PostcardMania In the News

I spend about $100,000 every week marketing my company to businesses nationwide. Spending that much per week on marketing may strike many business owners as excessive. And for some businesses, it is.

Obviously, I wasn’t spending $100,000 on marketing when I first started out in 1998. I didn’t have much working capital back then (just a $5,000 credit card, if you can call that capital), and I bootstrapped everything. I paid myself a minuscule salary for years in order to invest as much as possible in marketing. As a result, I’ve closely tracked my marketing returns — and failures — from the beginning.

Here are the two biggest, most business-defining lessons I’ve learned since spending my first dollar on marketing… on Forbes.com.

Agency professionals are creative individuals, but even they need somewhere to draw their creative endeavors from. No artistic development is possible without the aid of inspiration.

In today’s fast-paced world, where our brain is constantly bombarded with tons of information, finding the necessary peace of mind of seek and be open to inspiration can sometimes be more difficult. But sometimes, inspiration can be drawn from the most mundane sources and at the most random times — all that matters is keeping an open mind.

Read on here to find out from where these creatives derive there creativity.

Marketing funnels are not always successful. If a business is struggling with inconsistent marketing efforts or sub-par results despite the time and work invested, it may consider an overhaul of its entire funnel.

However, a complete revamp may be easier said than done if the business does not know exactly what the issue was to begin with. Without proper consideration, any overhaul risks causing more damage than good.

So be sure to read Joy’s expert advice before you revamp over here on Forbes.com.

As the founder and CEO of a direct mail company, I run into questions like these a lot: “Hey, Joy, isn’t direct mail a dinosaur? Doesn’t digital work better?”

I got into the direct mail marketing business 21 years ago, when digital was still in its infancy and traditional marketing methods reigned supreme. And wow, how things have changed. Digital advertising has exploded at a breakneck pace, finally unseating television in 2017 to grab the larger share of worldwide ad spending ($209 billion compared to $178 billion for TV).

And yet — my company is still growing year after year. In 2018, we actually added about $10 million in sales, almost 20%. How is that possible? I explain it all in my Forbes.com feature article here.

Bad ideas—we’ve all had them. Yet, we can hold on to them, sometimes for longer than we should. These bad ideas can culminate into poor business decisions that waste time and money, as well as potentially lead to longer-term problems.

This can be especially true when it comes to marketing: With so many variables involved in identifying—and reaching—specific audiences, it’s remarkably easy for a company leader to do some research, and then fall for an idea that worked well for a competitor, but will do little, if any, good for their organization.

So how can you rebound? Read on at Forbes.com to find out.

As a marketer, you may be tasked with the creation of a marketing plan for your company or client. While there are many ways to go about developing such a strategy, knowing how to make it effective for the brand is essential to being successful with its implementation.

From customizing your message to staying in-touch with what your competition is doing, there are several aspects to take into consideration when building a marketing plan that can provide the results you are looking to achieve.

Read the collection of advice on Forbes.com here.

Dear Digital Advertising,

I used to hate you. You see, direct mail had always been the king of targeted, direct-to-consumer marketing.

Sure, TV commercials and sleek magazines were ideal for shotgun-style, get-people-talking ads. But if you wanted to niche-down and target renters earning more than $55k and living in certain zip codes? You called me for a direct mail campaign.

It was that way until the late 2000s. The smartphone became widely adopted by 2007, and you know what happened next. The “digital explosion.”

Nearly every headline in every major business publication touted you as the next big thing.

Here’s what made me even madder:

Keep reading over on venturebeat.com.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Joy Gendusa. Joy is the founder and CEO of PostcardMania, a marketing company that specializes in lead generation for businesses of all sizes. Joy grew her business from a small startup in 1998 to a $58 million enterprise employing 245 staff using only a phone, a computer and her own marketing savvy — that means no financial backing or injections of any kind. Today, Joy is an accomplished keynote speaker and marketing educator, having helped more than 82,000 small businesses in over 350 industries since PostcardMania’s founding in 1998.

Read the interview in its entirety here.

Joining me today is an entrepreneur who has a marketing hack that many today wouldn’t even consider. She sends out postcards.

Joy Gendusa is the founder of PostcardMania, a lead generation company that focuses on postcard marketing for SMB’s.

I’m fascinated by this company and wait until you see how big it is.

Listen in to Joy’s interview with Mixergy’s Andrew Warner here.

I talk to a lot of dentists,and Im always amazed by how many refuse to market themselves. They simply dont think theres any reason to. They believe: the market is saturated; people are going to choose who they choose; or that theyre doing just fine getting by on referrals.

To which I say, Wrong! As evidence, Id like to direct your attention to Dr. Hall, who went from 15 new patients a month to more than 60 using direct mail.

Read all about Dr. Halls marketing success here, inthe online version of Marchs Dental Economics.