If you are a small business owner or are self employed, you have no doubt run into the challenges of designing a newspaper ad, sales pitch, or direct mail campaign. The tough part is deciding how much information to advertise, and many such marketing campaigns fall short or fail due to a lack of basic planning.
Whether you are soliciting prospects by telephone, direct mail, door to door, television, radio, or internet, the campaign must be appropriate. What is your particular goal? Would you like your prospect to pick up the phone and call you? To visit your store? To send in a tear-off post card requesting information? The answer will determine how much, and what information should be advertised.
Here’s a good example that illustrates the point: Several years ago, I had some great success with a direct-mail campaign I designed for my business. I mailed out 3,000 postcards at a time to a list of prospects. My goal was simple – to get them to call so that I could set an appointment to meet with them and demonstrate my company’s services.
The postcard was simple – on one side, it had a picture with a catchy slogan, and on the reverse, a list of features and benefits of our services. On the bottom, it said, “call today for more info,” and listed our phone number. We got many phone calls, which led to appointments and sales.
A friend of mine who is a business owner tried the same thing, but did not get the same results. Frustrated, he asked me to look at his postcard to determine the reason for the lack of calls. As soon as I looked at it, I realized the problem – in an attempt to seem more professional, he listed his website on the post card. Since it was much easier for the prospect to simply look at his website and get the info, only a few people called and therefore there were not many appointments set.
This was a missed opportunity to speak to the prospect personally and gain her trust. Had my friend planned by asking himself, “What is the purpose of this postcard?” he would have realized that it is sometimes appropriate to include less information. In sales and marketing, there are times to saturate your campaign with information, and other times, it seems, less is more.