How the Seasons Affect Your Direct Mail Campaigns

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For the best results from your direct mail campaigns, learn how responses vary according to the time of year.

Some direct mail marketers focus so much on what they mail to whom, that they lose sight of another variable that’s just as important: when they mail. In my experience, most industries have a good time of year to mail (when they get stellar results), and a bad one (when you wonder if anyone out there is listening).

Do you know which season is best for you?

While you may have a general idea of good times to mail, you may not know those weeks or months to avoid – when your response rate falls like a stone. As an example, one of my clients mails sales letters about commodities. You know, corn, wheat, sugar, etc. They teach people how to trade commodities based on technical principles.

As you can imagine, one of our target prospects for this offer is farmers. The idea is that they can learn how to “hedge” their crops by buying and selling commodities. This makes them less vulnerable to changing market conditions. When I first started mailing this commodity offer to farmers, I had tremendous success. But…it didn’t last! After a few months, the response rate dropped off the table, to almost zero. Why?

After testing exhaustively, month after month, I figured out the problem. It was very simple. Farmers were NOT responsive during their harvest season.

Why? They are working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week. They don’t have time to read the mail. Or think about learning something new. But…they are HIGHLY responsive in the off-season, after the harvest. Knowing about this seasonality allowed me to aggressively mail farmers in the off-season, and avoid mailing them during harvest season.

Here’s another example. If you are a financial planner, do you know the best and worst times of year to mail?

Financial planners get the worst response rates during holidays – Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July, etc. Their response is especially poor in November and December when most families are super busy planning and spending their money on gifts, travel, and food. What’s the BEST time for financial planners to mail? The first quarter of every year. January is best since families are evaluating their finances, and trying to find better ways to save and manage their money.

I send out over 250 mailings per year. I ALWAYS have something in the mail – every day, every week. I’ve identified money-making seasons for dozens of industries. And by mailing at just the right times, we are able to make the most out of our mailing. Experiment with small mailings and compare responses over time.

Armed with information on the best times to mail, you can make the best use of your advertising budget.

Saving the Earth, One Email at a Time

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Traditional marketing practices tend to use a lot of paper. Consider how you can make operations more sustainable with digital communications.

Marketing is not exactly known for being an eco-friendly industry. In fact, the U.S. uses about 68 million trees each year to produce 17 billion catalogs and 65 billion pieces of direct mail, according to the American Forest and Paper Association. However, as the world becomes increasingly more digital, marketers have an opportunity to use digital tools to boost their environmental sustainability and turn this reputation around.

Many businesses plant trees to celebrate Earth Day; however, marketers who instead champion digital communication within their companies will benefit from a sustainable practice that can become a foundational part of their business. Consider the following best practices to help your company become more environmentally friendly for a sustainable future.

Move from direct mail to email.

When it comes to eco-friendly behaviors, some industries are better — and some worse — than others. Real estate, for instance, is notoriously old-fashioned in its marketing habits, relying predominantly on direct mail to reach customers. On the other hand, retailers who have embraced the shift to ecommerce tend to lean toward digital marketing to communicate with their customers. Internet retailers, in particular, generate very little paper across their business practices, delivering receipts, catalogs and other solicitations electronically.

Reducing your reliance on direct mail to reach customers will have a significant impact on the amount of paper waste your business creates. Shift your focus toward email, and consider how your current marketing content could be delivered electronically. Could a digital newsletter replace a brochure, or an emailed promotion replace a print mailing? Begin introducing QR codes to your print mailings that, when scanned on a smartphone, lead prospects to a landing page where they can easily enter their email address to receive digital communications. Use your traditional marketing pieces to promote your email list generation, and show your customers how they’re supporting your commitment to the environment. Taking that first step to digital might keep thousands of trees firmly rooted where they stand, and drastically reduce paper mailings from ending up as landfill.

Switch to scannable content.

While the restaurant industry has, for the most part, made the initial transition to electronic communication, they’re still lagging behind other industries in how they’re using it sustainably. Restaurants frequently send digital coupons and promotions to their customers but require customers to print them for redemption. While the communication to the customer has minimal environmental impact, the customer becomes the culprit doing damage to the environment.

Make sure the coupons and offer codes you distribute via email can be scanned and redeemed directly from a smartphone or other mobile device. Use responsive design tools to ensure your entire message and the offers it contains are easy to read and scan regardless of the device. Think about ways you can entice your customers to use digital devices for redemption, such as extending a better offer like free delivery to those who don’t print. If your business has an ecommerce site in addition to a physical location, consider whether that promotion can be used online as well as in store, and give clear instructions for both use cases.

