Timing Your Shops Marketing Can Response
Whether you are looking to increase car count with new acquisition marketing or to beef up your retention marketing strategy to retain as many loyal customers as possible, which is of course critical to growing your shop, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to set your marketing up for success.
Not only do you need to ensure you have well thought out ad copy, strategically created offers, a strong call to action and eye-catching graphics, you need to choose the right marketing channel/s to get your message to your intended target.
With so many considerations, it’s easy for shop owners, managers, and/or their marketing partners to miss strategic times of the year that your shop can leverage the use of specific marketing channels and products to increase your marketing response rates.
One clear example of this, is with direct mail marketing and specifically the use postcard magnets, to catch your customers attention and create marketing that provides longevity.
Postcard magnets are full color postcards with a magnet affixed to the back.
Postcards magnets have been a proven winner for auto repair shops. Furthermore, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), reported in their DMA Statistical Fact Book that “A postcard with a magnet attached is read at least 51.9% more often than a traditional postcard.”
Although postcard magnets are highly effective all year long, there are a few specific times of the year, you can leverage the use of postcards magnets to boost response rates and ROI.
One of these specific times of year happens to be right now, with recent release of NFL schedules. Many shops do choose to use postcard magnets at other times of the year by adding schedules for other popular sports that are popular in their markets, such as baseball, basketball, college, and even high school sports. However, with NFL schedules being released this month, right now is best time to use postcard magnets with your local communities’ favorites NFL team/s schedule.
The addition of a sports schedule may seem trivial, but it is quite the opposite. It is content powerful additional value-added content like this that can provide a compelling reason for your targeted recipients to hold on to your marketing and put it on their fridge.
The trick is to get time sensitive content like this in front of your prospects before your competitors do. If you can accomplish this with the right timing and get prospects to put your postcard magnet on their fridge, you will have a marketing piece that provides more longevity than any other piece of marketing. Your postcard magnet will hang around and reinforce your brand for months while keeping your shop top of mind.
If you aren’t ready now, consider planning on sending postcard magnets around the second-best time to mail postcard magnets, which is towards the end of the year, by adding a Calendar for the following year to your postcard magnet.
Beyond sports schedule and the new year, challenge yourself and/or your marketing team to look at other times of the year that you can leverage current events along with the best mediums to boost your marketing response rates and ROI. For example, It’s crazy to think, however, before you know it, the Holidays will be here. One of the most effective marketing strategies around the holidays is sending plastic postcards with pop out offers like gift cards.
There are so many opportunities to capitalize on timing your marketing. Take action and Challenge yourself. Get creative with your marketing ideas, stand out from your competitors but most importantly plan your marketing by putting in on a calendar. Without coming up with a plan and putting it on paper there will be no accountability to execute.
