Chapter 2: Research Target Market

Research can be as in depth as actually phoning some of people in target market and conducting surveys, or it is often as simple as talking to your client about his experiences with past customers. Start with easiest action and survey your client. Here are some good questions to ask:

1. What do your top five customers have in common?

By this I mean, what do your top five customers' orders have in common. Do they all purchase a certain add on? Is there a service that none of them take advantage of? This will help tell you what a "good customer" actually is to that client.

2. What is most-often-stated benefit of your service?

Is it product? Is it service? Is it price? Ask them, they know and you need to know for obvious reasons.

3. What do they think is most beneficial part of their service to their customer?

Many companies have already done research, or have been doing it long enough to just give you information out right.

It is not always obvious what is going to be benefit that is going to pull most response. Use your three assets (Reasoning, Experience and Research) to get as close as possible. As time goes on you will build up your experience, but in beginning you will need to rely more heavily on your Reasoning and Research. And easiest and fastest thing you can do is to “BE” target market.

Now back to targeted family that we want to refinance their home. Pretend you are a family man or woman with a household income of $75k with revolving debt of $15K and you’ve got two kids! Kids can be pretty expensive. So, why would you like to refinance?

Chapter 3: You Want Customer to do WHAT?

Since you've now figured out what customer needs to hear to be interested, next you need to figure out what it is you want from them. What are you trying to accomplish? Sometimes it is as simple as getting them to go to your website for more information. Other times you are looking for them to pick up phone and actually place an order. Whatever it is that you want them to do you need to state it clearly on promo piece.

For example, if you want them to call and talk to a representative, card should very clearly say "Call today and speak to one of our representatives for more details." This simple statement tells customer exactly what you want them to do. It even tells them when to call - "today". Believe it or not, people like to be told exactly what to do in advertising. You should make it easy as possible to make requested action. The more your prospects have to think, less likely they are to actually act.

Another key part of call to action is supplying proper accompanying information along with request. In this case, phone number should be prominent and be closest element to your call to action. Common sense would seem to tell you that as long as phone number is somewhere on promo they will find it and give you a call. The reality is that if number isn't right there for them to see, your response rate will drop considerably.

Make sure that call to action is bold and easy to understand. And keep any important contact information in close proximity to call to action.

These are three most important steps that a graphic designer needs to take to make a piece that will be aesthetic and pull at same time. Pull = a call, a walk-in, a buy, a response – all for more money in their door. Which, by way, gets you remunerated for your services and is actually your exchange for a job well done. Their customers buying means your customers are pleased and wanting more of your services. And it’s a happier, prospering world.

Then Sun Pacific will send out mailings of a couple of thousand postcards once or twice a month to current or past clients, and another 3-4,000 to prospective borrowers every week, handling all mailing in house. They use large (4 1/4” by 6”) full-color, laminated postcards which look very attractive.

“We went to postcards a few years ago because I got sick of doing bulk mailings using envelopes,” Forest admits. Folding letters and sealing envelopes is pretty labor intensive. Postcards cost less and mail costs are lower.

Forest attributes a full 20% of his business to postcard mailings which account for majority of their spending on print advertising/promotion for year. “Because of magic formula that business comes in in proportion to postcards and other forms of promotion that go out, we get results from all quarters,” he says.

Outsourcing:

The above example includes networking with title companies and handling large mailings in house but this is something to work up to if you want to go that route. Few mortgage brokers have an in-house marketing department and it can be time-consuming and overwhelming to take on all of these aspects of getting postcards mailed out using existing personnel who are already busy dealing with loans and paperwork.

A good postcard company can handle entire mailing and save you money in process. They make their money from printing postcards, not from consulting, selling mailing lists, mailing and so on. So they can give you better deals on these other services where needed.

Having postcard company do mailing from you has an additional benefit of saving on shipping. Printed matter is quite heavy and shipping 10,000 postcards across country is not that cheap. If it is mailed from postcard company direct these shipping charges are avoided.

Sharp Mortgages Inc. of Jacksonville started using postcards in 2001, having used every other form of advertising and promotion. They sent out two initial mailings of 10,000 postcards each and have ordered another 50,000 so it must be working. “We let postcard company handle mailing,” says Bill Sharp Snr. who handles their advertising. “With all other things we have to do, we find that it’s easier to let them handle mailing than to tie up our time in here.”

Don’t be put off by thought of all extra work involved for your already too busy personnel. In long run it might save you a lot of money to pay a little extra for postcard company to take entire process off your hands from design and print through to mailing.

How to get going with postcards.

So, assuming postcards are way to go, where do you start? A. Find a postcard company to help you.

This company must:

1. SPECIALIZE IN POSTCARDS, not just do postcards among other printing jobs. You will get better service and a better product. It will cost much less because they are printing your postcard along with many other customers’ postcards and can “gang print” them which means they print many different postcards on one large sheet of card and it’s only one press run.

2. Have some MARKETING KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE. They should be able to advise you on mailing lists, design, quantities and so on. The better ones offer a full range of services from advice through design, assistance with photography, printing and mailing.

3. Postcards they produce should be UV COATED (laminated), FULL COLOR, 4 1/4” x 6” so you get biggest size card you can for lowest mail rate and they really look good. The UV coating is essential for a very high gloss finish that really makes postcard stand out and attract attention.

4. Above all you need to know that you are going to get RESULTS. Percentage of response is not real measure of success as this varies from industry to industry and area to area. What you want to determine is return on investment. If you spend $2,500 all inclusive to send out a 10,000 postcard mailing and get 200 calls as a result, and convert even 10 of those into mortgage purchases, then mailing was a terrific investment. So you need to look at big picture and check for results in terms of return on investment.

When choosing a postcard company to handle your mailing, it’s a good idea to get some names and phone numbers of their customers and call them up to get some first hand information on how good company is: do they deliver good service and value for money?

Once you have found right provider (it doesn’t have to be local – better ones work on a national basis and do business with companies all over USA) get their advice on producing postcard. They will help you with all steps.

B. Decide whether you want them to handle mailing for you (see section above on outsourcing).

C. Decide whether you are going to mail to your existing customers or to mailing lists of potential customers or both.

Procurement of mailing lists an important point. Sending out postcards to 10,000 random homeowners by zip code is not going to get same response as sending 10,000 postcards to qualified homeowners of type that you specialize in (conventional, subprime, refinances, etc.). You can buy mailing lists that are quite specific. Your biggest expense is going to be postage. It’s worth spending a little extra money to make sure your message gets to qualified potential mortgage purchasers in category that you want to deal with. The postcard company should be able to help you with choice and purchase of mailing lists.

D. Decide on content of card. Again, a good postcard company will have experience with this and can offer valuable advice. They’ve probably worked with other mortgage brokers and know what works and what doesn’t.

E. Get card produced. They will send you proofs. Get any needed corrections made so that you are happy with them.

F. Get them mailed out.

G. Sit back and make most of response.

H. Plan your next mailing and repeat steps.

After you’ve done a few mailings you will get a better idea of what works and you can refine your campaign.

This is a proven, tried and tested, workable approach to increasing sales through direct mail using color postcards.