Transition processes to an online portal.

Amazon is a force of nature, driving seismic shifts in the ecommerce, marketing and fulfillment industries. The company is setting the stage for how to do business digitally today, and one way Amazon’s influence has reduced paper waste is through the company’s online portal to manage workflow processes. Rather than mail hard copies of receipts and product manuals with new purchases, Amazon gives customers access to digital versions of these materials through their online accounts. These records can be accessed anytime and anywhere, and they track a deep purchase history so customers need not worry about losing documents.

If your business has an online component, consider how building out a customer-facing portal could cut down on overall paper waste. Migrate workflows for receipts, instructions and manuals to this portal, and make it accessible through many mediums like web browsers, devices and even apps. Help your customers understand that they’ll always have access to the documents they need and that their use of your portal is benefiting a greater good — the environment.

Transitioning your marketing efforts to be digital-based might take a bit longer than planting a tree, but the impact on the environment can be similarly enduring. If you can’t get your hands dirty this Earth Day, think about how a few changes to your marketing practices can affect the world around you. We can all do our part by taking steps towards an environmentally sustainable future.

How Direct Marketing Can Improve Your Business

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With the growth of the Internet, businesses have additional opportunities to market their products on a smaller marketing budget. Those that have achieved the greatest success are the ones that have successfully integrated online marketing with other Direct Marketing channels. Why? Because Direct Marketing channels are where buyers and sellers transact business and communicate on smaller budgets without ever meeting face-to-face or touching and feeling the merchandise. To make more effective use of online opportunities, marketers should do a “deeper dive” into Direct Marketing. The most commonly recognized Direct Marketing channels in historical order are:

  1. Direct Mail,
  2. Telemarketing,
  3. Direct Response Advertising,
  4. Internet, or online, marketing.

Direct Mail

In the United States, the roots of Direct Mail can be traced to Benjamin Franklin who used it to market Poor Richard’s Almanac throughout the American colonies starting in 1732. Direct Mail continued to flourish with the creation of the Montgomery Ward catalog in 1872 and the Sears catalog in 1888. These catalogs were popular since a large segment of the American population lived outside of cities and towns that had stores with sufficient product choices. As more people migrated to cities and suburbs, direct mail became popular for those that wanted to shop anonymously or could not easily travel to available stores. In its best form, Direct Mail provides a convenient way for prospects to receive information about products they want and order them without leaving the comfort of their home or office. In its worst form, organizations send unwanted mailings to people that are not interested in the products being promoted. Of course, unwanted mailings are known as “junk” mail. Their electronic equivalent is called “spam.”

Telemarketing

Some might argue that telemarketing began with the invention of the telephone, but marketers began to use it on a significant scale in the late 1970s with the introduction of WATS lines for economically calling out to prospective customers and toll-free numbers for prospects to call in without paying for the call. This created the two main components of telemarketing — (1) Inbound (toll-free numbers are provided for customers to call in) and (2) Outbound (telemarketers call prospects). In its best form, companies use outbound telemarketing to answer questions, provide customer service, facilitate the ordering of desired products, and cross-selling (which some mistakenly confuse with up-selling). In its most hated form, strangers and robots “cold call” prospects, interrupt what they are doing, and try to sell them something they do not want. Some uses of outbound telemarketing became so annoying that a law was passed called the Telephone Consumer Protect Act (TCPA) that created a Do Not Call Registry.

Even so, outbound telemarketing can be very effective under the following conditions:

  1. Prospect has given prior permission or wants the company to call,
  2. Product is highly desirable or greatly needed,
  3. Telemarketer is skillful and properly trained,
  4. Telemarketer listens to the desires of the people that answer the phone (rather than try to keep them on the line when they want to end the call).

Direct Response Advertising

Direct Response Advertising is advertising with a goal of getting the prospect to order the product directly from the advertisement. Some examples of direct response advertising are a direct mail piece with a postage-paid business reply card that is used to order the product, a TV ad that provides a toll-free phone number to order, and an email that provides a link to order the product from a Web site.

