3 Things to keep your mail out of the junk mail pile

Posted on April 5, 2009 by Mike Kaselnak

The last few months we have been talking about getting more return on your marketing budget by using a series of mailings or more than one type of media.

Now let’s talk about how to format your direct mail. There are two basic categories…plainly put, those that come in envelopes and those that do not.

Those that don’t come in envelopes are typically called self-mailers and they include postcards, tabbed tri-folded flyers and catalogues.  Self-mailers are generally cheaper but also more likely to be thrown out as junk mail.

So how do we utilize this much cheaper form of mailing while avoiding the hazard of having 90% of it thrown out as junk mail, by the recipient, without even a glance at it?

You have to make your direct mail offer jump out of the junk mail pile and into the curiosity pile.  You have to prevent them from throwing it in the garbage without first looking at it.  How do you do that?

There are a few ways to make inexpensive mail jump out at your prospects:

  1. Handwritten note—No one can throw away a handwritten note without finding out what it is about.  They just can’t!  But keep in mind, don’t use some fake looking font but either an actual handwritten note or use a technology that is very authentic looking (beware…there are beginning to be a lot of fake looking, handwritten fonts out there now.)
  2. An unusually interesting or beautiful picture on the front—People simply love pictures!
  3. An unusual size or shape—Using an over size card or a card cut into an unusual shape will make it feel and look different from the other junk mail so it doesn’t get lost.

You can still get an unbelievable return on investment with the less expensive postcard type mailings if you do them right.

Doing them right means that you write a great headline, you know exactly what your goal is with the mailing and you keep it out of the junk pile.

In future updates I’ll spend a little more time talking about what you should actually put in the copy to get your prospect to act.

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Multiple-multiple = Success

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Mike Kaselnak

Last time we talked about when you have multiple contacts with your prospect or client base your success rate goes up exponentially.  You will get a higher response than just the number of contacts would explain. If you send out one piece and get a 1% response and then continue to contact them say 6 times, your response rate will not go up to 6%, but instead be closer to 12% to 21%.

It will go up far higher than simply adding the number of exposures together. A way to leverage multiple exposures even more is to use multiple media e.g. newspaper, seminars, radio, billboards, etc.  The closer together you can coordinate these different types of media, the more effective it will be. It creates a, “These guys are everywhere. They must be something big.” You have to keep in mind that not all the media will have the same response rate but instead builds the response rate as part of the total package.  Your radio show or commercial may have little or no response rate but it will cause your seminar or direct mail response rate to go up. People will say, “Hey, I know these guys!  I just heard them on the radio yesterday.” When this happens, they will be much more responsive to your direct mail offer.

Obviously, you do not have an infinite amount of money to spend on advertising in all sorts of media but there are some inexpensive ways you can use this concept of helping consumers remember who you are and thus increasing the response to all your marketing. These include:

  1. Make sure all your marketing has the same look; colors, logo, layout etc.  Many advisors of making the mistake of wanting to “keep it fresh,” by constantly changing the look of what they do.  Look at what happened to Coke when they introduced New Coke.
  2. If you can come up with an easy to remember slogan or tag line that you can use it really helps with word of mouth advertising.
  3. Target market—you are much better being a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.   Choose a group of people and hit them continually with your message instead of sending to the masses.
  4. Consider hitting them with house flyers that are hand delivered by having a high school kid attach them to their doors.
  5. Sponsor a local event—golf tournaments are always looking for hole sponsors or your town probably has some sort of holiday events that are looking for sponsorship.  These not only are good for the community you live in, they are excellent ways to build image and name recognition.
  6. Creating a total marketing plan around these items anchored by a handwritten note campaign will have you bringing in as many clients as you want within 12 months.

Soon we will be talking some more about direct mail and how it should look to give you the highest response.  We’ll look at a couple of case studies that have been done to find the most effective layouts you can use on your direct mail.

