Two of our recent campaigns yielded typical results, though “typical” in both instances made these companies’ investments worth every penny.

Pool Doc sent out 1,200 postcards to a targeted audience.  His investment yielded over 20 new clients (and counting!), most with annual service contracts.  Total ROI was 150% in the first month for a phenomenal projected total of 2900% (yes, you read that right) for the year.

Green Collar Operations also had great success! With 5,000 mailers sent, they have already closed one deal and have booked 30 more estimates.  They have a proven track record of closing 40% of the estimates they place and they project a 1000% return on their investment. No kidding.  Go Green Collar!

A successful direct mail marketing campaign can depend on a number of factors, though the two primary components are (1) determine who you want to reach; and (2) develop your messaging to effectively grab your audience’s attention. Full Moon Design Group can help you access quality database resources and demographics, so that you can target the prospects at whom you are aiming both effectively and precisely, and create a strategic message that resonates with your audience and calls on them to act.

The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages but you should be aware of them all before making your decision.  So what are the Pros and Cons of direct mail?

Pros of Direct Mail:

1. It is one of the easiest forms of marketing out there.  Direct mail marketing has been used for a long time.  The process is in place.  You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but you do have to know who your target audience is.

2. You can target a large audience or a very specific demographic.  You are behind the wheel and can control who receives your message and who doesn’t.  FMDG can help you develop a quality mailing list.

3. You have full flexibility of your messaging.  You can tailor your messages to specific groups or keep it consistent across all audiences.

4. Each direct mail marketing campaign is measurable.  Direct mail makes sending measurable discount codes easy.  You can track the success each time you send it out.  You can send out different codes for specific groups and can measure the success according to those different target audiences to see which ones respond to each messages.

5. You can test a promotion on a small scale before committing a huge budget.

6. You can strengthen your brand and your message with each mail distribution.

7. Direct mail is delivered directly to the person.  You know that they receive it and you know that at least the brand recognition factor is strengthened, even if it goes right in the trash.

8. You can put as little or as much information in your mailer as you want.  Whether it is a simple postcard or a full envelope with company information, coupons, etc.  You tailor the mailer to fit your needs.

Cons of Direct Mail:

1. Direct mail is often considered to be junk mail. Seldom does a one-shot mailing have the desired result. You must have a long term, well thought out marketing plan.

2. Direct mail is still popular, so you have compete for attention.  FMDG can develop the right image for your mailer to get noticed.

3. There is a high cost per contact, but the return is higher.

4. You have to maintain an accurate mailing list or purchase a high quality list from a valued source.  While this is true, it is also part of your initial investment.

5. Green factor.  More paper means less trees.  FMDG encourages the use of and offers recycled paper and earth friendly inks.

6. Direct mail is snail mail spam, but it is not seen in as negative a light.  Though competition for attention is still high, you don’t have to fight through 10+ per day (if you are lucky!) advertisements on male enhancement drugs, rich dignitaries trying to get money out of some unheard of 3^rd world country, or the multitudes of other unwarranted emails.

Marketing professionals like Full Moon Design Group know how to increase visibility and the likelihood that your message will be seen and heard.  They are knowledgeable on ways to decrease the risks and environment impact.  They can develop the right implementation plan for your business so that your message gets to the right people at the right time.

They will coordinate your mailing with other advertising methods to significantly increase your return and will help you track your campaigns so you can see the ROI of every dollar you spend.

For assistance with your marketing strategy and direct mail campaign, visit www.fullmoondesigngroup.com or call 512.428-9072.

Thoughtful planning and consideration need to go into the process, but the effort can be daunting and outright overwhelming.

Here’s a good solid approach that just about any business can follow and be successful with when entering social networking.

1. Make the commitment and decide your time commitment. How much time you are willing to commit to be consistent with your participation?  The benefits of social media do not happen overnight.  They take time.  Making this commitment and sticking to it is the only way to ensure success.  Be realistic.  If you think you can only commit to an hour a week, then a blog may be the way to go (We like WordPress).  Got 2 hours? Why not establish a Facebook page as well.  As you become more familiar with each new site, you will find natural efficiencies occur and you will have more time to add more sites to your repertoire.