Internet and Mobile

Perhaps the method that has caused the most explosive growth of Direct Marketing is Internet marketing. There are two main reasons for this – (1) convenience and (2) economics. Even though the Internet is only a “young adult” (in reference to the beginning of its commercial use in 1995), nothing is more convenient or economical than the Internet for researching and ordering products. Even so, those that are using the Internet and related mobile technologies for marketing would be far more effective if they better understood the other Direct Marketing methods described above. Knowing how to use the Internet and its mobile “offspring” in conjunction with direct mail, telemarketing, and direct response advertising can create a synergistic force for marketing products most efficiently and effectively. Some people live online and some people don’t. Those that live on the Internet may not be online when a company needs to get their attention. Additionally, repetition of the information off-line helps them remember any exposure online. Similarly, those that spend most of their time off-line, can learn more about products when off-line marketing drives them online. A poster in a shopping mall, a direct mail post card with a coupon, or a display in a retail store may get their attention. If these offline devices have a link or QR code, prospects can be transported to a Web site that gives them the opportunity to find out more about the product, provides them with reviews from product users, helps them find where they can buy it, and enables them to order it directly. Taking this integration of direct marketing methods further by combining them with other off-line marketing methods can give marketers the greatest power at the lowest cost.

Direct Marketing can lower sales costs.

One powerful example of integrated Direct Marketing used in conjunction other forms of marketing is in the area of personal selling. In a previous post, I talked about the importance of personal selling to success in business. When it comes to promoting products, however, personal selling is also one of the most expensive methods in a marketer’s toolkit. According to the latest studies by McGraw-Hill, it costs $137.02 for an industrial sales call and takes an average of 4.3 calls, or a total cost of $589.18, to close a sale. Since it is not possible to make a fraction of a call, the real-world cost (using 5 calls to close a deal) is $685.10. That might work for selling airplanes and satellite systems to billion-dollar clients. It would be too expensive for selling many other products. That’s the bad news. The good news is that sales people can use the Internet and other Direct Marketing techniques for some (or even all) of the calls — thereby lowering overall sales costs.

Social media

As discussed above, just about everyone is talking about using social media in marketing products. The problem is too many don’t know how to effectively do it. While “earned media” techniques such as hauling videos represent very exciting new ways for promoting products, most of them are experimental and outside the control of your business. In an effort to take advantage of social media without ceding too much control, marketers need to have some understanding of popular social media channels and how to integrate them with other Direct Marketing methods.

  • Facebook has a large number of active users (over 1.86 billion at last count) and a lot of data on users so that advertisers can better target them. Since people go to Facebook to interact with friends and family, they do not like intrusions from companies. However, a lot of friends and family recommend products on Facebook, and company pages are very popular places for prospects to learn about products, discover new uses, find discounts, and share all this with their friends. At the very least, Facebook can make more brand impressions than other media. Companies pay $5.5 million for only 30 seconds of commercial time to reach roughly 110 million Super Bowl viewers one day a year. On Facebook, they have potential to reach a much larger audience at a much lower cost every day of the week. While Facebook limits ad sizes to very small spaces so as not to ruin user experiences, good marketers can make effective use of the space allotted with concise headlines.
  • Twitter is great for those that know how to write good headlines since it limits users to 140 characters. While it accounts for much less Web traffic than Facebook and other social media, Twitter users tend to be more influential. Also, Twitter can easily be linked to other SM sites, such as Facebook, so that if you post on Twitter, your Tweet can automatically appear on Facebook simultaneously. Twitter has proven to be very effective in responding to complaints, rumors, and factual mistakes for damage control and to provide better customer service. Companies that have learned to use Twitter in this way have been able to “turn negatives into positives” and build closer relationships with their constituents.
  • YouTube provides a place for companies large and small to reach their target audience without paying the high “real estate” costs of commercial TV channels. Furthermore, YouTube videos can be shared, and if they go viral, the numbers of viewers that actually watch the commercial can rival and even surpass TV audiences. YouTube viewers can also play the videos over and over again as well as share them with even larger networks of viewers enabling advertisers to make more brand impressions and greater sales.
  • Linked In is good for business markets. The HR departments of businesses use it to find candidates, and businesses can put profiles of their products and white papers on the site, and use it to promote their business. According to Linked In, 43% of marketers have found a customer on Linked In during 2014.

Integrating Social Media

To increase the marketing power of social media, marketers should be sure to integrate it with all other direct and non-direct channels. Direct mail, telemarketing, and direct response advertising should have links to social media, and vice versa. A lot of companies ask market targets to visit their Web site and “like” or “follow” them on social media, but too often they do not provide the benefit for doing so. Similarly, social media rarely ties campaigns to off-line and other direct marketing efforts — missing opportunities for marketing synergy, making additional brand impressions, and increasing sales. Companies with effective campaigns have linked product packaging and off-line media to social and online media. In addition to asking people to “like” or “follow” or visit social media and Web sites, they have given people codes in traditional media and on product packaging that give those that make the effort a chance to win something or save money. The feedback and contact information provided is more than worth the costs of the prize, rebate, or discount, and gives the company a chance to improve the product or add contact information to their database.