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3 tips to high response lead generation

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Mike Kaselnak

What do you need to get a high response to your lead generation and client mailings? It ends up being three things:

  1. A good headline that is addressed right at your target market
  2. A good FREE offer
  3. Multiple mailings

I’ve discussed headlines before, but if I get some feedback that you would like me to discuss it again, I’ll be happy to. But for now, let’s focus on the last two items.

First, what are some good FREE giveaways?  Your giveaway should be connected in some way to your offer.  Don’t give away steaks if you are selling insurance, all you are going to get is people that like to eat steaks not people that are interested in insurance.  With that said, your offer should be attractive enough to get those people that are even moderately interested in insurance to raise their hand for your FREE stuff. An example of that for a property casualty agent would be–A free home safety booklet just for setting an appointment. A booklet of ten free car washes when we write your auto insurance. Guaranteed handling of your accident claim in five days or a 10% cash bonus on the settlement.

An example for an annuity sale would be—A free booklet about how to not outlive your income.  An free check of their current annuity for correct beneficiary or annuitants. An example for a life sale would be—A free analysis of current policies to ensure they are using the new life expectancy tables and to-age-100 guarantees.  A book on a life insurance concept like “Missed Fortune: 101.” But…and it’s a big but, the most important thing when it comes to direct mail, lead generation and prospecting via mail is repetition.

Now here’s the secret about direct marketing that virtually no one in the financial industry understands.  In order to acquire new clients – no matter how good the offer is, a single exposure to a given group of prospective clients, it will have minimal effect. But multiple repeated exposures will have a positive effect disproportionate to the number of exposures.

You really need to stop and pay attention here.  If you get this your marketing is going to get a lot more effective, very, very quickly!

If you are patient enough to give prospective clients repeated exposures or mailings you will have a positive impact, far greater than the number of exposures.

Here’s one example – say you’re doing a lead generation mailing of 5,000 people. From a single mailing you might pull anywhere from as low as 1% response or less. Maybe twelve to sixty responses. The variants between the twelve and the sixty may depend on how attractive your offer is.

But if you’ll mail to those same 5,000 prospects six times over a four month period your overall response might be as high as 20%, 150 to 1,000 people. You should only expect 6 times the response because you mailed 6 times but instead you got about twelve times the response from the single mailing not just six times. Why?

See, the multiple contacts don’t just increase response proportionately they increase it exponentially. Is this always true? No. Sometimes you have a crappy or old list, the offer is weak, the company lacks credibility, whatever and no amount of mailing will overcome it. But, presuming the list has been chosen with reasonable care and intelligence, the offer is good, the mail piece is good then this kind of effect should be achieved.

In next week’s tip I will reveal another way to get multiple exposures for your business that can multiply your results.

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How to make sure people WANT to hear your Marketing Message

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Mike Kaselnak

I hear so many sales persons tell me that they never get a good response rate from their direct mail.  When I ask them what they have been sending it is anything from seminar invites to product offers to “form” letters describing how their company works and why it would benefit the reader to work with them.

Well let’s think about why direct mail doesn’t work…because it doesn’t, at least not the way it used to.  How many times is the average American hit with a marketing message on a daily basis?  I’ve seen anywhere from 500 to 3,000 times mentioned by reliable sources.

Some scoff at these numbers but think about it.  Just driving to work today, how many marketing messages were you exposed to?  Well let me take you through my morning from the time I got up until the time I arrived at work.

5:45 a.m. -  Worked out.  Had my Ipod on so only one message…IPOD

6:45 a.m. -  Eat breakfast while watching the morning news and reading a magazine. Exposed to 10 commercials. The news show actually promoted 2 products. In the magazine as I thumbed through, I counted 72 ads.  The cereal box, Milk carton and frozen blueberry bag are all covered with marketing Messages.

7:15 a.m. -  Showering and dressing while listening to news radio.  Exposed to another 18 commercials.

7:45 a.m. -  Spend 15 minutes watching cartoons with my kids.  Exposed to another 8 Commercials.

8:10 a.m. -  Drive to work while listening to the radio. Exposed to another 6 commercials (I’m lucky, I have a 15 minute commute).  I drive past about 60 retail stores all trying to entice me inside with their signage.  I drive past 5 different vehicles that have their marketing message painted on them.  I drive past 11 bill boards proclaiming their message.  Heck, I even drove by a corner with an actual human being holding a sign for a furniture sale!

