Ask Joy Gendusa

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Hi Kimberly,

Your postcard looks great! It has everything it needs. Now repeat mailings are a must and you also need to sell packages or up-sell so that you get your return of investment…. $25 per order is not a large enough invoice to warrant the expense of the postage BUT with a good followup system and other more pricey services to sell this will be an amazing lead generator.

I want the shots!!

Sincerely,

Joy

Dear Joy,

Thank you for your e mail and your story.

I am a tax preparer and mortgage loan officer.  I work closely with a real estate agent who is my best  friend.

What could you recommend as far as us doing a joint mailing campaign?  He would get the sale end and I would do the mortgage loan.

I also know that I want to build my tax practice but it is July and no one is really thinking about their taxes.  When would you recommend I start a mailer for this ?

Thanks,

Pat

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Dear Pat,

Thank you for your e-mail and I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. I just got back in town.

During tax off season it’s a great time to promote your Bookkeeping/QuickBooks services to obtain new customers. Also it’s a great idea to go in with your real estate friend on a promotion because you would both benefit from it. We have many successful campaigns running in the Mortgage/Real estate industry right now and your Marketing Consultant, Ashlie Juric,  is able to discuss this with you further and determine what would work best for you. I’ve cc’ed her on this e-mail so you will hear from her soon.

Let me know how it goes!

Sincerely,

Joy

Joy

I have a medical spa.  I have a database of 2500 emails and market to them weekly (having a mailing data base of 5500)  Most current customers are on the 2500 list.  I went  back and started inputting emails about 7 months ago along with birthdays so could market a birthday card to them.

I receive all these groupon things that go out to about 20,000 in my area,  Yes, they are people that may have opted into groupon in some way BUT GROUPON HAD to get a list somewhere to start….

My question is then, if you/I purchase a list to email to with income level requirements (or not), can’t we get a good list.

Another area I need to increase traffic in is Neograft hair transplants.  I am only one within 800 miles that does this …

So…how do lists do comparative to groupon lists and can we get a good list?

Thanks,

Kathleen

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Dear Kathleen,

To answer your question, I don’t know of any way to buy an e-mail list as people need to give their approval to be on such a list. And I don’t know how groupon started and how they got their very first e-mail addresses. Plus, people do not like to receive emails from businesses they don’t know. Period. Sure, maybe you will get one or two new customers. Maybe that doesn’t apply to all businesses 100% but I can say it applies to 99% easily… every time I speak publicly I survey the audience and ask “how many of you like receiving emails from businesses you don’t know?” NOBODY ever raises their hand. What occurs in the mind of the recipient of that email is an immediate lowering of affinity for that business. What you are trying to do with marketing is RAISE the affinity so that folks want to do business with you – not avoid you and think badly of you.

The way we get people’s contact information is by buying a mailing list of the right target market and mailing postcards to them over and over again. Then when they call in, go to a website or a landing page we get their contact information and add them to our e-mail list. The best way to get this accomplished is to offer them something free or a discount on the postcard but in order for them to get it they have to go to a landing page and fill out their contact information.

What marketing do you do besides your weekly e-mails?

Sincerely,

Joy

Joy,

I am in the Real Estate Investment world now, but came from the dot com – tech markets as National Sales Manager for leading companies and start-up’s…

If postcards really work, why is your marketing focused on using e-mail and web/video to attract new clients like me?

More information on how to integrate the two effectively would be great!  I like direct target marketing….but want to find a way to pull them to my web site & newsletter!

John

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Dear John,

Thanks for your e-mail. Here is some “insight” about PostcardMania.

We mail over 120,000 postcards every single week to our customer and prospect lists. I started with mailing out 1000 postcards a week when I started my company and then I hit a plateau. And do you want to know what saved and expanded my business? Postcards! I doubled the amount of postcards I was sending out and a few weeks later I doubled my revenue. I kept increasing the amount I was mailing out and this has been the key to my success. Apart from that one has to use other marketing tools such as a website, e-mail marketing etc…

And the way to pull people to your website, apart from paying “pay per click” on google (which is very expensive), is by mailing postcards over and over to the right target market. It’s a very inexpensive way to get someone’s attention and drive them to a landing page or website or have them call you. Then you can capture their information like e-mail address, phone number, etc… and keep warming them up, giving them tips in e-newsletters until they are ready to buy from you. This is how you can combine both and this is what we do.

We do offer web design and e-mail marketing but postcards are still the main product of PostcardMania.

Sincerely,

Joy

Joy,

I am sure you have heard of groupon.  This is basically “rape” when it comes to getting a product out because they take so much of the profit…50%.  Here in my city there are now people doing local “groupon like” deals and take only 40%.  Still, why can’t I buy the same list they do and send an email out to people with my deals and keep all of the profit?

Can you help me with this?

Kathleen M. Stegman
Midwest Medical Aesthetics Ctr.

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Dear Kathleen,

 You ask a very good question and I will try to explain.

They don’t buy their list. One has to opt in. Meaning, a friend or acquaintance has to say “hey, do you want to sign up for groupon? it’s really cool…etc…” and then get you to sign up to receive the daily emails.  I think the premise is that the first time they buy you establish them as a customer. You have the opportunity to totally knock their socks off and you acquire the lead so you can market to them in the future. It is up to you to capture their identity when they come into your establishment. Then, you market to them, give a great discount and keep the profit – the idea being that the lifetime value of that customer is worth making barely any profit to acquire them. 

Sincerely,

Joy

Joy,

I have been recieving your E-mails for a while now and have not responded. My business is in a downward spiral and coming out of pocket for failed marketing would be fatal.I have a mailing list that hasn’t been used or purged for about 5 years and has approximatly 3000 names and addresses.These are all high end buyers.I am in the Sewing and Vacuum cleaner business and they are split between those 2 categories. If you think you can help.Please feel free to make me a proposal.I have 2 locations one does not have a mailing list.

