Is it possible for a business to spend too much of its advertising dollar on direct-mail or direct marketing? Some experts believe it is and they have some pretty good rationale for why they believe this. For instance consider if you send out coupons all the time and you end up training your customers to wait for the coupon so that they can use it and then they come to expect the coupon and therefore if you ever stop sending out the coupons your customers will stop coming to the store. That is unfortunate because the reason you send out coupons in a Money Mailer type direct-mail or direct marketing package is to get new clientele. The goal is to get in new customers and give them great service and then they want to come back and pay full price for additional services at a later date as well as spread the word-of-mouth advertising and give your company good referrals. But what many small businesses find is that their previous customers and long-term customers start using the coupons as well and essentially you are taking regular customers who are use to paying full price and have no problem doing so and then training them to wait for the coupons and get the discount price, which you really intended for only your new customers, as a way to get them in on a loss leader. Please consider this in 2006. |