So how many marketing messages is that? 197 marketing messages before I step out of the car to walk into work.  How many of you would have guessed that many messages in the first couple of hours of the day?  And had I stretched even a little I could have come up with another 100 messages…from bumper stickers to the branding of every item I touched or saw.

Now how many of these messages actually registered with my brain?  Maybe 1%.  I’ve become immune to them.  If you and I had not learned to tune out this assault on our senses, our brains would explode!

So how do you as somebody that has a message that you want to get out to the masses avoid becoming noise?  How do you make sure that people are not tuning your message out?  Two words, be different.

Different how?  Any difference is better than none at all.  Build a bill board 3 times bigger than all the others…that’s different…that would work…that is illegal.

I could make a long list of ridiculous ways to be different but in deference to you and your busy day, let me suggest one way to be different that is cheap, effective and accomplishes a lot more than just being different.  Try a handwritten note.  People rarely get them.  It makes them stop in their tracks and read what you have to say.  It is not only different in how it affects your prospects but it tells them that you are different as well.  It says that you are not treating them as the masses but instead, you are treating them as an individual…and that means the world to your prospects.

Learn more about the “5Q Process” at TeamingWithClients.com

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Be “Unprofessional” and watch your business soar!

Posted on December 18, 2008 by Mike Kaselnak

The “2 cent stamp card” was a huge success.  We have had user after user tell us that their phones have been ringing off the hook and that one, two and up to 5 clients or prospects have called them with money to invest!  Which brings up the point, “What is the best type of mailing to send to prospects and clients?”

The main reason letters or solicitations from most financial professionals fail is that they are written too professionally.  I have talked to so many advisors that are afraid to look unprofessional.  They don’t want to send out a card with a joke or a riddle because they believe their clients will think less of them.

These financial professionals believe that they should be professional in their communication, and they are right to a point.  You should absolutely be professional when:

  • You are speaking about your client’s money and investments

or

  • You are handling a client’s or prospect’s question or concern

But you should be contacting your clients in some shape, form or manner at least 21 times a year to maintain their loyalty (April ’06, OnWallStreet, “Illusions of Loyalty”).

What should you contact them about then? You certainly shouldn’t be contacting clients 21 times a year about money.  If you do, your clients will think that the only thing you care about is their money…and that is an extremely dangerous thing for them to think.

If you want to get their attention and you want them to think positively of you, make your clients smile.  Make your clients feel good about themselves.  Make your clients want to be around you.

Think.  Who do you like to be around?  Some guy who’s really smart and is always talking about his favorite subject?  Or someone that can put a smile on your face?  Who do you want to introduce your friends to, a gal who is an expert and can’t wait to show everyone that they are an expert or someone that is quick with an interesting story or has the ability to make people feel good about themselves?

This goes for both working with your clients and prospecting for leads.  Clients and prospects will remember a salesperson that puts them in a better mood.  It is a scientific fact that humans release chemicals when they are feeling good that make them like the people surrounding them that moment even more than they usually would.  This is the kind of chemistry you want to use in your favor!

Many successful advisors I know find that the most successful part of their newsletter is their quiz!  They get more phone calls from that portion of their newsletter than all others combined.  The Client and Prospect newsletter about the little old lady writing a tongue in cheek letter to the bank was by far the most popular with our user’s clients.

Clients, prospects, people in general all love to share entertaining stories, facts, jokes, whatever.  If you can give them one to pass around, you now have more people that want to be around you and who know who you are.

Please don’t take yourself so seriously! A little levity will pay huge dividends!

Learn more about the “Hot News” system at TeamingWithClients.com

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There is more than one way to skin the marketing cat

Posted on December 4, 2008 by Mike Kaselnak

As marketing becomes more difficult, you need to get more creative.  Quit throwing money at the problem and start thinking outside the box.  Prospects are throwing junk mail away, they are not attending seminars, they Tivo their TV so they don’t have to watch the commercials.  They just plain don’t want to be sold.