Max Buff

Severna Sew and Vac Inc.

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Dear Max,

Thanks for e-mailing me! Sorry to hear that your business is in a downward spiral but the only way to turn it into an upward spiral is by marketing – A LOT. When others stop marketing and cut other expenses due to the economy or other reasons your best weapon is marketing. Get your name out there even more than you did before. There are still people out there who need your products.

Your mailing list would have to be updated and we can do that for you to make sure you are not mailing to addresses that are no longer valid due to people who moved, went out of business or experienced a zip code change. 

What is your budget? Do you do any other marketing? E-mail marketing is a very inexpensive way to stay in touch with your prospects and customers and warm them up and/or give them free tips about your products.

In order to work out a marketing campaign that fits your budget I’ll have Erica Switzer give you a call. She is one of my best Marketing Consultants, actually she just got promoted to train others in marketing consulting, so you are in good hands with her. You will hear from her soon.

Let me know how it goes!

Sincerely,

Joy

Hi Joy!

I’ve been working with Alyssa on a postcard design and I think we’re having a hard time coming up with a good and catchy concept. I’m going after the “high risk” auto market and the creative side of my brain just isn’t working on coming up with something.  Well, I never really did have any creativity when it came to artwork, designs or catchy headlines.  That’s why I’m turning to you.

I was wondering if you could help Alyssa and I out on a real good headline, sub text and graphic so when someone is shuffling through their mail, this card would catch their attention.  I’ve attached what she is proposing after a few other designs we have worked on earlier.

Here is my core audience I’m trying to communicate too:

Male/Female ages 19 to 34, single, rents, expendable income, may like to party a lot or drinks, uses the internet, down loads music, has a Play Station or Wii.  More of a “blue collar” type of crowd is what I’m targeting

I cater to tickets, accidents, DUI’s…. troubled driving records or hard to place risks.  

Thanks Joy.

Allan

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Hi Allen,

Let me work on this a bit.. my first thought is that the colors are not popping off the card enough and the headline is just too long and hard to read. You definitely want to stick with clarity over cleverness because either the person has a need or they don’t. We don’t want the recipient to have to spend even one tenth of one second figuring out what you do for them! 

With that said, l come up with a few ideas, give them to Alyssa and get this rolling in a different direction. I’m so glad you wrote to me! I want you to be THRILLED!!

Best,

Joy

Joy,

I used you a few years ago and did not get even one call. I usually purchase lists, have a mailing go out, and then can call them even if they do not respond.

What makes you so good now?  I am not confident in passive advertising. Do you have any customers in the Reverse Mortgage business that have been successful and that I can talk to? With my lead supplier, I get calls all the time from their prospective brokers, asking me if their program has worked for me, and it does. What can you do for me that they don’t.

I market only in the northern New Jersey area as I personally work with my propects, and see them at least three times. I go to all my closings and get referrals that way.

Dominic Messina
Jacob Dean Mortgage Inc.

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Dear Dominic, 

 I am sorry to hear that you had no response with your past mailing. But was it with us? There is nothing in our records that indicates you have done a mailing with us unless it was under a different company name?

You know, the key to direct mailing is repetitive mailings, not just one. Also the postcard has to have a good offer that is appealing to your target market. In order to know what a good offer is you may have to try out a few. What you think may be good may not be the right offer. Also what lists do you purchase? Your list is the most important part of your mailing. It helps you match your product with your customer. If you’re selling bait you need to reach fishermen, right?

In order to figure this all out and get the right marketing campaign worked out for you I would like you to speak to Rob Bradshaw, he is your Marketing Consultant and our VP Sales. He knows all about it and can go over this with you more in detail. You will hear from him soon.

Also we do have a client that is in Reverse Mortgages. I’m having his consultant contact him as we need his approval before I give out his information as a reference. As soon as we hear back from him I’ll give you the information but I wanted to get back to you in the meantime. 

Sincerely,
Joy

Hi Joy,

I wanted to ask if you could please have a look at our website (mcjbuilders.com) and see if you can help improve…….getting hits, however, no calls.  I am including my ID and password to google analytics for your review.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Martin Castorena

MCJ Builders Inc.

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Dear Martin,

You have a beautiful site and I can see you put a lot into it. I can tell you right off the bat that I know your SEO is not good – SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and this is how the search engines find you and put you at the top of Google when someone types in ‘custom construction McAllen TX’.

Your site is a beautiful brochure type site but it’s not designed from the viewpoint of being a lead generator for you. It is even difficult to find out exactly how to contact you. For a quick fix you should probably go ahead and get your phone number and your email put boldly onto your homepage and every other page so that folks don’t have to work so hard to contact you. I would strongly suggest that you have a conversation with Angel Hollingsworth. She is one of my top consultants here and your consult with her is completely free. Call her at 800-628-1804 ext  222. She can tell you more instant fixes you can do as well. 

Thanks so much for writing to me!

Joy

Retail furniture, how many postcards per new customer. Do you know that answer?

Ross Elwell

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Dear Ross,

Thanks for your e-mail!

Well, as I’m sure we can all imagine, there are a lot of factors in determining the success of a campaign… one of the largest being the offer on the card. Of the case studies that we reviewed with specific numbers it appeared that they were getting around 20-25 new customers for every 5000 cards they mailed out. I attached two of these campaigns to this email.

But in order to determine the real results of a mailing campaign you should look at your return on investment and figure out what the value of a lifetime customer is that you’ll get through such campaigns.

What do you currently do to promote your store?

Sincerely,
Joy Gendusa