Postal Hikes: Time For Email?

The postal service just threw a curve ball at marketers who rely heavily on mailings — a postage hike goes into effect May 14.

That doesn’t give you a lot of time to prepare. And it could put a big dent in that budget you so carefully constructed.

Now is a good time to explore your other options. We’re big fans of email marketing around here, and below are a couple ways you can use email to ease the pain of postage increases.

Create Multi-Part Campaigns

Email is an easy way to funnel your new leads into a postage-free drip marketing campaign. Some prospects need to be cultivated before they’re ready to buy a policy. Maybe they’re just planning for a career change, a move, or making a switch come renewal time.

Rather than creating an elaborate campaign of postcards, sales letters and friendly “reminders” to keep tire kickers warm, email autoresponders shoot out your scheduled marketing emails for you.

Sending emails to your own database of clients and prospects is virtually free — your only investment is time to create your campaigns.

Also consider the potential return on investment. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email returned an unbelievable $57.25 for every dollar spent in 2005. Compare that with only $7.09 return for print catalogs.

Cost-Effective Proposals

Email isn’t just an alternative to your marketing mailings. It can also replace those heavy proposal packets you send out on a regular basis. Not only is it more affordable to create email proposals, your prospects receive them instantly — not 2 – 3 days later.

This helps you keep the sale’s momentum going. Prospects can check out your recommendations immediately, and you don’t have to worry about them losing interest or getting snatched up by the competition.

Renewal Reminders

One of the easiest ways to encourage renewals is to touch your clients just before they have to make the decision to stick with their plan — or maybe get a new one with another agent.

If you’re using a lead management system, you can set reminders to go off when a client nears renewal. Write up a friendly reminder email and make that your template for all renewal notices. Just copy and paste in specific client info, fire it off, and you’re done.

A Word Of Caution

As far as marketing strategies go, email is still relatively cheap… and that can make it easy to abuse. Your efforts will go to waste if prospects view your emails as junk mail or spam.

Make sure you aren’t hammering your database with offers they aren’t likely to be interested in. Limit mass emailing for when you truly have something of value to offer.

Like any campaign, you’ll get the best results by timing your sends and refining your messages to hit a prospect at the appropriate time in their buying cycle.

-Jeremiah Desmarais, Vice President of Marketing, Norvax
Questions or comments? Email him at jdesmarais@norvax.com

For more information on the USPS postage increases, visit their site at www.usps.com