Now don’t get me wrong, Prospects LOVE to buy, they just don’t want to be sold.  So how do they decide to buy?  Well, personal relationship is the number one reason.  It could be a referral or they might work with a friend, etc.

How else do they make their buying decisions?  By what they see in the Media…papers, television, magazines.  If it is in the media, then it must be true.  If the advisor is in the media then he or she must be great.  So how do you get yourself in the Media?

Same way you get into a prospects life.  Create a relationship.  The best tool for that is the handwritten note.  Here is the 6 step process to getting into the Media:

1.  Determine where it would be most profitable for you to be seen or heard – First, think about what your best prospects read.  Where do they get their information?  What do they trust?  Second, think about the big credibility builders like the WSJ or New York Times.  Put together a list of publications that would be worthwhile to get your name into.  (And don’t forget the newsletter of local companies or groups in your area!)

2.  To write or to be the expert – You can choose to either write an article and submit it or to position yourself as an expert to be quoted.  Generally, being quoted holds more water with most people.  Anyone can write an article but reporters obviously would only go to experts for quotes (not true, but that is what the general public believes).  To become an expert determine who writes about consumer issues and financial matters.  Send them some information that might be useful to them to either create a story or give them an idea on a story worth reporting.  Jot a note introducing yourself and send it to them in the mail.

3.   Consistency and regularity – Make sure that you continue to do this like clockwork.  This will build trust and credibility for you.  And remember, this should not be self-promoting info. It should be something worthwhile for them to write about or pursue.

4.   Make sure you are easy to find – When you begin to be quoted you had better be sure that you are easy to find.  The reporter is not going to put your contact information into the article.  People will be forced to seek you out elsewhere.  Make sure that you are easy to find in the phone book and that you have some branding activities going on elsewhere as well.

5.   Make sure that you are ALWAYS available – When a reporter calls, get back to them NOW, not later.  If you are reliable as a quick and easy resource, they will come back again and again. And once they use you, send them a note thanking them for their professionalism and assure them that you are willing to help again in the future.

6.   Don’t be stupid and lazy – This type of marketing is the most valuable of all marketing and costs nothing but a bit of elbow grease.  I have seen people spend over $100,000 in marketing in a year with marginal results and yet they are unwilling to spend a few minutes each week nurturing these relationships.   Please put this to work for you right now before you forget!

Like handwritten notes, they are cheap and VERY EFFECTIVE!

Learn more about the “Letter to the Editor” system at TeamingWithClients.com

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Market Like an Egyptian

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Mike Kaselnak

The most powerful marketing tool has been around for thousands of years and is largely ignored. It has been utilized since the time of the Egyptians.  You’ve been using this kind of marketing since you were old enough to write…Dear Santa…

The system is the handwritten note and I’m going to tell you why it works. For 12 years I was making no more than $50,000 a year. The system I am going to tell you about catapulted me to collecting $33 million in new money and making $1 million a year of income in just two years! How?  Take a look.

The Power of the Handwritten note:

It’s cheap

  • Pen or pencil — free (Your local service station will give you one for free.)
  • Paper –  one penny
  • Envelope – one nickel
  • Stamp – 42 cents
  • Total cost – 48 cents

It’s effective

The one piece of mail that is guaranteed to be read 100% of the time is the handwritten note.  If done right — your message will:

  • Be kept for at least a week
  • Be shared with other people you normally couldn’t reach
  • Create referrals…and the most effective referrals – UNASKED FOR REFERRALS.
  • Sets you apart from your competition. You will be demonstrating the Golden Rule of selling:

They don’t care how much you know

Until they know how much you care

Your competition is playing a game that can’t be won. They are all trying to prove:

  • That they are smarter than each other
  • That they have better customer service

You will be alone in demonstrating that you care!

