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In this issue:
• Marketing Article: Repeat Mailings for More Business
• Marketing Article: Tracking Your Media Coverage

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Repeat Mailings for More Business
by Concept Marketing Group Inc © 2006

Have you noticed that sometimes you receive a postcard from a company every month or every quarter for a year? You ask yourself, “Why are they doing this? I don’t need this now.” Here is an example of how repetitive mailings are very effective.

Our example is that of a mosquito abatement company sending postcards to households in Florida, every two-three months starting in January. January is not a month when you would expect swarms of mosquitoes, even in Florida. There is no benefit to your target audience in January. But if your goal is to get name recognition during the winter months so that you have customers starting in the early and throughout the summer months, this strategy is very effective for postcard campaigns.

You receive the first postcard in January. Your initial reaction might be, “I don’t need mosquito abatement in January. Mosquitoes aren’t a problem until May or June. What’s wrong with these people?” Because of you took the time to skim the card, you make a mental note of these crazy people trying to sell you mosquito abatement in the dead of winter. In the trash goes the postcard.

In March, you receive another card from the same company. You have the same reaction. But now you have seen the same company name twice and you remember it from January.

In May, you receive another postcard from the same company and you remember it from the January and March mailings. You remember seeing on TV earlier in the week this might be the worse season for mosquitoes in the past 20 years. Now you think you might benefit from this company so this time you put the postcard where you can easily find it in case you have to call them or maybe you toss it. Either way, you can now recall from memory the name of “… the crazy mosquito abatement service company that sends me postcards during the mosquito dormant months”.

Two weeks later, you are in your yard trying to enjoy a cook out. You notice the mosquitoes were plentiful and you have the bites to prove it. You need help getting rid of these pests if you want to enjoy your yard over the summer. Now you can benefit from the “crazy company” that sent you postcards during the winter and you call them to get to your house in a hurry.

The card you received the first two times was almost as annoying as those mosquito bites. By the time you needed their services, you could remember the name of the company. Even though the postcard did not result in an immediate response, it gave the company brand and name recognition. You remembered the name and the card made an impression on you because you received it in January.

As human beings, we learn by repetition. The more we do something or read about something, the more likely we are to remember it. The same holds true for the postcards.

It only takes a second to skim the postcard and decide whether or not to toss it in the trash can. But if you receive it more than once, it is likely you will be able to remember the name of the company from memory. If you think you might benefit from the company’s offer, you might save the postcard for future use. Either way, the mosquito abatement postcard campaign was effective. They probably received zero responses in January but by May, their phones were ringing off the hook.

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Concept Marketing Group, Inc. is a full-service marketing consulting firm with over 29 years of experience in traditional marketing - including 13 years on the Internet. Concept Marketing Group Inc. assists in developing and implementing effective sales and marketing strategies for businesses through targeted, managed, strategic marketing campaigns. Visit our site, www.marketingsource.com, email us at concept@marketingsource.com or call 800-575-5369, for more information.

Associations and non-profit groups are a powerful resource for building and expanding networking and business opportunities, finding jobs, evaluating goods and services, and industry publications.

Our database puts you in direct contact with these organizations.

Tracking Your Media Coverage
by Concept Marketing Group Inc © 2006

Your press release is ready to go. You have decided which audience you want to target and determined that your release is going to newspapers, magazines, internet wire services, and television and radio stations. You decided to pay the Acme Marketing firm to professionally write your press release. As a part of their writing the press release, they will also do the distribution for you. This saves you time and money. But how will you know if the release was picked up by any of the media outlets on your distribution?

You are probably familiar with the term “clipping service”. No, it is not used for clipping coupons. Clipping services have been around since the 1890s. Before the electronic, computer and internet explosions, these services were performed manually by companies that perused hundreds of newspapers, magazines and broadcast manuscripts.

Now, most of these services are performed by some of the same companies but they use the power of the Internet and other electronic sources to more quickly keep track of potential coverage not only in the print media, but also in blogs and any other internet communications. Television and radio stations make their manuscripts available by updating their database and making them available via the internet.

Many of these firms offer you the ability to search for yourself. The improvement of databases and their easy to use searching capabilities allows you to track where, when and by whom your story has been published.

Whether you decide to have the clipping service do the tracking for you or you decide to do it yourself, expect to pay for these services. Fees vary and you should take the time to find the service that will best meet your needs at a budget you can afford.

If you have a very tight budget and you can’t afford a clipping service, try a standard, free, Internet search engine such as Google or yahoo!. Both of these services allow you to set up an ongoing, automatic search for your company name or other key words or phrases. They notify you daily by email if and when your key words are found on the internet. You receive a link to the information as well as the date, etc. Keep in mind there could be a lag time between the time you distributed your Press Release and the time it takes to be found by Google or yahoo!. Paid clipping services cost money but most of the time, their data is updated as quickly as every two minutes. If time is of the essence, you may want a clipping service.

Measuring and knowing the effectiveness of your Press Release is very important. It helps you determine the return on your investment and keeps you informed as to how information about you or your company is printed, broadcast or “blogged” on the Internet.

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Concept Marketing Group, Inc. is a full-service marketing consulting firm with over 29 years of experience in traditional marketing - including 13 years on the Internet. Concept Marketing Group Inc. assists in developing and implementing effective sales and marketing strategies for businesses through targeted, managed, strategic marketing campaigns. Visit our site, www.marketingsource.com, email us at concept@marketingsource.com or call 800-575-5369, for more information.