PostcardMania CEO, Joy Gendusa, has been determined to help American businesses continue to flourish and prosper in the rough economy. First she slashed her prices, and then she continued to urge companies to promote and find opportunities to increase their income. Continuing on this line after sending a letter from her financial advisor to her 78,000-plus database to help calm fears, the marketing CEO warns that businesses must promote early for the holidays.
“I do believe that people are going to spend less this year, but they will still spend,” Gendusa said. “WHERE they spend depends on who markets and who markets the most.”
If you rely on holiday income, here are a few things Gendusa says you can do right now:
1. Look at your invoices from last year and graph that weekly income starting in October.
2. Find the date where the increase begins.
3. Set targets for each week for this coming season that are higher than last year’s weekly numbers.
4. Figure out what kinds of specials or offers you can promote this year. They are going to have to be better than ever. Look for a loss leader (an item you can break even on or lose on in order to bring people in and get them to spend more once they arrive.) Office Depot does this with copy paper. They lose money on that item, knowing they'll make it up with other purchases. Have a brainstorming meeting with your sales people and come up with a long list of ideas.
5. Mark on your calendar when you want your last piece of promotion to hit your desired market – when you want it to arrive in their mailboxes. This should be minimally the 3rd postcard in the campaign – and the 5th if you really want to outsell your competition this coming season.
6. Mark on your calendar one week earlier as your drop dead mail date.
7. Do the same thing for each postcard moving backward in time – mail date and a week later hit date.
8. Each postcard should be ordered a full month before the mail date. Keep your attention on handling the customers stampeding your establishment instead of on whether or not your promotion will be ready on time.
About PostcardMania:
Using a powerful, simple, extremely cost effective way of communicating with customers has earned Joy Gendusa Inc Magazine’s recognition as the nation’s fastest growing direct mail postcard-marketing firm with year 2007 revenues at nearly $19,000,000. Gendusa began in 1998 with zero investment capital. Today, her Clearwater, FL firm called PostcardMania, employs over 150 people and prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards representing more than 31,000 customers in over 350 industries each week. Visit www.postcardmania.com
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