How Local Business Marketing Strategy Done Effectively without Google Adwords and Social Media Extravagance

I am a small time freelancer for a couple years. Originally, I was one of the blue collar job worker. I decided to become a mother of two, in short a full time mom. Good bye 6-2 job! It was hard having 1 kid the first time and first time to not working and just have my whole day hanging out with a baby. Then, the 2nd and last kid came - it wasn't as hard as the first and I started my new interest and started a new gig in my local area. I met several people that have small businesses and are struggling to get their businesses and services get exposed in their neighboring area - the BIG hurdle was the Advertising Cost! I thought Small Business Saturday was going to explode and get these Small Businesses a huge advantage as it was widely advertise but it is only once a year! So, I thought why can't they make it every month? Hmm....I kept scouring the net, it seems that the big push is Social Media and Google Adwords, which is mainly targeting the millennial, the people who always look at their online social activity, whose face are stuck on their tablet or phones.

 

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While brainstorming, I was thinking - how did the world of advertisement get so successful before? I was looking at an old shot gun while thinking and ask my husband how did your dad buy that gun, what was the process? He said:  from Sears' Catalog. And that answer was a light bulb moment for me. Yes! And if you notice Sears is one of the biggest company in the USA and you can still see their marketing strategy slightly changed in terms of approach to accommodate the new trends and how the society has evolve. Guess what? They still use the same Concept until now. If you noticed - every Saturday check out your weekly advertisement in the mail? The biggest Advertisement among "all other companies" is the Sears 9x12 Giant Postcard- the biggest size that the post office allowed not to be folded and delivered to every home FLAT! All other companies - YES! not only Sears doing postcards.  JC Penny, RC Willy, heck even your pizza and haircut place are doing it too. WHY? Because it is EFFECTIVE. This strategy is called Direct Mail. Real Eyeballs are looking at your Offers and Service promotion. No fake clicks and no fake viewers. Real human emotional response to your advertisement. Let us face it - it is either get tossed out into the garbage can or being  used. 

Some business owners are still reluctant to try it because from what I have discovered, that Cost is still the issue! Believe it or not - it's effectiveness has a price! That's why the government postal service is still servicing this big companies. Just imagine, for 5000 mailers- just imagine the cost of the postage alone, that's is a whopping $2,350. And then you have to consider the design service, printing and mailing|handling service it add up.

So, through research again I encountered an article talking about Coop Advertising. Now, I know  WHY these big companies are so aggressive when it comes to direct mail advertising - well guess what they have their own coop. Another light bulb moment! 

Now, every small business owner can do it if they organized withing their local community. As for me, as a freelancer and thinker - I have created a campaign in my local area in hopes that small business would be able to participate at a very minimal budget and yet reach the optimum desired result. Keep in mind a Great Offer is the Key to a Successful Small Business Coop. A plus if the design is catchy. Check out my local campaign here so you can benchmark it. 

There are different direct mail strategy which I will discuss on my next blog.

If you need help with your design, I'd be happy to help. Please visit my site I have some ideas in my gallery for different types of businesses.

Hope I have given you guys some insights.