Advergaming

Some companies have successfully used Advergaming as a way to tie their media efforts together. When it works best, users have to go online and off for clues that teach them about the benefits of the products and company. They have fun while they are learning, are engaged, and remember the benefits. As a result, brand impressions and reasons to buy the products are better planted in the brains of market targets.

The power of Direct Marketing

Direct marketing has grown in power for a variety of factors that include the following.

  1. Less time. Market targets are busier than ever before since they have to work harder to earn a living.
  2. Less hassles and dangers. Increasing traffic, parking costs, and other hassles have reduced the desire for buyers to go to retail stores to do their shopping.
  3. Less expensive. The costs of buying and marketing products in “non-direct” ways has skyrocketed at the same time that financial disruptions, natural disasters, and government dysfunction has forced buyers to become more frugal.
  4. More convenient. The Internet is perhaps the most convenient way for buyers to research products, comparison shop, and order from their home, office, or mobile device.
  5. Anonymous. Some buyers prefer shopping for certain products anonymously.

Direct Mail Is Alive and Well, Thank You

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Marketing fads come and go. Marketers today have a bewildering array of choices never seen before. Consequently, busy business owners don’t always know who to listen to in order to find what is working most effectively right now. Everyone can claim their systems and tools are the secret to a never-ending stream of prospects and customers.

Is Direct Mail Worth Exploring For Your Business?

Have you noticed that many of the Internet companies (like Google, among others) have been increasingly turning to direct mail to advertise their services? The reason is that old school direct mail worked long before the Internet and has been working for smart marketing in businesses all along. It just happened not to be the flavor of the day, thereby not getting much attention.

Now that the furor and publicity surrounding the “free” aspect of social media marketing has settled into the reality that free doesn’t necessarily equal real customers, smart marketers are looking for real campaigns that result in real customers.

Living Together in Harmony

Leveraging one proven marketing channel is great, but taking advantage of two or more is better. As effective as one channel may be, you limit the potential impact when using a single platform. With an integrated marketing strategy, you position yourself to maximize the real potential of your campaign.

The truth is that direct mail can still deliver real results when done correctly. In fact, direct mail works even better when coupled with email marketing and Internet marketing. When coupled with other channels, direct mail has the capacity to be even more targeted, personalized, and effective than when any of these channels are implemented alone.

To make this work and deliver results, it’s very important that the messaging and branding be consistent across all the channels you use. The logo, tag line, messaging, design, and colors used in one campaign should be reinforced across all media to generate stronger results and a more powerful impression. Consistency allows each campaign to feed off the other and deliver a bigger bang for the investment.

This is how big brands are able to leverage the power of multimedia messaging. Today, with the availability of affordable, short-run digital printing, you don’t need a large budget. It’s realistic and available for businesses of all sizes.

An example of a campaign that works extremely well is a new customer campaign. Nothing shows appreciation like a nicely designed, professional-looking direct mail piece delivered to your new customer soon after they become a client. People know that an email costs nothing to send but that a direct mail piece has a real cost.

Now you can follow that up with some informative emails to educate your new customer about how you can help them solve their problems. In the emails and direct mail pieces, ask your new customer to also connect with your brand on social media. Now you can further develop a bond with your new customer by sharing your values and core messages across all media.

Marketing success is about momentum. An integrated, multidimensional campaign, implemented consistently throughout the year, keeps the marketing ball rolling forward. This allows your business to be fresh on prospects’ minds when they’re ready to buy. The more consistent your brand, marketing message, and integrated approach, the better your results will be.

Your customers consume information in different ways. You can’t guess or assume one is better than another. Showing up in the physical mailbox, in their email inbox, and on the web assures that your brand is leaving no stone unturned. Having an integrated marketing strategy assures your business will be seen and heard. If just showing up is half the battle, then implementing this multidimensional approach is your call to action to make yourself ready for new customers on the business battlefield.

5 Words That Can Change Your Business

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140259547Behind the scenes of your business, you make products or deliver services. But on the front lines, where interactions with customers occur, you have to deliver more than that in order to have a dynamically growing company. You must deliver a promise and hope.