The handwritten note can:

  1. Create over 100 referrals in a year from your top ten clients
  2. Create hot prospects that will be dying for you to call them
  3. Create a campaign that will have prospects calling you for your product
  4. Double your seminar invitation response rate
  5. Find all the money your clients have but have never told you about

Why it works

I am a commodity.  You are a commodity.  Financial advisors are a commodity.  We like to think that we aren’t, but we are. We all look the same to the public.  We all sell the same things.  Our products all cost the same and we can’t put things on sale like retailers to pump up our business.

We are all basically proficient at being financial advisors much the same as dentists are all proficient at dentistry.  We don’t all flock to a dentist because he is the “best.”  We go to a dentist simply because we needed one.  He or she had an office close to our home, we heard they were good, and they were as good, in our eyes, as any other dentist.  Sorry, but for most people, that is about the same amount of time and effort they put into choosing a financial advisor.

No wonder I had never made more than $50,000 a year in my 12 years as a financial planner.  I tried everything and it all kind of worked…just not enough for me to make more than $50,000 a year.

I tried:

  • Seminars – Expensive and risky.  One failed workshop and I was $5,000 in the hole.  Three failed workshops and I could be out of business.
  • Newsletters – Sent out thousands and they always seem to generate enough business to pay for themselves…just.
  • Newspaper Ads – Got a lot of people wanting free information…just not a lot of people buying products
  • Referrals – I asked for them a lot at the beginning but after making clients feel on the spot and still not getting many good referrals I quit asking.  I figured why make client feel uncomfortable when the likelihood of a good referral was slim to none anyways.

So finally, through desperation, I sat down and tried to figure out an inexpensive way (I couldn’t afford anything but cheap) for me to look different than all my competition.  And I had a lot of competition.  I live in Rochester, MN, the home of the world famous Mayo Clinic. Since 7% of the entire Rochester population is doctors, every broker and their brother have set up shop in our city.

Here’s what I stumbled on:

  1. Trying to look smart doesn’t work.  They either take your information back to their current broker and he made the commission on it or they just take the information home to “think about.”
  2. You can’t give better customer service.  Your competitors answer their phones courteously.  They promptly return phone calls.  They fulfilled their client’s requests quickly and with a smile on their face.  Your competitors all have good customer service
  3. You can’t promise them higher returns than my competitors for two reasons.  It’s illegal and it’s a lie.  Heck, if I could actually get them the highest returns I’d be living large on a Caribbean Island right now!

I had been ignoring the Golden Rule of sales for 12 years:

The prospect doesn’t care how much you know Until they know how much you care

I had been spending the vast majority of my time trying to demonstrate how much I know to prospects and just expected them to know that I care.

THAT IS BACKWARDS!

They already know that you’re competent; they think all financial advisors are competent just as they do with dentists.  What they don’t know was that you care.

How can you show them that you care more than other financial advisors?

I sat down and tried to think how I could show them that I cared more about them than my competition.  I couldn’t tell them because prospects by nature are very skeptical. Their attitude is:

  • Words are cheap
  • Just SHOW me

So how can you show them that you care about them?  If you just keep coming up with financial ideas to share with them, it’s just making them think that the only thing you care about is getting at their money.

You need to show them that you care about them as people as you would a friend or family member.  People do business with those who treat them like a friend.

What do friends do?

  • They share stories about what has happened to them or their families
  • They help each other out
  • They keep in contact
  • They time for each other

The only way you can do these things is by phone or by mail.  Phone is labor intensive and you run into the do not call list and making intrusive calls that cause people to dislike you.

Mail is not intrusive and can be done very time efficiently.  Unfortunately, the time efficient way of mail merging form letters is a waste of money.  99% are going to get thrown away.

The one piece of mail no one throws away without reading it is the handwritten note.

So I began to write handwritten notes.  A few at first and then dozens and then as my business began to explode instead of stopping…I wrote hundreds of handwritten notes and within two years, without changing anything else I was doing, I went from making $50,000 a year to over $1 million a year.

Posted in Lead Generation | 1 Comment

Home made leads cost less and make more

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Mike Kaselnak

I am bombarded with lead offers daily…Join us and we’ll give you free leads (I can get free “leads” right out of the phone book)…We will get you a 10% response rate (ask them about their guarantees of a 10% response rate for a good laugh)…blah…blah…blah.

