Multi-channel marketing for the small business takes many different forms. Direct mail is now supplemented, or even replaced, by electronic sales. Direct is ideal because it can be used economically by local and regional merchants to reach closely-targeted local geographic areas at a very low cost, even specific neighborhoods, like a lawn-care contractor serving geographically selected regions.
Multi-channel marketing for the small business takes many different forms. Direct mail is now supplemented, or even replaced, by electronic sales. Direct is ideal because it can be used economically by local and regional merchants to reach closely-targeted local geographic areas at a very low cost, even specific neighborhoods, like a lawn-care contractor serving geographically selected regions.
Direct is also essential for nationwide contacts, like buyers of out-of-print books. Sales can be increased substantially by breaking out of the local retail store trading area and going national.
We’ve looked into the direct marketing programs of four different companies in our own Massachusetts neighborhood. Their sales programs are surprisingly different.
TLC, the “The Lawn Company,” Shrewsbury, MA, started as a franchisee of the Lawn Doctor, but now runs its own operation. TLC is 100% direct mail based; your only direct contact with them is to smile at the worker who applies fertilizer and insect control. TLC signs customers up by mail to renew for each new season; and mails out a pad of monthly payment coupons, eliminating monthly billings.
TLC drops several seasonal mailings; each announcing what their next visit will accomplish (spring feeding, grub control, etc.), and urging customers to add on premium services like power re-seeding of grass. At the end of the season, they offer a complete power mower tune-up over the winter months.
Cape Annie’s Lighthouse, East Sandwich MA, is a delightful Cape Cod gift shop featuring collectible miniatures of lighthouses from all over the United States. There are several popular makers, Harbour Lights being the best known. Ann and Jim Coombs own the business and are lighthouse specialists who climb lighthouse stairways everywhere when they’re away from the store. They sell note cards featuring their own photos, nautical jewelry and many other gifts.
Jim says that they used to send out a printed newsletter that included a catalog, but they didn’t get enough business to continue the mailings. Now Cape Annie’s is 100% Internet. The newsletter is sent by e-mail times a year. Their complete gift line is shown on the Yahoo shopping Web site, store.yahoo.com, as well as on their own Web site. Their own site includes a printed order form for those who prefer to use the mail, and they receive many phone orders. But Jim says that 99% of their non-store orders come from the Yahoo site. Yahoo lets your customer add up the order on a shopping cart and sign up for credit card payments just as if the store managed the Web site itself.
Titcomb’s Bookshop, East Sandwich, MA, is just a few miles down the road from Cape Annie’s. One of the older businesses on Cape Cod, Titcomb’s began as an old and rare books in Connecticut. Ralph and Nancy Titcomb found books and papers dating back as far as 1600 in a house they bought, and they started a mail order business with them. They moved to the Cape in 1969. Their daughters Vicky Uminowicz and Nancy Ockers now run the family business with them.
Today Titcomb’s business is split evenly between sales of new titles and used books. They keep in touch with 700 regular customers via an e-mail newsletter. Their used books are sold nationally on a Web site for out-of-print book dealers, Advanced Book Exchange (abebooks.com), which features the wares of hundreds of book dealers who pay a small fee to post their books.
ABE Books looks like Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble online. You find books by search words or author names, and detailed listings of condition and price appear with the name of every dealer who offers the book. The same data can be accessed on barnesandnoble.com by selecting “used books” from their menu. It’s an amazing process; Titcomb’s lists 5,211 books on ABE and you can scroll through every one of them on your screen.
Vicki Uminowicz sums up benefits of abebooks.com: “We've been selling on the Internet for at least eight years now, and we've found that it's a great way to sell books -- though very time-consuming!! It's enormously rewarding, however, when someone finds an out-of-print book that they've been searching to find for years! We ship all over the world and have conversations with book lovers both through e-mail or on the phone.”
Barber Brothers, Natick MA. Barber’s has always been a leading florist in Boston’s Metrowest suburbs, and a garden center. They now have a large gift shop and garden-style café, which is crowded every business day at lunchtime. The shop features dinnerware, seasonal gifts and holiday decorations, apparel, and accessories like handbags.
They plan to debut a new Web site this fall, but they already manage a database loyalty program for every store customer who signs up for a Barber’s card. Every purchase goes into the database, and the store mails $5.00 gift certificates regularly to customers who reach specific total purchases.
Barber’s also sends e-mails frequently to their registered customers, promoting holiday sales, weekend discounts, and two of their top product lines, Vera Bradley and Brighton accessories. A recent e-mail offered an opportunity to trade in your old handbag for a new Vera Bradley bag.
Fred Morath is a direct mail consultant, copywriter and list specialist at Fred Morath Direct Marketing, Natick, MA.
