The Book on Marketing: Door Hangers.

I wrote yet another book! This one is pretty big, actually, with over 90 chapters, all of which are rather meaty. The book, The Book on Marketing: No More Excuses for Marketing Inaction, can be pre ordered or, depending on when you see this, purchased by clicking the link HERE. A new chapter will post daily for close to 100 days and then the book will be available for immediate purchase instead of just preorders.

I also released the rough drafts of the book chapter by chapter on my website and you can read what I wrote and get the gist of the chapters. Honestly, you don’t even need to read the book. There is enough information between the blog postings and the resources pages found HERE that the rest of the book might just be fluff.

With that said, the blog is a very first draft, mostly notes, of the final book. It’s out of order and a tad messy. This gives you a peek inside my writing process where I do the technical, eclectic part first and the voice tends to change depending on the topic I am discussing and the research I did for the chapter. Paraphrasing from common knowledge sources in the first draft gives it that eclectic look and feel. So please, enjoy my scattered brain and typos in this draft of The Book on Marketing: No More Excuses for Marketing Inaction.

The book itself its a much easier format to read plus adds a lot more of me into it as it goes on with real world, easy to grasp examples where I could put them and honestly, I would truly appreciate your purchase.

Door Hangers.

Your company's expansion might be sped up with a straightforward door hanger campaign. Several other types of businesses, including nonprofits, real estate, home services, and restaurants, might benefit from this type of campaign, which can be carefully targeted at a certain geographic area or demographic. 

You're missing out on the targeted, neighborhood-specific marketing that door hangers may offer if your advertising strategy is solely centered on internet ads. Door hangers, as opposed to online marketing, are physical representations of your business that potential clients may keep, use as a reference, and pass along to others.

Door hanger campaigns can be profitable in their own right and have several advantages over direct mail marketing, even if direct mail marketing can also be successful. Even while sending a postcard might be the simpler option, it will still have to compete with all the other adverts the recipient receives in their mailbox. 

A distinctive approach to get someone's attention is using door hangers. You can't overlook a door hanger on your doorknob when you step into your home; more often than not, it will be the only one there. Door hangers are also frequently used to deliver warnings from utilities and alerts for missed deliveries, so the homeowner will probably check them to make sure they haven't missed anything crucial.

The cost savings on materials, such as envelopes and postage, as well as the lack of binding or special delivery preparation are further benefits of employing door hangers as opposed to direct mail marketing. 

Also, door hangers are simple and affordable to make, especially if you can design them yourself. Savings from being able to develop and print your own materials without relying on an expensive marketing firm might be significant. Nobody knows your business or what you stand for better than you, after all.

Example of Good Door Hanger Campaigns

Several different kinds of businesses and nonprofit organizations that could profit from a targeted marketing campaign to a certain geographic area may find door hangers to be helpful. Examine a few of these sample campaigns and modify them to suit the requirements of your company.

Homeowner Services –  A door hanger campaign can help home service companies including plumbers, technicians, landscapers, contractors, and painters. This marketing strategy can be excellent for attracting new clients because it's probable that business owners in these industries already have a clear concept of the neighborhood of homes they want to concentrate on. Carry your advertising to the homes of potential clients, where it is most needed.

Political Campaigns – Political campaigns benefit greatly from using door hangers as marketing. Why not leave a door hanger as a reminder of your visit if you are already canvassing an area or leave your contact information when no one is home? Making a personal relationship with people can be advantageous for grassroots campaigns, particularly for politicians from small towns.

Real Estate Advertisements – For realtors with a new listing, door hangers are fantastic. The door hanger, which can be disseminated across the neighborhood of the listing or the neighborhoods of possible purchasers, can advertise a new property for sale. Even if the person who receives the door hanger is not looking to purchase or sell a home, they can still readily pass along the information to someone who does.

Restaurant Menus – Door hangers are the ideal way to promote new business by making your menu accessible to potential clients in your area if your restaurant offers takeout. It is recommended to print menus on high-quality stock because they will likely be kept for a long time for reference. By posting highlighted discounts or promotion codes, you may support new companies.

Determine Your Campaign Goal

Before to creating your door hangers, decide what you want to accomplish. What is the outcome you hope to achieve once your campaign is over? These are some possible marketing objectives: 

  • Boost phone and email inquiries about your business.
  • Increase sales. 
  • Gather contact information. 
  • Boost your profit margin.

