Why Local Direct Mail Orange County Advertising Works Best With OC Customers?

February 12th, 2010 by admin No comments »

The nature of Orange County (OC) makes Local direct mail Orange County the best tool to reach the target audience in the county. Unlike other major population hubs of the United States, which is identified with one or more major cities, OC does not have any defined urban center or a mega city. The county is largely suburban with downtown areas like Santa Ana, Fullerton, Anaheim, Irvin, Orange, and Huntington Beach. Of which Santa Ana serves as a government center, Anaheim as a flagship tourist destination, and Irvin as a major business and financial center. Hence, using local advertising Orange County in this case makes perfect sense.

Why local advertising Orange County?

Unlike mass media advertising which do not allow you to create and deliver custom ads to different groups of people, local direct advertising gives you an opportunity to craft a unique message each for each group of consumers. It fulfills the informational need of all the diverse groups that may benefit from using your products or services.

Talking of different groups I must direct your attention towards the population mix of the county.

  • OC is culturally diverse, and its population of 3 million is composed of Whites, African Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Hispanic, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, etc.
  • 27% of its total population is Under 18
  • 9.4% lies in the age group 18-24
  • 33.2% falls in the age bracket 25 to 44
  • 20.6% belongs to the age group 45 to 64, and
  •  9.9% of OC citizens are 65 years old or older.

The needs, level of understanding, grasping power, and orientation towards life of each group is different, so they need to be treated differently.

Even if the product is same, a message that suits a person of 47 years old will sound utterly nonsense to a young adult who is 26. For example: A 47 years old person with a corporate job may look for mileage, safety, free insurance coverage, and lasting value in the car he is planning to purchase, whereas, a 26 years old corporate executive will look for style quotient, cool value, and probably mileage in the same car, despite his lower level of income than the former gentleman. Hence, when communicating to each one of them, we need to use different tone of voice and select different lingo.

This is what makes local direct mail Orange County advertising such a useful tool for an Orange County marketer.

How much will it cost?

Well, my style short and sweet answer will be minimal. But, I understand no matter how sweet this answer seems it is not going to sway your vote; therefore, I am offering a longer version of the answer.

Direct mail postcard Orange County, one of the direct marketing most potent tools, is the cheapest communication tool that you can use to convey your message effectively. And no matter how expensive a postcard becomes, it will never cost you even a dime more than a fraction of cost needed to book a 30-second commercial on television, or of the money needed to book postcard-size ad space in a national daily or periodical.

And what will be its effectiveness?

Well, you find the answer to this question on your own, and for that close your eyes for a while and think: Which has more chances of catching your attention, a postcard that you get in mail or a television commercial that they relay during the program breaks, or an ad inserted in any single edition of the newspaper?

Don’t tell me, I know the answer. I have tried it myself.

The cost of creating and delivering a direct mail campaign to your Orange County audience is so low that you can send out multiple versions of same message, just to see which one covert better. You cannot do with anything that goes on mass media. Such is the power of tools used by local direct mail Orange County marketers.

No comments »

Posted in Local Direct Mail Advertising, Mail Advertising

Tags:

How to Create a Successful Direct Mail, Local Advertising Campaign

December 9th, 2009 by admin 13 comments »

If effectively used, direct mail local advertising can be a very powerful direct marketing tool to promote your business in your neighborhood. It serves a vast array of direct marketing functions. You can use it to inform the local community about the product, induce call to action, get people to try your product or services, etc.

In order to make your direct mail advertising successful, you need to know the steps involved in creating and running a direct marketing campaign. But before we begin talking about how to create a successful direct mail local advertising campaign, let’s first look at the benefits of using this medium.

Benefit of a direct mail

  • It is a low-cost alternative to mass media advertisement, and is very effective in reaching local community.
  • It is highly customizable, and can be built to suit the need of any product segment in any neighborhood.
  • It can be given a local touch without much fuss.
  • If done with care, it can be very powerful in inducing call to action.
  • It can be used to build, maintain, and renew relationship with existing as well as potential customers in the local community which your business is serving.

How to build a direct mail local advertising campaign

  • In order to build an effective local direct mail advertising campaign you need to follow the following steps.
  • Identify the needs, wants, and desire of your customers. Find out what they are looking for, and what problem you are out in the market to solve.
  • Define the objective of your campaign.
  • Identify the direct as well as indirect target audience, and categorize them into the first, the second, and the third tiers. The target audience most likely to be receptive should be in the first tier and on the second run place the ones who follow the first group and so on.
  • Find a way to build cohesion between customers’ demand and your offering.
  • Obtain address database of the customers in your neighborhood. You can rent a database from the database marketing companies in your niche, if you don’t have your own. In case, you do not have a database of addresses then I will suggest building one by using one of the following strategies:
  • Place a guestbook on the billing counter, and request everyone who makes a purchase to fill-in her address and telephone number, so that you can contact her whenever something of value hits the store. Assure her that she will not be spammed.
  • Give something of value for free on your website in exchange of the visitors’ address.
  • Seed buzz element in your direct mail, and promise to give some exciting gift in exchange to 5 or 6 referrals from the recipients. Include postage-paid envelop to keep the entry barrier low for the recipients.
  • Ask your in-store visitors to give 5 or 6 referrals that may be interested in a communication from you, and in exchange of the names and addresses offer them something of value for free.
  • Set your budget.
  • Depending upon the budget, decide on the frequency and length of the message to send.
  • Decide on the tone of voice to use in the mail, and mood to create through it.
  • Craft the mail.
  • Do the test run.
  • Fix the errors, if any.
  • Do one more test run prior to setting the direct mail local advertising mail out on sail.
  • Measure the outcome, and review the campaign.

These are the precise steps you need to follow to make your direct mail advertising campaign a success. And do not forget to send a follow-up mail. It is very important.

13 comments »

Posted in Local Direct Mail Advertising, Mail Advertising

Tags: