Did you know? Only 2% of your Facebook followers actually see your post!
Your business profile on Facebook has 1000 followers! You just posted an amazing special that your business is offering this weekend. Well... Guess what!? Only 2% out of all of your Facebook followers will actually see it. Not even half of them! That means that Facebook will show your post to only 20 out of 1000 of your followers. Out of those 20 people that Facebook shows your post, the chances are that at least 15 will just scroll right past it.
Let's find out more. However, first, let's start at the beginning, so that we can have a better understanding why that is happening, and what other options there might be.
The evolution of online marketing
Long gone are the times when creating a simple and static website, and adding it to some online catalog was enough. Soon that was replaced by the dominance of search engines, and then came Google. With Google dawned the days of SEO/SEM (search engine optimization or marketing), where you created multiple web pages filled with specific keywords and voila! You are on the top of search ranking. Soon the online world became crowded. Google algorithms changed, and even pumping of thousand or even millions gave no guarantee that your webpage can make it on to the first page of the search. Worst of all, Google algorithms kept changing, and it became impossible for even the best of the online marketing gurus to keep track of them. Soon everyone started saying that SEO is dead.
Next came the PPC (Pay Per Click) marketing. Since it became almost impossible to get a decent ranking in search engine, people started to pay for it. It was attractive, and in fact still is an excellent way to promote business, since you only pay when a person clicks or visits your website. However, soon here things also got highly competitive as costs for a click skyrocketed. Today, a single click may cost several times more than the price of a brochure or postcard. Most businesses could not afford PPC anymore.
However, nothing remains stable for too long in the online world, in few year rules of doing business may change completely. Thus, entered the social media marketing (SMM). Everyone rushed to open a business account on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Thousand or even millions of books and websites were created on the subject “how to succeed at SMM.” As everyone rushed to reap its benefits, SMM met with the same fate. Social media platforms soon started changing, and even they would not guarantee any results.
A few years ago, when you posted something on your Facebook wall business page, that content would get displayed to all of your followers. Peoples wall feeds eventually got too crowded with marketing, so Facebook dropped it down to about 50%. Soon, it was down to less than 20%; then for a while, it was at around 8%. It is currently only 2%, and it is likely to go down to 1%. What does that mean? Let's assume that 5000 people are following your business on your Facebook business profile, and you posted a Valentine's Day Special "Buy one get one free," best deal your company has ever offered! Guess what? Facebook will only show that post to 2% out of those 5000 followers. Not all of them will see it. That means only 100 out of 5000 will actually see your post, and out of those 100, the chances are that at least 60 to 80 of them will just scroll past it.
Facebook wants you to pay highly competitive rates to show your post to more people. Things are no better with other platforms like Instagram. Today less than 40% of followers may see your post on Instagram, but then as the history shows, it would soon follow the course of others. Facebook bought Instagram; they now own it, they have full control of it. You need to burn much cash on online campaigns on social media platforms to get the results. It is not long before we would start saying that SMM is dead.
Today there is ongoing controversy over the cost-effectiveness of online advertising. There is enormous controversy regarding the data provided by the companies engaged in online campaigns. Moreover, impression on online platform by no way guarantees that post was seen or read.
Rising costs, lack of stability, high-risk involved with online advertising has forced many to look back at the traditional channels. Thus, no doubt many such methods are making a comeback. Best of all, online advertising has taken off lots of load from these channels. Hence, these traditional ways are affordable more than ever.
Thus, the advice by professional organizations like American Marketing Association (AMA) is "online advertising work best when combined with traditional methods; they have a synergistic effect."
The online world is dynamic, ever-changing, unpredictable, and it does not offer the benefit of cost and effectiveness, it used to provide. That is why many of the traditional methods are not only relevant; they are regaining importance.
Comeback of traditional postcard marketing
It seems that consumers are missing their old mailbox. Old direct mail is more humane in a way that it provides your target audience something physical to hold and feel. If the online post may get few seconds of attention at most, these things may stay with customers for a much longer time, whether hanging somewhere or just on the working desk. Moreover, each time prospect sees the postcard, it results in the development of a relationship with the brand, and in most cases, this process happens unconsciously and efficiently. It motivates the person to act by ordering the product, services, or just visiting the website.
Postcard communicates the marketing message to the customer from the very first moment it comes out of the mailbox. Quite like click-through rate in the online world, adding some promotional offer to the postcard can help to calculate the effectiveness of the campaign. In similar fashion to online marketing, specific experience and learning are necessary for launching a successful campaign. One of the most critical parts of postcard marketing is a mailing list.
Connecting through postcard
Once the mailing list has been made, the next most critical thing in the postcard is creating a compelling message. It is something that is best done by the business owners. Professional designers or writers can just add spark to it, but the underlying message has to come from the business owner. No one can understand the business needs better than the business owner.The postcard has some similarities to social media post, as in postcard space is limited. Thus the text should be concise and yet informative enough to attract the attention. If a social post fails to get attention on the first look, no one will read it. Similarly, postcard must be able to get attention immediately.