When you have concluded your campaign, you may review your results and decide what worked and what needs to be improved for the next round by deciding what you want the end result to be.

Consider Your CTA (Call to Action)

Door hangers should include a similar call to action as one-time deals and coupons for a good or service are the key to direct mail marketing success. It makes sense that the effectiveness of the CTA for door hanger campaigns will also be heavily reliant on the CTA since the success of direct mail marketing campaigns is often decided by how well an offer is accepted by both potential and existing clients. The following advice should be kept in mind while creating your call to action because having a solid plan in place for what you will be advertising is essential:

  • Increase your value while yet allowing for a profit. 
  • Set a time limit on your offer to urge customers to purchase RIGHT NOW. 
  • Write convincing and captivating copy. 
  • Provide excellent value that will be difficult to refuse. 
  • Make use of a catchy headline for your CTA to draw in potential buyers. 
  • Be succinct and precise in your call to action so that clients understand exactly how to respond and what they will receive.

Create and Print your Design

It's critical to pick a template that effectively captures your brand's tone and purpose because the design of any of your marketing materials reflects your company or brand. When selecting a template, keep the following design components in mind:

  • Decide on two or three basic hues. When selecting colors, look to your brand's packaging, emblem, or website for ideas. 
  • Choose images and graphics that your clients will understand. 
  • Ensure simplicity. Make use of legible print that draws attention to the call to action. 
  • Draw attention to your coupon or deal. It's all about the call to action once more.

Choose a trustworthy printer that can make high-quality copies after you've produced your bright new door hanger with an attractive call to action. It's ideal to spend in high-quality printing because, as with the design, the print quality of your door hanger affects how your business is seen. 

Before sending your final design to the printer, print a draft and check it for flaws because it is simpler to spot mistakes on printed products. When you're ready to print, keep in mind that by printing a lot of copies at once, you can cut costs and possibly boost your campaign's profit margin.

Choose the Best Demographics for Your Campaign

Think about your target audience's demographics before starting your door hanging campaign. Who is more likely to be interested in purchasing your good or service? Your call to action might account for 40% of the door hanger campaign's success, but the receivers you pick for this campaign will also have an impact on the results. When choosing your target audience, keep the following data in mind:

  • Income range.
  • Age (for instance, should you target a middle-aged audience or will college students buy your product better?)
  • Is your product more geared at men or women? Or can it address both at once? 
  • Purchase propensities.
  • Statistics on marriage and families.
  • What  hobbies and other pastimes does your target audience have?

Door hanger campaigns can be carefully targeted at a specific audience by analyzing neighborhoods to see how they fit within the aforementioned categories. Door hangers also have the added benefit of allowing you to monitor which areas respond best to your marketing initiatives.

Build Your Game Plan!

The first step in developing a door hanger plan is to locate the areas where you want to place your freshly made door hangers. Give teams of two distributors access to certain streets, and instruct them to distribute door hangers on one side of the street and on the opposite side, respectively. Because of this, your teams will be able to go through a neighborhood much more rapidly and avoid the need to cross any streets. Each team should be able to reach roughly 100 homes within 10 blocks in under an hour using this pairing-up technique.

Get Your Team on the Same Page.

Organizing a distribution team is a crucial component of any door hanger strategy unless you intend to handle all the labor yourself. Determine how many distributors you'll need after first determining how many hangers you need to distribute. The following are some methods for locating distributors:

  • Door hangers can be distributed alone, but this takes time. 
  • You can engage a business to handle the distribution, but this can be pricey and can dramatically reduce your overall profit margin. Nonetheless, if you need to distribute thousands of door hangers quickly, this can be an alternative. 
  • Have your staff pass out door hangers (while paying them for their time, of course). 
  • Invite volunteers to hand out the door hangers, and offer them a prize.

Plan a Day and Time

Pick a period that is convenient for both your helpers and homeowners, and then choose a day when all distributors are available to assist. Don't knock on doors around dinnertime, too early or too late in the day. On a regular working day, the optimal time is typically just before the first shift starts.

Check Municipal Regulations.

