Almost all businesses rely on marketing to some degree or another – whether it’s a social media presence, advertising in local publications or handing out printed leaflets – but it’s important to maximise the return on investment, especially for small businesses.
Indirect marketing
Creating adverts and buying space for them in publications and in the media can be expensive, costing hundreds or even thousands of pounds. For instance poster promoting a band, if it works for your business, that’s great, but for many small and medium-sized enterprises a more economical option is necessary.
Direct marketing
While advertising is a type of indirect marketing, organised and run by an external entity, direct marketing involves a business distributing their own materials – through their social media channels, exhibitions or by leaflet printing and handing them out or posting them in a targeted area, for instance.
It’s a method that still has its downsides – it often costs more in manpower to coordinate direct marketing campaigns – other overheads can be much lower, so if your budget is on a shoestring but you have time to offer then this is the perfect marketing avenue.
A/B test your marketing campaign
Printing thousands of leaflets can turn out to be much cheaper than placing even a small advert in a local paper, and by including a unique discount code on each batch of leaflets it’s possible to keep track of how well they do at drumming up business and you can monitor the data an see where your best conversion areas are.
For instance, you could trial two different calls to action on your printed leaflets or even a different leaflet design, and hand them out in the same place on different days. Alternatively, you could order two identical batches with a slight variation on the discount code, hand out one set in the street and post the other set through letterboxes, so that you can see what the conversion rate change is between the two different types of direct marketing. Remember that its not a one size fits all, its important to adapt the direct marketing to the product and service you’re offering and test each possible way to increase exposure and sales.
In this way, you can see which method of distribution or marketing works best, and amend your techniques for future use to ensure you get the very best bang for your buck.
With leaflets so cheap to print, it’s feasible for even very small businesses to A/B test their marketing campaigns, something which is less doable with an expensive advertising campaign.
Interested in learning more about direct marketing? Its worth checking out this fantastic article by Marketing Donut: Running a direct mail campaign
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