Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
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Transcript of Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Promotional flyers and coupons are growing in usage, and have been increasingly popular with the public for more than a century
– On the plus-side, done right, they often work well in the healthcare marketing mix, but it's easy to make mistakes
– Here are some of the classic mistakes to avoid and how to make the humble coupon into a revenue-producing annuity
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Q. Want to clear a room full of doctors quickly? • A. Tell them you are going to put their faces on
coupons (or billboards) – To a large extent, they'd be right to leave the room – Coupons aren't right for everyone
• However, a secret few doctors will tell you is that coupons can work extremely well for retail, consumer direct services – What's more, we often advertise the business or service,
not the doctor – Advertising Coupons and Flyers have been around since
C.W. Post first included a penny-off voucher with Grape-nuts cereal, and a druggist used handwritten notes offering a free sample of his new product, Coca-Cola
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Safe to say...both products have done reasonably well in the hundred-plus years since – And the humble coupon—which is rarely handwritten these days—
remains one of the most effective forms of direct response advertising
• Coupons and flyers (as well as many other forms of direct mail) are a serious option for some healthcare marketing plans – Valpak, Valassis, PennySaver, Clipper Magazine, and Money Mailer are
among the familiar names – You can also run inserts in the local newspaper – The cost is affordable, because printing and mailing is often shared
among several advertisers – Most mailing service companies know how to closely target audience
groups, usually by neighborhood or ZIP Code • Plus, it's easy to test, track and measure results
– What's more, coupons usage is up as consumers are increasingly concerned about value and well-considered spending
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• While they aren't for everyone, coupons and flyers can be highly effective if used in smart ways – For example, sometimes we'll advise a plastic surgeon to open a small
medi-spa, and then promote non-scary services via a coupon – The idea is not so much to generate revenue from medi-spa services,
but build a low cost, long-term feeder for surgeries – Thus, patients will take "baby steps" into the practice for something
non-threatening like Botox, but while they are there ask about liposuction
• So coupons can work, but only if they're done right – The down-side is...it's easy to make mistakes – To help keep you out of trouble, here are some of the classic
problems that traditionally transform coupons from marketing high-flyers into a muddled mess (And what to do instead)
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t Go for everyone, everywhere – The distribution list that you select can make or break your
results, and casting an indiscriminate wide net is the wrong approach
– At least 40% of the success in direct mail advertising is connected to the list used
– Carefully and precisely define your target audience by ZIP Code, demographics, buying patterns—right down to the neighborhood or side of the street
– It doesn't make sense, for example, to include apartment/rental districts if you want to reach up-scale homeowners
– Targeting "everyone" reaches no one
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t Use a weak offer (or no offer)
– Another sure-to-bomb approach is to neglect the offer
– Chalk-up a further 40% of your success rate (or failure risk) to the offer you present
– The offer is the engine of flyers and coupons, so make it attention-getting, compelling and irresistible
– Anything less is guaranteed fruitless time, effort, and results
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t make the design really pretty; something that only appeals to you – If you've done the math, the missing 20% of
effectiveness (in addition to LIST and OFFER) is in the 'creative'
– But don't confuse "pretty" with what's effective – More over, you are not the target audience, so what
appeals to you may not be effective with the target audience
– By the way, this is a toughie, so ask for our help with a critique
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t exhaustively list everything you do
– A full range of services is good to have, but keep your message tightly connected to the specific offer and focused on the target audience
– There's not much space on a coupon, and an individual's needs are individual
– Save the secondary and tertiary capabilities for the first office visit (or a separate coupon)
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t use your name or profession as the headline
– With due respect, friends and relatives already know your name, but prospective patients or clients want an answer to a problem
– Provide a benefit-laden headline about a precise need for a target audience
– It's not "all about you," it's all about what the patient/audience can get (Solve their problem)
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t Do it once, don't test, and quit early
– Direct mail has a lot of moving parts, but they are easy to test—change headline, change offer, change list sources
– If something works, do more
– Otherwise stop and adjust
– It's a process that tells you what works best, and shapes a formula for repeatable success
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t do exactly what the competition is doing
– First, odds are that the competition may be making mistakes
– The bigger mistake, however, is that copy-cat efforts are exactly opposite of differentiating yourself from the competition
– And worse...you've taken your eyes off the all-important target audience
– Speak clearly to them; don't be an echo
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• Don’t let your gut tell you how well it's working – Your guts are probably wonderful, but they can't
beat diligent tracking and calculating a true Return-on-Investment
– When you rely only on your emotions as a measure of effectiveness—good or bad—you're probably wrong
– The nature of flyers and coupons makes it easy to do the math
Avoid Direct Marketing Mistakes
• The primary objective of direct response advertising is to get the attention of a defined and desired target audience, and to inspire an immediate response
• It sounds easier than it is