As there is no interaction, basic door hanger distribution is legal for business advertising and is not regarded as solicitation. But, in other areas, residents might view your plan to knock on doors and strike up a discussion as a disturbance of the peace. When going door-to-door with your door hangers, make sure to check with your city about any local distribution laws or regulations, regardless of whether you intend to speak with homeowners or not.

Evaluate the Success of Your Campaign.

Keep note of the results of this particular marketing strategy, and then contrast them with those of other strategies you have employed. If your objectives were accomplished, you should keep using your existing plan of action. If you didn't reach your target, review your campaign to see what you may have done differently to increase leads or reach.

Create a Memorable Impression.

Digital advertisements are common today, but because they are transient, they sometimes fail to make an impression on the viewer. Door hangers are a great marketing tool since they not only serve as a visual reminder of your product or service to potential clients, but also because they are easy to make, cheap to print, and efficient at generating new leads.

Chapter 30: Viral or Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

Create something that people will want to share; that's the key here. The internet "tell a friend" scripts are effective, yes. Another is the before mentioned gift certificate suggestion. But there must be something you can come up with to truly "wow" them. Wait till Jane sees this, you want them to say.

Knowing your customer's lifetime worth is one of the keys to making this work (and any other lead generation tool). In other words, how much money will the typical customer in this industry earn me over the course of their lifetime if I use the lead generating strategy you use? Say it's $25,000, for example. And suppose that 10% of the leads generated by your lead generation strategy turn into paying clients. Do you believe it is wise to invest $100 in each lead of that kind? To me, it seems like a no-brainer.

Viral marketing: What Is It? 

Viral marketing aims to disseminate knowledge about a good or service from person to person using email, the internet, or word-of-mouth. The aim of viral marketing is to get people to spread a marketing message to their friends, family, and other people in order to rapidly increase the number of people who receive it. 

Knowledge of Viral Marketing.

Viral refers to something that spreads swiftly and widely among its audience in the context of viral marketing. Even when a message spreads naturally, viral marketing is a conscious endeavor. Social media thus offers the ideal environment for viral marketing, despite the fact that it originated in conventional word-of-mouth advertising.

Although the practice is still frequent among internet-based business-to-consumer (B-to-C) organizations, it was considerably more prevalent in the early to mid-2000s when new internet businesses were being launched in astronomical numbers. The growing use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube has made modern viral marketing campaigns possible and improved their effectiveness. 

A Few Viral Marketing Examples.

Hotmail, a free web-based email service introduced in 1996 that included an integrated advertisement and a direct link urging recipients to join up for an account, is an often cited example of early viral marketing. The user-based media companies at the time saw the fastest growth as a result of this technique.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is another illustration of how versatile viral marketing can be. Before The ALS Association used the ice bucket challenge to increase donations and awareness, it already existed. Yet, the widespread posting of ALS Ice Bucket films on social media generated a global sensation that significantly raised awareness of the disease. 

Features of Viral Marketing.

All intentional or unintentional viral marketing examples have three things in common: the message, the messenger, and the setting. To develop a fruitful viral marketing campaign, each component needs to be utilized. Any size of business can develop viral marketing initiatives, which can either stand on their own or be a component of a bigger conventional campaign.

In order to engage users or viewers emotionally, spread knowledge of a worthwhile cause, and make content easier to consume and share, these campaigns may make use of a variety of technologies (such as films, games, photos, emails, text messages, and free products). A person with a huge following of followers, or an influencer, is frequently used in viral marketing. 

Viral marketing is speedier and less expensive than traditional marketing initiatives thanks to the "force multiplier" effect of social networks. It can also result in mainstream media attention due to how much traffic it can get quickly. Social media can also make viral marketing campaigns fail when messages are changed, misinterpreted, spammed, or criticized for being off-target. Success in viral marketing can be challenging to quantify.

Viral marketing's pros and disadvantages. 

By reaching customers who would not often be the target of their standard marketing initiatives, viral marketing enables businesses to better advertise their products. With a wider audience, the business can access new markets and possibly gain more clients. 

Creative business practices have the potential to start viral reactions. As an illustration, Burger King generated a stir when it tweeted images of a moldy, month-old Whopper in response to McDonald's assertion that their burgers don't go bad. Burger King claims that because it only utilizes fresh ingredients and no preservatives, its consumers would receive better and healthier food. The unappealing-looking burger served as concrete evidence of that assertion.