2. Monitor and listen and follow. Sometimes this is the easiest step and it will get you used to what is being said, by whom it is being said and the intricacies of engaging in those conversations.  This is often overlooked, but can be one of the most important steps you should take.  It gives you insight to your audience and will give you opportunities to be involved before you start blasting your message.  Technorati is a great tool for finding who is talking about what.  It’s free and you can search just about any term or group of terms and get a list of blogs or blog posts that pertain to those terms.  You can even find blog rankings and other pertinent information so you know who the industry influencers are no matter what industry you are in.  Follow the people who you find interesting.  Find industry experts and follow their conversations.  Learn what they do, what they talk about, who they follow and follow those people as well.  The more people you follow, the more you will learn.

3. Define your objectives and determine your measurements of success. What do you hope to gain by becoming active?  Brand awareness? Better customer service? Increased sales?  Specifically state your goals and you will have a way to measure them and determine if your efforts are worth the time.  Will you measure success by the number of “followers” or “fans”? or will measure success by the number of posts or comments to your blog?

4. Do your research. Who is your audience? Where (which sites) do they reside? Why should they listen to you (i.e. what do you have to offer)?  Without this prior knowledge and understanding, you are basically taking a shot in the dark hoping to hit your target… oh after you’ve been twirled around until you are almost sick with dizziness.  Yep. That’s a good analogy. If you start spattering off about nothing in particular to no one (or everyone) in particular, the chances of people taking your seriously are pretty slim.  Or they may just tune you out completely.  Take your time to develop the right ideas, but hurry up already…  The world is waiting.

5. Establish a strategy or game plan. Don’t just start blasting anyone and everyone with no process or purpose.  Develop a schedule.  Develop a theme. Get organized.  Brainstorm topic ideas that you have knowledge of, have an opinion about, or want to learn about.  This last one is important, because not everything has to be about what you know.  It can be about what you don’t know!  There is nothing wrong with asking for advice from your audience.  This can lead to trust and open communication because people want to feel needed and they like to offer their “solicited” advice.

6. Monitor comments/conversations. It’s not just about your message.  It’s also about what other people are saying and topics they are discussing when it pertains you or your business.  And there are always dissenters out there that need to be addressed.  The only way you are going to know about these is to keep an eye on what is happening on the sites where you have a presence.  There are easy to use monitoring tools out there. Check out Hootsuite.  It’s a good one for monitoring and integration (plus a lot of other really cool tools.  We’ll get to this in a later post).

7. Determine time frame for measuring success. I’ll say it again: The benefits of social media do not happen overnight. However, you must track your progress as you go.  Remember those goals?  You have a starting point.  Now, how fast are you going to get there with the relation to the time commitment to which you have agreed?  What is working?  What is not?  What is necessary for consistent imaging of your brand?  Will you measure each of these by the week, by the month, by the quarter?  No matter what measurement scale or time frame you decide, make sure you are consistently measuring the same thing over a longer period of time.

8. Adjust as necessary. Not every site works for every person or business.  Only you can determine how best to use your time and how effective that use of time is on obtaining your goals.  Don’t be afraid to start something new, but think twice before you stop participating on a site.  Make sure you have used it effectively and for an adequate amount of time.  Most importantly: make sure your audience isn’t left hanging.

Of course, not everyone has the time to get in and get started or keep the time commitment to an appropriate level.  Full Moon Design Group has professionals that are experienced in helping clients engage with their customers on a variety of platforms.  We can help integrate your social media strategy into your overall marketing strategy, no learning curve involved.  We can guide you through each step or we can manage your strategy from start to finish.  We take your comfort level into consideration and develop the right plan for you and your business.

Want to get started?  Give us a call.  512.428.9072

Social Media really is all about exposing yourself.  It’s about getting yourself out there, engaging people in conversations and telling everyone about your business.  Think of it this way:  Remember the 60-second elevator speech that has been ingrained in every business class or networking function you have attended?  With social media, you are in the biggest glass elevator you can imagine and you have 60 seconds (or in Twitter-verse – 140 characters) to get people’s attention.

The great thing is that it’s your elevator.  Everyone knows it’s your elevator and they are choosing to ride on it.  You can just ride that elevator up and down as many times as you want.  Every time the elevator stops and someone gets on, you get tell them about what is going on, what is new today.  And  you don’t have the keep saying the same old 60-second speech that you’ve been trained to memorize and spout out at the drop of dime.  You get to change it up, you get to get new ideas out there, and you get to get feedback about those ideas.