I don’t know how they get by calling them leads when for the most part they are not leads.  These are not leads in the sense that the prospects have indicated a need or desire to talk to you, though they are sold as such.

Think about these numbers.  A lead generation company will send out 1,000 mailers to the general public offering some sort of FREE information, report or trinket.  So out of 1,000 mailers, they’ll get say 100 people saying they want something for free…mind you, NOT to talk to someone… but that they want this FREE thing that is being offered.

So the lead generation company spent:

Initial mailing:  29 cents for the mailer X  1,000 pieces = $290

Sending information:  $1.25 mailed report  X  100 people that requested it = $125

Total Cost = $415

Cost per “lead” = $4.15

Four dollars and 15 cents for these lead generation companies to generate a “lead.”  A “lead” that did not want to talk to someone but merely wanted to receive something for FREE.  A “lead” that when you call them up, get angry at you for calling or claim that they never asked for any information in the first place.

How much do they sell this crappy lead for?  A lot more than $4.15 a piece and what is it worth?  Butkus.

You would be far better off creating your own leads.  As usual, if you want something done right, do it yourself.  By using a 10:1 ratio technique you can generate REAL leads…leads that want to talk to you…leads that are interested in what you have to say…leads that might actually LEAD to a sale for God’s sake!

What is the cost?  About the same as the lead generation company “leads” if you do it yourself.  About $15 a Great Lead if you want someone else to generate them for you.  Buying “leads” that aren’t really leads are never, I repeat, NEVER a bargain.  However, creating your own leads will build a business that is profitable, ethical and enviable!

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The 10:1 Ratio to Riches and the Use of the Handwritten Note for Prospecting

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Mike Kaselnak

You can use handwritten notes for prospecting in two ways.  Immediate results or Great results.  What do I mean by that?  As in anything, the best results require a little extra effort.  But sometimes we need results right now regardless of whether they are just good instead of great and that is why there are two methods for prospecting.

One time mailing – A mailing that is mailed just once to get your phone ringing right now.  You should expect a lower response of about 2% to 3% with this type of mailing.  Not bad if you send out 100 pieces and get 2 appointments.  But please be warned, these appointments will be in looking for information so it will be up to you to be at your best when presenting your solution.

Though less effective the One time mailing is a way to get appointments quickly.

10:1 Ration to Riches technique – (this is the one of the techniques I used for my practice) A Fool-proof way to dominate a zip code within 6 months.  How would you like everyone in your target market to know you, love you, and think of you anytime they need financial services?  If that is what you are looking for then you are going to find that this system will explode your practice!

For when you can afford to take a slightly longer time period (about 3 months) and more profitable approach. How much money can you make when you are the BIG FISH in a small pond? Imagine if 99% of the people in your target market, whether it be seniors, college planning, or pre-retirees, all knew who you were and that you cared about them.  What would that yield?  I am living proof you can make over $1 million a year.

Not everyone has the luxury of waiting for 3 months to build a very profitable practice.  They need money right now.  Well for those folks we will first discuss the One Time Mailing possibilities of the handwritten note.

One Time Mailing

Tools needed:

  1. List of your target market
  2. Your offer
  3. Creative postcards
  4. Pen
  5. Postage stamps

List of your target market

What is your market?  What kind of people do you want calling you?

Some Do Not’s:

  • Do not just mail to everyone with an address.
  • Do not just mail to people in homes
  • Do not just mail to people with high incomes or net worth

Do some thinking before hand.  Do I want to tap into the 401k rollover crowd?  Do I want to be a magnet for seniors?  Do I want to become the expert for college planning in the area? Do I want to be the mortgage broker for everyone in a neighborhood?

Once you have your “perfect” type of client in mind, purchase a list of names and addresses (no phone numbers, the list is cheaper and you aren’t going to call these people.)

There are many list companies that you can find on the Internet.  Simply go to Google.com and type in mailing lists.

Your offer

It’s really pretty simple.  Find a need and write a great headline.

