Last year, Clearwater-based marketing firm PostcardMania hired an outside company to create and manage all their social media profiles. After paying $15,000 for initial set-up fees, an additional $7,500 monthly subscription and getting little to no results, it was clear the investment wasn’t paying off.
PostcardMania CEO, Joy Gendusa, says she is adamant about tracking the amount of marketing dollars it takes to generate leads.
"We just weren’t seeing results," said Gendusa of her time outsourcing the work. "I track the productivity of everything in my company, and if something isn’t producing, I don’t waste money on it. I decided to see if we could handle [the social media work] ourselves."
PostcardMania recently expanded its PR division and added additional staff to help take over the social media efforts.
Within the first few weeks of their new strategy, they began to see surprising results. The launch of their welcome tab on Facebook brought 100 new visitors within 3 hours of posting and increased their fans from 516 to 685 within the remainder of the week. Also, they have received over 40 new subscribers to their weekly e-newsletter, and have gone from 1,013 to over 2,040 followers on Twitter.
"Truthfully, it wasn’t an easy process," says the firm’s PR & Social Media Manager, Ferris Stith. "I did a lot of research before we even considered launching the new campaigns. We’re only getting started, but we’re extremely excited about the results so far!"
Stith recommends businesses taking over their own social media marketing, but encourages them to work with someone experienced such as a firm or consultant at the beginning. Once a business has the hang of things and they feel comfortable on their own, they can take it over in-house.
To help businesses get on the right track, PostcardMania is offering free simple social media education to their clients and prospects, which are comprised of small to medium-sized businesses. While they still see room for improvement in their own ratings, they are expecting continued growth as they roll out new campaigns.
About PostcardMania:
PostcardMania is one of the nation’s most effective marketing companies specializing in lead generation for small to large-sized business. They were featured on the Inc. 500 and 5,000 lists and offer complete marketing campaigns with graphic design, printing, mailing list acquisition, mailing services, website development and email marketing services — all while continuing to educate clients with free marketing advice.
By 2008, revenues reached nearly $19 million and the company now employs over 150 people, prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards each week representing more than 40,000 customers in over 350 industries. Visit www.postcardmania.com
Jessica Aguiar 1-800-628-1804 ext. 281