And your audience is always changing.  You will have some people who ride the elevator often, others that only ride it on occasion, but not matter what, there will always be a different mix of audience in attendance at any given time.

The trick is to know what mix of social media outlets to use for your given business or industry.  For some business professionals, LinkedIn is the perfect spot to make those professional connections.  For others, Twitter and Facebook are the places where their core audiences reside.  While still others go beyond the Big Three and use everything from YouTube and Del.icio.us to Slide Share and blogs.  There are hundreds of potential sites and each one has its own unique demographics of visitors.

Full exposure is all about integrating your social media strategy with your overall marketing strategy so you are reaching your audiences everywhere they reside.  The Full Moon Design Group can help you design your marketing strategy and integrate your social media strategy so that no matter where your audience is you are fully exposed.  Give us a call.  Expose Yourself!

I know it’s hard to find the time, money and energy to commit to all of the above activities. However, it’s important to keep in mind that at least 75% of them should be getting done. And… done well!

There’s all sorts of information you can research online to create effective campaigns that can and will bring desired results. Or, you can call us here at Full Moon Design Group to discuss. It’s important to thoughtfully research and develop your program to get the maximum results… from your logo design to the organizations you choose to volunteer. Taking the time to create a solid foundation will help your company flourish over time. And… you’ll find it will flourish at a faster rate.

But, after a short “UGH” I proceeded to create one … and this is what I discovered.

“Out of Sight … Out of Mind.”

With today’s technologies, we are inundated with ads everyday. So how do you stand apart from everyone else? Very simple – you inundate your friends, family, peers, clients, and co-workers with messages that you’re here. Your Facebook page causes a potential client to think, “This is Vicky and she owns Full Moon Design Group who does custom graphic design AND I need to get with her about my business cards.” That’s how social networking works. And, much to my surprise, it doesn’t take all that much time either.

Since I created the Facebook page I’ve had friends from all over reconnect with me and they are eager to learn what I’m doing now. That’s the perfect opportunity to promote Full Moon and catch up with an old friend to boot.

It’s rare that I ever find a client during the holiday season who’s focused on their business. Everyone gets tied up with the hustle and bustle of the end of the year celebrations, family gatherings, and holiday parties. Because of this, we have to get especially creative on how to bring in new business during this time. While looking for ways to promote Full Moon Design services I decided to update my status on my Facebook page …  “Vicky is looking for anyone interested in us producing a custom xmas card design”.

It worked! I had a few inquiries which equated to business.

On another note, I posted a comment about a project that I was working on in the office regarding a design around the word “imagine”. I had a few friends ask me what it was going to look like. If you think they aren’t watching, think again.

Best of luck to your social networking adventures in 2009!

Blogging and Search Engine Marketing

If you are going to market with blogs, you need to make sure that you have done everything possible to make your blog SEO friendly, which in turn will increase traffic to your blog and ultimately to your company Web site.  After all, that plus creating a community with your current customers is the main goal.

When blogging for marketing purposes; one of them main things to remember when writing the blog is to use a keyword theme throughout.  Choosing your keywords at the beginning of the blog and then continuing to pepper them throughout will increase your odds of being crawled by search engine spiders.  Make sure that the keywords are relevant to your business and to your marketing goals.

Blogging worth Talking About

Marketing blogs should always allow trackbacks and comments.  This allows the search engines another way to find your blog.  When you allow comments and trackbacks, it is possible for your blog to be found via a search on a completely different topic.  For example, John owns a car dealership and he comments from his url on your blog regarding cowboy boots.  If someone is doing a search on John or his car dealership – they will come across your blog as well since his name and company’s url are attached to your blog.

Blogging creates Links to Customers

Remember to always use links when working with marketing blogs.  Link your keywords back to other pages in your main Web site, back to previous blogs, back to pictures in your Flickr accounts, as well as back to sites that may have contributed information to your blog or may be of interest to your clients and blog readers.  This adds, yet another way for your blog to be found by the search engines.

Finally, and most importantly, keep your blog interesting and educational for your readers.  The more that people read your blogs the better chances you have of people commenting, linking to , and sharing your blogs.  A virtual word-of-mouth recommendation can be just as important, if not more important these days, than a real-time word-of-mouth.