Unfortunately in all simple and elegant solutions there is a large portion of genius needed. So let’s try to create some genius.

First, you need to identify the one thing that keeps your target market up at night.  What is their biggest fear?  What is that one thing that they desire more than anything else?  If you can figure that out then you are one step closer to a homerun.

So let’s use a typical target market:  People with retirement dollars to move like 401k rollovers.  What keeps them up at night about their retirement dollars?

Probably a couple of things:

1.  Is it enough or will I run out of money?
2.  How do I get it out without paying taxes?

So let’s use “Will I run out of money.”

Choose a card:

You can get cards at places like Hallmark (very expensive) or online or even pick up fistfuls while you are on vacation.

The one I utilize quite a bit is on www.teamingwithclients.com.  It’s colorful and some say ugly, but it sure gets people’s attention!

Next you need to create a headline for them.

Headline for their worry of running out of money.

The Writing is on the Wall for People born between 1937-1948
These people are facing a hurdle never faced before!

What hurdle?

  • It could be the skyrocketing cost of nursing home care.
  • It could be the accelerating diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease if you sell long term care insurance.
  • It could be the cost of health insurance and pharmaceutical costs if you are going after middle and upper-middle income households.
  • It could be the big estate planning changes occurring in 2010 if you are going after the wealthy.

Handwritten note for running out of money.

The Writing is on the Wall for People born between 1937-1948
These people are facing a hurdle never faced before!

Bob and Mary,

I just ran across an article  that I really thought would interest you.  Give me a call and I’ll get it to you right away!  555-5555

  1. Our goal here is to get people interested in calling you for information as we talked about before.  When they call, you can engage them in a quick conversation, get their information, and let them know you will be mailing them the article.
  2. Find an article by searching on Google or I’m sure you may have an idea folder, with all the magazine articles you have clipped out over time, addressing some of your target market’s concerns.
  3. Simply mail the article to them with another hand written note that you enjoyed speaking with them and that you will be following up with them to answer any questions.
  4. The day after you mail the article follow-up with another phone call making sure they received the article and engage them in a conversation about their perception of the problem and set an appointment for them to come in to review your solution.

It’s really very simple and can be used for any target market or product that would solve your target market’s problem.

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Once is not enough

Posted on October 6, 2008 by Mike Kaselnak

There is a gospel rule of marketing that amateurs ignore…Giving up too soon.

What am I talking about?  There has been study after study showing how many times you need to touch or contact a prospect client or lead to get them to buy. I’ve seen the numbers 8 times, 12 times, even 21 times thrown around.  One number I’ve never seen thrown around is… 1 time.

People are bombarded with messages about buying one thing or another. Prospects have learned to ignore those messages. In order to grab and hold a prospects attention a lead has to be credible.  What is one of the best ways to create credibility?  Through consistency.

Your message must hit them more than once.  You must show them that you are consistent with your message.  That does not mean that your advertising pieces will be identical, it just means that their message to your prospects and leads will be consistent.

One of them most effective direct mail sequences I have ever seen was one that consisted of 10 sequential mailings to a targeted prospective customer list.  It last just under a year. It consisted of birthday cards, Holiday greeting cards, newsletters, special offerings, emails and phone calls.

The strongest of these tools were the newsletter.  Newsletters work for everyone.  I have seen people use them to bring doctors and dentists to the table.  I have seen hotels use them to boost their repeat business significantly.  I have seen them used by financial advisors to replace almost all of their other marketing.  Newsletters are the perfect way to introduce yourself, share your philosophy of doing business and creating relationships.

Another method that is almost completely ignore today is the simple thank you card.  Make sure you have at least 5 on your desk on every Monday and that there are none left by Friday.  Send them to clients, vendors and acquaintances. You will be surprised by what it renders.

Try telling a story through your direct mail.  Get the reader involved.  Make them interested.  This is a great way to get your current customers and clients to spend more, upgrade or refer their friends to you.

There are lots of clever ways to put a sequential mailing together but there is really only one rule that must be followed.  Once is not enough.

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