Direct Mailer Marketing Mistake

I get junk mail all the time. Everyone does. It’s just impossible to avoid it. I come home at the end of day, open the mailbox, and proceed to feed the trash can some grade-A marketing dollars that were wasted on me.

One thing caught my eye though. I had to keep it for a while. Not because I was interested in the product. No. It was because I couldn’t believe that a marketer convinced a business to send out this mailer with doing an easy bit of research.

Let’s take a  look:

So what’s  wrong with this? It has what seems to be a good offer. It has phone numbers, addresses, and websites. Everything a good mailer needs. Right?

The thing that’s wrong is that I should have never received it. I live in an apartment complex. With 100’s of other inhabitants who received this same mailer. We don’t own lawns. If you’re hell-bent on sending out a flier. At least take some time and look at your target audience.

But the real advice? Don’t waste money on outbound marketing campaigns like direct mail. Direct mail costs range from $500 to $700 per thousand. My apartment complex has over 500 units. So that’s $250 – $350 lost already. And I have to assume that other apartment complexes got the same mailer, some having over 1,000 units. Do the math.

It’s best to invest more time, and less money mind you, on inbound marketing avenues like blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, even Facebook. Running PayPerClick campaigns on Google and/or MSN can be 100’s of times more rewarding than mailers due to low costs and advanced targeting demographics.

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