The price of viral marketing is much less than that of conventional advertising operations. Additionally, advertising is basically free when customers enthusiastically recommend a business's goods and services to others. 

Viral marketing can also lead to exponential and quick growth because the internet makes it simple and quick to spread material. It is crucial to remember that the company's usage of the appropriate tools that enable this greatly affects how quickly and readily content is shared. 

Viral marketing can occasionally elicit a reaction that was not intended. Consumers tend to spread bad news more frequently than good news, and research indicates that individuals react emotionally more strongly to bad news. 

Bad publicity may be damaging to business and occasionally difficult to overcome.

Since it can be challenging to ascertain if viral marketing generated a lead or a sale, its effects are tough to quantify. Also, firms do not agree on how to define success. 

Customers are unlikely to share if they think the viral campaign would risk their security and privacy. The company's marketing strategy fails as a result, and its reputation can be damaged. Previous unsuccessful initiatives may negatively impact upcoming viral marketing strategies.

Pros

  • Wider reach.
  • Faster and exponential growth.
  • Lower costs.

Cons

  • Negative word-of-mouth.
  • Hard to measure.
  • Low virality.

Questions on Viral Marketing.

How Can I Make My Brand Popular Online? 

Here are some suggestions for making your brand popular online. As emotions are the primary force behind viral marketing, pay attention to them. Instead of being neutral, take a stand and stay with it. Ads made in the traditional manner should be avoided. Be a skilled storyteller who aims to stir the audience's emotions. Keep engaging your audience; don't stop after one campaign. Finally, be sure to design a campaign that is simple to share and where users can provide feedback or ask questions.

How Can You Earn Money From a Viral Video? 

You must monetize a viral video in order to profit from it. Often, this entails charging subscribers a fee to see content or charging businesses to advertise to your audience. Businesses either run company-created advertising before, during, or after their videos, or they pay the maker to mention their goods or services. 

In addition to the methods already described, there are more ways to profit from a viral video. For instance, artists might grant licenses for their videos so that others may utilize their content.

Why Does Transparency Matter So Much in Viral Marketing? 

Being transparent entails being truthful and up front about methods and objectives. As customers become more sceptical of traditional marketing strategies and hold businesses more frequently accountable for their activities, transparency in viral marketing is crucial. Customers are likely to remain loyal to businesses who are transparent in their marketing, according to 94% of customers. 

In the context of a viral marketing campaign, what Does "Seeding" Mean? 

Using the marketing tactic known as "seeding," businesses intentionally spread viral information or material to a small group of consumers they believe would effectively share the campaign.

The most popular choice for influencers on social media is to help spread the information and get feedback on a product.

How Can You Launch a Viral Marketing Campaign? 

Determine the goal of becoming viral first. Are you trying to raise awareness of your brand or improve its image? Afterward, learn more about your audience. The preferences of your target audience can be learned via social media reporting. The configuration of the content must be such that it can be rapidly and readily shared if you want it to go viral. If not, it's likely that the campaign will collapse right away. Make sure the content you want shared is relatable and natural. Last but not least, use hashtags and trends to draw attention to the material among your followers. 

What Are Good Tools for Viral Marketing Campaigns?

Businesses can employ a variety of methods in their viral marketing initiatives. Communities that businesses can build and fund can be used to advertise your goods or services. To create excitement and draw a sizable audience, create and advertise sweepstakes, competitions, and prizes. Sponsoring messages and chat blasts are some other tools. 

What Is the Price of a Viral Marketing Campaign? 

In general, the price of a viral marketing campaign can range from $100,000 to millions of dollars.

In the End.

For raising awareness and promoting a business or product, viral marketing is a practical and affordable strategy. Businesses rely on their target market or audience to spread the word about advertising efforts and good experiences. Effective campaigns can aid in business expansion, market expansion, and revenue growth. Businesses must arrange their material for easy sharing on the appropriate channels for advertising. Poor execution could lead to undesirable outcomes that harm a company's reputation and earnings.

Thank you for reading this little piece of The Book on Marketing: No More Excuses for Marketing Inaction. If you received any value from what you read, I ask you to please consider purchasing this book by clicking HERE. Thank you for everything!