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Strategies for using alternative media to surround your market
By Denny Hatch
When I started out in this business back in the 1960s, bulk mail postage cost as little as 2 cents and 3 cents. Consultant Paul Goldberg reminded me that when list rental prices went up from $12.50/M to $15/M, the industry screamed bloody murder.
What's more, back in those halcyon days, people did not receive much advertising mail; your piece would be scrutinized and acted upon.
Today, direct mail represents a very different story. The basic bulk mail postage rate is a whopping $250/M. If you mail a good deal and mail carefully, you can get it down to $150/M, but that is still a ton of money. Add to postage the cost of list rental, which averages $100/M, and you are spending 25 cents to 35 cents per piece before you turn around. Plus, the mail stream is clogged and it can take weeks for a bulk mailing to be delivered. Mailboxes and office inboxes overflow. Consumers and business people are moving at an unprecedented rate (which means all lists are out-of-date). In short, unless you have a long history of results of lists and offers, cold mail can range from being expensive to totally debilitating.
Reaching PROSPECTS where they go
When you rent a mailing list, you are reaching people where they ARE. Try reaching people where they GO—in the magazines they read, their e-mail letter box, even the television shows they watch and radio programs they listen to. You can surround your market at a lower CPM than trying to reach it directly.
I can think of two major direct marketers who "surround" their prospects: Oreck vacuum cleaners and Bose radios. You see and hear ads for their products everywhere—on radio, television, retail, space advertising, as well as solos and catalogs of their own and other companies.
Case in Point
Tom Rollins is an entrepreneur who started The Teaching Company—a series of audio- and videocassettes of America's greatest college and university teachers lecturing on their specialties—music, history, psychology, art, literature, etc. Instead of spending a ton of money on cold direct mail, Rollins reaches his prospects through intellectual publications: The New York Times Sunday Book Review (circulation: 1.64 million) and The New York Review of Books (circulation: 115,000). Instead of spending $50,000 or more to mail the New York Review list, Rollins spends one-fifth of that, or $10,150, for a page (probably much less with a contract for multi-insertions). The advantage: guaranteed 100 percent circulation at a fraction the cost. Plus, he reaches the otherwise invisible newsstand buyers as well as subscribers. One other advantage: The publications arrive nationwide on pretty much the same day; no mail trickling out and orders dribbling in for weeks. You know whether or not you have a winner or loser much quicker than with direct mail. The disadvantage: Graphics and length of message are limited by the dimensions of the page.
By Denny Hatch
When I started out in this business back in the 1960s, bulk mail postage cost as little as 2 cents and 3 cents. Consultant Paul Goldberg reminded me that when list rental prices went up from $12.50/M to $15/M, the industry screamed bloody murder.
What's more, back in those halcyon days, people did not receive much advertising mail; your piece would be scrutinized and acted upon.
Today, direct mail represents a very different story. The basic bulk mail postage rate is a whopping $250/M. If you mail a good deal and mail carefully, you can get it down to $150/M, but that is still a ton of money. Add to postage the cost of list rental, which averages $100/M, and you are spending 25 cents to 35 cents per piece before you turn around. Plus, the mail stream is clogged and it can take weeks for a bulk mailing to be delivered. Mailboxes and office inboxes overflow. Consumers and business people are moving at an unprecedented rate (which means all lists are out-of-date). In short, unless you have a long history of results of lists and offers, cold mail can range from being expensive to totally debilitating.
Reaching PROSPECTS where they go
When you rent a mailing list, you are reaching people where they ARE. Try reaching people where they GO—in the magazines they read, their e-mail letter box, even the television shows they watch and radio programs they listen to. You can surround your market at a lower CPM than trying to reach it directly.
I can think of two major direct marketers who "surround" their prospects: Oreck vacuum cleaners and Bose radios. You see and hear ads for their products everywhere—on radio, television, retail, space advertising, as well as solos and catalogs of their own and other companies.
Case in Point
Tom Rollins is an entrepreneur who started The Teaching Company—a series of audio- and videocassettes of America's greatest college and university teachers lecturing on their specialties—music, history, psychology, art, literature, etc. Instead of spending a ton of money on cold direct mail, Rollins reaches his prospects through intellectual publications: The New York Times Sunday Book Review (circulation: 1.64 million) and The New York Review of Books (circulation: 115,000). Instead of spending $50,000 or more to mail the New York Review list, Rollins spends one-fifth of that, or $10,150, for a page (probably much less with a contract for multi-insertions). The advantage: guaranteed 100 percent circulation at a fraction the cost. Plus, he reaches the otherwise invisible newsstand buyers as well as subscribers. One other advantage: The publications arrive nationwide on pretty much the same day; no mail trickling out and orders dribbling in for weeks. You know whether or not you have a winner or loser much quicker than with direct mail. The disadvantage: Graphics and length of message are limited by the dimensions of the page.
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