The promise revolves around the benefits your actual products and services deliver. The hope is what can set your business apart from all the other companies that promise to deliver the same things you do.

People want to believe in your company and what you can deliver, but many have become jaded due to the culture of over-promising and under-delivering that is all too common in the marketplace. To get past this wall of skepticism, you have to deliver more.

Companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, Starbucks, and Disney World took off when they figured out they were selling much more than a soft drink, computer, coffee, and theme park rides. These businesses understood that in order to stand apart from their competitors, they had to tell their brand stories in a way that resonates with customers.

Coca-Cola sells refreshment, happiness, and harmony. Apple sells a delightful user experience to consumers in a hip, cool way. Starbucks sells the “third place experience” — a place to get away outside our home and business. Disney World sells memories that last a lifetime.

The common theme among the great brands of the world is that they have found a way to transcend beyond their products by asking this simple, yet powerful five-word question:

What are we really selling?

People aren’t really interested in what you sell, but they may be very interested in the benefits you can deliver. These benefits in turn must be told in a way that attracts and connects with your target audience.

How You Can Apply This in Your Business?

You’re probably thinking to yourself that this may do wonders for big brands, but how does it apply to my small business?

  • Take a step back from the day-to-day operations of the business, and think about what you’re really selling. Railroad companies thought they were in the rail business, when they were really in the transportation business. Think about the larger implications around the results you deliver to your customers.
  • Next think about this question: What do my customers really want from our products and services? Ask your best customers why they really do business with you. Look for common themes in the answers.
  • The final step is to take the concepts you’ve arrived at and focus on what would move your best prospects to buy what you sell. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask some friends and associates if your idea would move them to act. Then test your ideas by presenting them in your ad copy in print, on the web, and in all your other marketing channels. Test until you find the winners. The sales result will show which one is the winner.

Take these five words: “What are we really selling?” Print them out and put them in a prominent place you can see every day. Your answer to the question will form the core around which your business and your marketing should revolve. Answer this five-word question in a way that exceeds the experiences your target market is seeking, and you’ll see your business grow like magic.

How Premiums Work Better Than Coupons and Discounts

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What is a Premium?

A premium is anything of value that you offer a prospect or client in exchange for taking an action that you direct them to. This could include an incentive or a gift.

The right premium could encourage someone who might otherwise set aside the mail to act now instead of later (or not at all). This works especially well when there is a limited quantity available or you state a deadline for responding. An example of this would be offering a Starbucks coffee gift card in exchange for filling out a survey or submitting an honest testimonial.

Premiums can also be used to generate demand for your products and services, to reward fast response, or to boost the size of an order.

Why Does a Premium Work?

Everyone wants something for free, but they also want to reward those who rewarded them.

Premiums work because of the “rule of reciprocation” made famous by Robert Cialdini, a psychologist and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. According to Cialdini, “We are obligated to give back to others the forms of behavior that they have given to us. Essentially, thou shalt not take without giving in return.”

How Premiums Improve Direct Mail Response?

Any direct mail campaign includes the following components:

  1. The Mailing List
  2. The Design
  3. The Copy
  4. The Offer
  5. The Print & Packaging
  6. Timing & Delivery

How do premiums fit into this? They are part of the offer.

Most premiums have low costs but a high perceived value. Although premiums add to the cost of a mailing, the gain in response and the attention they provide outweigh the additional expenses.

Premiums can be delivered in several ways, depending on the goals of the campaign. The premium can be delivered as a front-end offer, when you want your mailing to stand out. It can also be delivered as a bonus or incentive, if the recipient responds to your call to action. In this case, a photo or graphic image of the premium would work well.

Examples of premiums can be found in daily life outside of direct mailers. The McDonald’s Happy Meal is often purchased because of the toy premium inside rather than the food. Many cereal boxes are sold because of the trinkets inside as well. Premiums are often used at sporting events when the ticket attendant hands out a calendar or a bobble head to the first 1,000 attendees. Premiums are also found in many non-profit mailers, where a free set of mailing labels with your return address printed on them are included, along with the request for a donation. Our society at large is conditioned to appreciate premiums.

Premiums can also be used to encourage your existing clients to give you referrals and testimonials. They can be used as great reminders to motivate your best clients to help you get more customers.

But will premiums work for you?

Remember that your premium is only one part of the direct mail package. You must still follow best practices and essential principles of direct mail. Although a premium can improve results, premiums alone do not guarantee success.

