BlodgettVentures.com

My first business was built with direct mail advertising. We began by mailing about a thousand flyers a month, and when we sold the business we were sending monthly mailing to every business in the whole county - about 30,000.  We built a brand from nothing to one of the best known printing businesses in San Diego county in three years.

Would this work for you? Let's break it down into small pieces and create a direct mail program on a small scale. Remember, mail doesn't have to be just a letter or brochure.

Small Scale Promotion:
Post Cards. You can buy a 500 full color post cards,  5-1/2 x 8-1/2, for about $100. That's about 20 cents each. Add postage and for a little over 60 cents you have a great mailer. You can send out about 100 a week.

Large Scale Promotion:
Research your market and hand pick 100 companies that meet your ideal client matrix. Mail your Earth Brochure to the owners of each of those 100 companies. Follow up with a phone call.

Here are a few examples of something a bit different:

I did a promotional campaign for one of my clients that blew the doors off of their forecast. The results were about 10 times expected. We called it the "Go with the Pro's" Campaign. There were three parts to the campaign. First we  sent a Louisville Slugger baseball bat to 100 best prospects for the company's new machine that had a selling price of about $6,000. Attached to the bat was a small brochure that described the bat as "The Choice of the Pros" - and described it's materials, workmanship, its glorious record of performance and why it was favored by the pro baseball greats for many years. We then described our machine, its materials, workmanship, its terrific capabilities and why we thought it, too, should be the choice of the pros - the pros in this industry.

A week later, we sent a Rawlings baseball glove. Attached was a story about its materials, workmanship and long history of being the Pro's choice. That message then flowed into our product message. The third week, we sent a Spalding baseball, again with the same theme. Finally, we had the sales team phone the person we had sent the baseball gear to with the goal of setting up a local demonstration of the machine. Almost without exception, they not only took the call, the wanted and expected a meeting. Within the next 60 days, we sold machines to 18 of the 100 companies. Within the next year, 80 of the hundred bought. Many bought more than one.

I called the idea inspiration. My client called it genius.

Another promotion that worked well for a large corporate client had a candy theme. We did three separate mailings to the client's 30 top prospects. Each mailing included a jar of Jelly Belly candies with a recipe. Did you know that if you mixed a Chocolate Pudding, Cappuccino and a Peanut Butter Jelly Belly you get a Mud Pie? Or, if you mixed Very Cherry with Chocolate Pudding you'd get a Chocolate Covered Cherry? By mixing Chocolate Pudding, Crushed Pineapple, Top Banana, Strawberry Jam, Very Cherry and French Vanilla you'll get a Banana Split. (Go to: http://www.jellybelly.com) You get the idea.

Each promotional mailing carried a message tying the product to the concept of "the right recipe to fit your tastes." This campaign received tremendous response from the target market. My client had a goal of 20 first time appointments and they got 30. They targeted 15 demos and they got 25. They targeted sales to 3 of the prospects and got 18. This promotion was a huge success. Cost? About $100 per prospect. Adding my costs, under $5,000 to get over $5 Million in business.