

Try and get that through e-mail!

One other inexpensive marketing tool at your disposal
The lowly flyer
What amazes me with these little unsung heroes of direct marketing is the sheer impact you can get with minimal dollars invested.

Here in Canada, we can send “unaddressed admail” to as many homes or businesses as we want for $0.11/per piece. So, we can go to 1,000 businesses for $111.

Where else can you get that breadth of distribution? For that price?

Especially now that you can do geographic and demographic targeting of those businesses and individuals?

Thompson Rivers University received a 1.43% response rate to its latest flyer campaign! Higher than the industry average for addressed direct mail … at a fraction of the price.

“The sheer volume and ability to geo-target by postal code keeps my cost per inquiry low and, in general, helps to build brand awareness.”

““ Thompson Rivers University

These days, you can also very selectively target
who receives your flyers …
Let’s say, for instance, you want to target upper-class households in central Canada with an interest in golf?

Targeting like this is not only possible, but cost-effective because it eliminates unreceptive audiences. Again, for $0.11/home.

There are firms that do this for little charge … and are a goldmine of great information for you.

Imagine the power you hold in your hands when you combine neighborhood community newspapers, combined with flyers.

You could be blanketing an entire community (or city) for very little money out of pocket.

You can select exactly the type of demographic you want reading it.

You can target their interests and hobbies.

And, you can dominate your industry using little used techniques like this.

It doesn’t all have to be through e-mail or in-house database work.

This is a VERY effective way to generate sales
and build your prospect database …
… Using very targeted, very effective tools available at your disposal.

If you have recently used these types of tools, let me know. I would love to hear what you did, how it worked, and if you used it to its fullest ability.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Trying times call for more interaction and help from you!

To your success,

Daniel Levis

Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor

THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

The Total Package

*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Clayton Makepeace for granting permission to reprint this article.