Apart from all the catchy taglines, and claims, and so on, postcard must ask the client to act. It should motivate the reader to take action, feel the urgency. Most importantly this offer or relevant information should be immediately visible, or else postcard will be discarded.
Since a business owner has only a few seconds to grab attention, few seconds that client takes to decide what to do with the postcard, either act on it, or discard it. Hence message should be clear, concise, convincing, packed with power words.
There are lots of power words used in various media; these are the words to which consumers have been conditioned to act. These are the words that grab immediate attention; it tells a client that acting on these words is in his or her favor. Most of these power words are well known, widely used, and they work most of the time.
Thus, include the power words in your offer like, easy, guarantee, save, hurry, free, breakthrough, quality, excellence, value, expert, genuine, exciting, limited time, deadline, bonus, act fast, act now, and so on.
Choose the combination of power words depending on your audience, business target. There are power words that are specific to the particular industry. Thus it is a good idea to do enough research before creating the content.
Purpose of using postcard
Postcards can be used for a range of purposes; some may use to announce the new product, while others may use it to communicate information about the upcoming event, or sales. It could be used to invite the clients to some special event like product launching or festival discount. They are an excellent way to communicate to clients about the launch of new product or services, or opening up of the new branch office. Clients love to receive personalized and printed invitation postcard to an upcoming event or even invitation to join the webinar. Using a postcard to offer gift or sample is not a bad idea. There are endless ways in which it can be used; one may have to learn it by little experimentation or trial and error.
Secrets to success
Though there are things that we have to learn through trial and error, however, it is a costly method. Another useful way to know what to do and what not to do is to learn from the experience of others. Here are few tips that can make your postcard campaign a success:
• Study a bit about what kind of design works for your area or business. Your mailbox can serve as an excellent starting point for market research. Check the campaigns of the competitors. You can even take tips from the web or other sources to know what is in and what is out. What appeals to people keeps changing with time, sometimes it is floral elements, other time it could be minimalism in design, and so on.
• Be innovative and respectful towards client- avoid using taglines like FREE!!!, avoid screaming at them, do not use too many of exclamation marks. Modern consumers are intelligent enough. Thus your offer should make sense to the sensible people. At the same time avoid very fundamental kind of design like the photo of a plumber and telling about plumbing services. Just spend time on content creation, and be imaginative to create something fascinating.
• Never assume that your clients know enough about your product or services. Today clients are bombarded with information; confusion is common. Thus, message on postcard must be clear and informative enough.
• Be honest in your message, try to develop trust with your clients.
• Call-to-action, ask your clients or prospects to perform a particular action. It is vital for higher conversion rate. Moreover, it would help to track the success rate of the campaign.
• Colorful is good, but color schemes should be well planned. Using too many colors may create confusion. Try to choose one or two primary colors, selecting the colors of your brand or company’s logo may help (think about coke and its adverts).
• The postcard must be personalized, in that way clients get the feeling of exclusivity.
Mistakes to avoid
When sending postcards or direct mailing, there are few mistakes to be avoided to ensure the effectiveness of any campaign.
• Targeting the wrong prospects- just imagine that you are selling the products for vegans or weight gain formulation. Mass mailing based on zip or postal code may not work in such condition as the majority of the recipients would be neither vegan nor interested in weight gain formula (they may be obese). Thus, make an effort to prepare the list of prospects.
• Lack of intensity- sending a postcard once a while would not work, persistence is the formula for success in any marketing campaign. If you have doubts, think about coke again, it is one of the leading brands in the world, and yet it needs to remind its customers continually. Out of sight, and you would be quickly out of the market in such competitive environment.
• Not spending enough on printing- If your order is big enough, high-quality printing would not cost much. Don't try to save few cents, as they may have a negative impact on the quality of a postcard. It does not mean that postcard has to be very expensive, all we want to say is that quality has to be decent.
• Not keeping the message short enough- remember that trying to put too much information is as bad as lack of information. The postcard has to look like a postcard and not like a newspaper. The headline is the most critical part of a postcard, which should be supported by the minimum text.
• Not providing enough contact information - it may seem obvious to include complete contact information, yet it is something that is often neglected or missed.
• Failure to proofread- spelling mistakes, typo errors are all too common on postcards, and they may immediately spoil the image of the company, product, or service. Thus, read several times before placing an order for printing, if required give other to check for mistakes.
Old is gold, is often true. Few things never get out of vogue; it is right for many traditional marketing tools like postcards. In the information age, it should be realized that these tools work in synergy with online branding. Your online effort need not come at the cost of cutting down the budget for these traditional instruments. Moreover, postcards can be better personalized and targeted. They are now even cheaper than many online promotional options. Above all, you can be sure that they reach most of the intended people or prospects.
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