Joy Gendusa is an entrepreneur, author, established speaker and philanthropist. With only a phone and a computer, Joy grew her business, PostcardMania, from a small startup in 1998 to what is now an industry leader employing more than 200 people in Florida. Joy’s passion is small business, and helping these businesses grow.
In this episode we discuss:
– Are Postcard mailers dead
– How can postcard mailers help dentists
– What is Direct Mail 2.0?
Can you tell us a little more about what you do and how you help dentists?
Postcard Mania is primarily a direct mail marketing firm. Postcards are not dead at all. In 2007, 46% of Postcard Mania business was mortgage brokers, and that was a huge percentage of our clients. Today, dentists provide the largest percentage of revenue for us and it is only 10%. Dentists are a really good market for Postcard Mania and for postcards. Basically, when you think of postcard marketing in any industry, think about what occurs when people receive different forms of marketing. If you receive a pop up or a text add, it can be really frustrating because it makes you have to stop what you are doing and distracts from what you are doing. With direct mail, I go to the mailbox when I want to look at it and go through it. It is on my time. I decide when I am ready and for that reason alone, mail is still the preferred way to get a marketing message across. One of two things are going to happen when they get your mailer, if they need a dentist, they will keep the mailer and put it somewhere where they can find it, or they don’t need a dentist and they throw it away. A Post card just has a way of sticking around longer than other mail.
So what makes you different from other postcard mailing companies?
What makes us different is that we have something called Direct Mail 2.0. Everyone know that when a person gets your postcard, they are going to go to your website. Not everyone is going to convert when they get to the website, not everyone is going to call or schedule an appointment the first time they visit your site. So with Direct Mail 2.0, we take three additional components and add them to a traditional postcard. The first thing we add is a mail tracking code. This is a code, that basically tracks the predicted delivery date and the confirmed delivery date of that postcard to see if your mailer hits your market. The second thing is that we put a tracking phone number on the card that goes to the practice, but this number is recorded through the cloud, so that you can check to see just how many phone calls came in from that postcard campaign. You can listen to each phone call to make sure that the front desk person is making an appointment and saying what you want to say. The third component, is geo targeting. So we make an add that looks like your postcard and we geo target it around your practice. So you are getting all of this repetition with your postcard both in the mail and online.
Postcards just seem to be getting bigger all the time. Does the size of the postcard really matter?
Dentists are really good at marketing. They have the money to spend on marketing. When you are in a niche industry, with no competition, you don’t need the large postcards, but with dentists, we have done postcards as big as 12×12. Size is important but it really depends on how well you know your market and your competition in the area. If you have no competitors, you can use a smaller card.
When it come to sending out these mailers, what advice do you have on the frequency of sending them out? What is your recommendation?
For dentists, I would recommend sending out 12,000 mailers a month and have that broken up throughout, so about 3,000 a week. Hit the same 12,000 people over and over again. You want to be the one these people try when they don’t like their dentist anymore. Seeing it once or twice doesn’t work. You have to hit them over and over. It all depends on how aggressively you want to grow your business.
How can our listeners get in touch with you?
Website: Postcardmania.com
Phone: 1-800-628-1804
Special discount for all Passionate Dentist listeners! Let Joy know that you heard about this from our podcast and there will be a special offer only for Passionate Dentist listeners.