Just because premiums work for many companies does not guarantee that they will work for you. Test different premium offers, and keep careful records of your costs and sales (or leads) generated.

Although the recipients are not obligated to respond, history, case studies, and human psychology indicate that offering premiums can significantly boost your response rates. Direct mail + a premium can be a winning combination to boost business for your company.

About Your About Us Page

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One of the primary reasons a prospect comes to a website is to learn more about a business. The prospect wants to learn not only what you do and how you do it but — more importantly — why you do it. There are many competing businesses in your industry and community. Statistics have shown that one of the most visited pages on any company website is the About Us page.

Why is that? Whether you are a B2B or a B2C company, your prospects are people first. So it’s natural for them to want to know more about the people behind the company they’re considering working with. Prospects hire the people in the business, not just a faceless company.

Unfortunate Reality

The sad truth is that most company About Us pages are filled with industry jargon. Or they’re carbon copies of all the other websites in their space. This makes them boring to read and easy to bypass quickly.

Clues

You know you’ve landed on one of these About Us pages when the page is filled with boastful claim after boastful claim. You see words like “industry leading,” “unique solutions,” “award winning,” and “innovative brand.” With eyes glazed over, most visitors can’t exit these pages fast enough.

People want to learn about people. They already know about what you do from the other pages on your website. The About Us page should focus instead on why you do what you do.

How to Fix It

If your About Us page has these issues, the good news is it’s not difficult to fix. You need to get a pen and pad of paper. As you sit to think about re-writing the page, don’t be afraid to let some personality shine through.

Your About Us page is a selling tool. To sell more of what you do, you have to get the visitor to establish a bond with your company and trust you. To establish this bond, you must let the visitor know the people behind the company. A big part of your brand is your company culture. Your About Us page is an opportunity to tell visitors your story and what your culture is about.

Here are eight ideas to think about as you create the content for your About Us page. Weave them into your brand story.

  1. How did the company start?
  2. Why are you in this business?
  3. Avoid all hype and jargon.
  4. Say what you want to say in as few words as possible.
  5. Include a few testimonials from happy clients. It won’t seem boastful if others do the advocating on your behalf.
  6. Make it personable and interesting. Don’t be afraid to show the human and vulnerable side of your company. Your visitors aren’t perfect people either. So showing this side of your business allows your brand to connect and build a bond.
  7. Invite visitors to connect with you in other online places where you’re active (LinkedIn, Facebook, blog).
  8. Tell them where to go and what to do next. This is the “call to action” part of the page.

Tell them not just what you do and how you do it. Instead, tell the visitor why you do what you do. Your About Us page is the perfect place to share that message with the world.

Content Marketing: An Age-Old Strategy that Still Works Today

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Content marketing has become one of the buzzwords in the business marketing world. Many claim this is a new way to market. That is not correct. Providing valuable content to lure prospects and visitors has been around for a while. The distribution channels for this content may have expanded recently, but the strategy has been around for many years.

One case in point involves a tiny electronics firm in Seattle. The company opened in 1954 as Magnolia Stationers and Camera Shop in the Magnolia Village shopping district of Seattle. The owner, Len Tweten, loved music, which eventually led him to move the business into the world of high-fidelity audio. This transition over time also prompted a business name change to Magnolia Hi-Fi.

High-quality products and commitment to service were just a part of the overall plan to grow the business. Being a small business with no real marketing plan or budget, Magnolia Hi-Fi decided the best way to differentiate itself was to educate prospects with valuable information about the Hi-Fi world. To do this, the company introduced stereo buyer’s guides (over 30 years ago), which provided educational content and answers to commonly asked questions on buying audio equipment.

The buyer’s guides set Magnolia Hi-Fi apart from the competition. They also positioned the company as leaders and experts in their field in the eyes of their audience.

Did this content marketing plan work?

The tiny store grew into a small chain, which was acquired by Best Buy in December of 2000… for $87 million! In 2004, the Magnolia brand was incorporated into Best Buy as a store-within-a-store, known as Magnolia Home Theatre.

Content marketing works. It works best when you use multiple channels to distribute and share your content (print and digital work in perfect tandem for this strategy). Creating valuable content your prospects are looking for takes some work and resources. But don’t overlook the rewards that can come from that work. It may not net you $87 million, but it can prove to be nearly as valuable.

You can read more of the details behind this remarkable story <a href=”http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/09/this-7-step-content-marketing-plan-earned-an-87-million-paycheck/” target=”_blank”>here</a>.