Small BusinessMarketing Ideas: Becoming a Clever Cat in a Dog-Eat-Dog Marketplace

| by Daiv Russell | January 25, 2008
Running a small business definitely has its headaches. In addition to the demands of everyday business there are problems of constantly changing technology, hanging on to customers, and an ocean of competitors out to steal your loyal customers from you. Innovation and uniqueness really count in the cut-throat business world. Having a successful marketing campaign may be the only difference in hanging on to your customers and having them slip through your fingers to your competitor's waiting hands.

Great direct mail ideas can set the difference between a boring, repetitive advertising campaign and one that really catches a customer’s attention. Use new and exciting ideas to make your customers remember you.

One of the best direct mail ideas making the rounds today is the wallet-mailer. This clever invention is a mailer that looks like a wallet and contains mock money with your company’s logo and special offer details printed right on the bills. The wallet even contains three faux credit cards and another space with your company’s information. This ingenious little thing will have your clients opening it before any other piece of mail; after all, who can resist opening up and peering into a cleverly designed mailer to see what kind of offer is waiting inside?

Wallet-mailers make an excellent way to reward your existing customers for their loyalties. If you include coupons and promise referral bonuses, your customers will spread the word about your business, whatever it is. By tailoring the contents of the wallet mailer to your company and current offers, you will ensure that customers know that your appreciate their business and that you'd like to see them again.

Business rightfully worry about how new customers will respond to a piece of unsolicited mail from a company they have never heard of. If your business chooses to send out a plain white envelope with a boring letter inside, it is easy to predict that it will end up in the trash unopened.

On the other hand, you can leverage people's curiosity to drive potential customers to open your package and view the offers you're trying to present. For example, you could send a wallet mailer and make coupons that look like dollar bills. By intriguing people enough, you'll hook them into looking at what you're sending. From there, it's not far to closing them as a customer.

Direct mailers have been coming up with new and inventive ways to get people's attention forever, but the wallet-mailer is newest interesting medium. The range of possibilities for what you put on the bills in your wallets is limited only by your own creativity. Feel free to be as direct and serious as you'd like, or as silly and whimsical. So, use the wallet-mailer to contact your existing customers or to contact new ones, and get ready for all the business coming in.

Article Source: http://www.articleset.com



About the Author

Daiv Russell is a Software Engineering Strategist with Envision Software, a software project management and development outsourcing company committed to helping information technology organizations solve problems, increase revenues, and reduce costs by guiding software development teams through project management chaos. Envision publishes Luminary, a monthly software project management newsletter.
DRussell@EnvisionSoftware.com » Read more articles by Daiv Russell
You are welcome to publish or reprint this article free of charge, provided: