Using direct mail for your small business marketing? Here’s 3 quick tips to get your direct mail noticed . . . and opened!

1) Make it Lumpy

Bumpy, lumpy direct mail gets opened nearly 100% of the time and can double your response rate. There are many ideas for lumpy direct mail items, but best if it’s something meaningful, funny or useful to the recipient. Look for items your recipient can keep close—such as branded mouse mats or pens for their desk. Need ideas? Search “lumpy” for more mail product ideas here: shop.DMediaPromo.com

2) Target the Right People

Pick the market or geographical area that includes your ideal prospect. A higher percentage of prospects will respond to your direct mail if you reach the right people. Niche markets can help improve your results. Messages that are tightly targeted dramatically increase response rates plus lower costs per customer. What’s on the inside of your direct mail piece should be relevant and engaging. If it appeals directly to your target audience’s needs, problems/pains, it’s more likely they will read it.

3) Personalize It

Include variable information—such as on a letter, card or personalized catalog—for each prospect. It’s easier to grab and hold someone’s attention with direct mail by using a first name or company name. Amidst all the bills and advertisements, it can be a treat to get direct mail specifically addressed to you that includes something of real interest.

D Media gives our “Thumbs Up” award to Walnut Creek Animal Hospital. See the new veterinary website that we designed and developed for this multi-doctor practice in Mansfield, Texas: http://walnutcreekvets.com

Walnut Creek Animal Clinic was the first AAHA-certified general practice in Mansfield, Texas. They have maintained the accreditation since 1993. An AAHA accreditation requires that clinics pass stringent standards in medicine, dentistry, surgery, diagnostics, record keeping and client service—and continue to uphold those standards throughout the year. Additionally, Walnut Creek Animal Clinic was voted “Best of Mansfield Veterinarian” in the annual “Best of Mansfield” contest for the past four years. Peruse their new veterinary website to learn about their quality and compassionate animal medical care.

Mobile-Friendly Websites

Google is about to launch a new mobile ranking algorithm for websites. Check out a copy of the email sent to webmasters this month.

What does this mean for website owners? If search engine rankings are important for your business, and you don’t have a mobile-friendly site, mobile version or mobile-responsive site, beware. Your site could drop in rankings. This means reduced traffic to your website and less business coming your way.

Oh no! What to do? Consider installing either a Mobile Module (for CMS websites) to accompany the existing desktop site or redoing your site with a new Theme that is also Mobile Responsive. I’ll explain Themes in more detail below:

What is a CMS Website Theme?

Themes control a CMS website’s styles, look and feel. The Theme system is a way to “skin” a website, allowing for control over the look and presentation of the content.

What is a Desktop Theme for CMS Websites?

Each CMS Theme is developed with a desktop version. Some Themes do not come with a mobile-friendly format built-in. Often this is because it is more time consuming to build and therefore more costly. In those cases, and for many of our clients, we have to purchase, install and configure either a separate Mobile Module or redo the desktop site with a new Theme that is Mobile Responsive.

What is the difference between a Mobile Module and Mobile Responsive Theme?

1. Mobile Module – Add-on to the Desktop Theme. In this scenario we install a module that uses content from your current site and displays it optimized to mobile phone browsers, stripped of images and backgrounds. Mobile modules are often mini-versions of the entire desktop site—especially for larger websites—only showcasing certain high traffic pages.
2. Mobile Responsive – Has a flexible foundation to the Desktop Theme with fluid grid system that adapts websites to mobile devices, the desktop or any other viewing environment. A responsive theme’s layout adjusts all pages in the site for reading and navigation on mobile phones, tablets, laptop and desktop computers. In this scenario we rebuild the entire site’s Theme (design and layout), both Desktop and Mobile.

To test your site for mobile-friendly attributes, use this tool.

D Media gives our “Thumbs Up” award to the U.S. Resilience Project (USRP). See the new website that we designed and developed for this national non-profit national organization: http://usresilienceproject.org/

USRP provides company best practices in supply chain resilience, disaster resilience and energy resilience. Through research and workshops, USRP captures and shares best practices of how communities and companies have successfully implemented resilience.

Peruse their new website to learn about the best practices that put the “how-to” in resilience.

Last week a client admitted they were doing a great job with keeping their Facebook posts updated and fresh, but their Twitter account had fallen by the wayside. They said they did want to maintain a presence on Twitter, but in their geographical area, and for their business service, not a lot of activity or conversations were occurring on Twitter at the time. Luckily, there is a solution to help them spend more time on their Facebook marketing, and less on Twitter, but still be a part of the Twitter network.

Truthfully, the best way to engage on Twitter is to actively tweet, follow, retweet, favor, comment on the platform itself. Only your first 140 characters will show in a tweet. So linking your Facebook posts to your Twitter feed may not be the most effective Twitter strategy. However, if you simply don’t have time time to keep up with Twitter, but still want to maintain a presence on the network, read on.

Follow these steps to link your Facebook page to your Twitter account, and make it easier to share posts with your friends and followers:

1. Login to Facebook

2. Go to this link.

3. Make sure you are using Facebook as yourself, not as your page admin

4. Click on “Link to Twitter”

5. Click on “Authorize app.” This will allow Facebook to post to Twitter, linking the two accounts.

6. You should be told that your Twitter is now linked to your Facebook profile. However, you can still make adjustments to your settings, checking or unchecking boxes next to the following:

status updates
photos
video
links
notes
events

The default is to be checked. If you want any of those to NOT linked to Twitter, then unclick them and select “Save changes.”

From this point forward, when you make a post on Facebook and mark it for “Public” sharing, it will be auto-shared with Twitter.

Facebook stats:

• #1 Social media site IN THE WORLD
• 1.32 Billion+ monthly active users
• 69% of marketers say Facebook is useful for building a loyal fan base
• 94% of marketers are already using Facebook to successfully grow their business

. . . If you aren’t one of them, why not?

Let us help you use Facebook to market your business. Ask about our social media marketing packages today!

We’ve been very busy working on the development of several client websites here at D Media. Today one of those clients asked this question:

“Is there a way you can send me a PDF of all the webpages and their content so we can email the file to each other internally versus having to go to the temporary development test site?”

To be honest I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that in over 10 years of creating websites. In fact, clients rarely want to print anything these days, and prefer all content be online as much as possible.

However, there IS a way—through Adobe Acrobat—to complete this task. Simply follow the steps below:

1) Launch Adobe Acrobat and go to File ==> Create PDF ==> From Web Page

2) Then click “Capture Multiple Levels” and select “Get entire site” or choose the levels you want to grab. Example: Choosing 1 level will just get the top pages and no sub-pages.

3) Optional: You can review the Settings area to print landscape and some other options. When you are ready click “Create”.

D Media gives our “Thumbs Up” award to Action Shred of Texas. See the new website that we designed and developed for this family-owned and -operated Dallas, Texas-based business: www.ActionShred.com

While working with Action Shred, we were impressed by their operations. They offer a one-stop solution for paper shredding, computer hard drive destruction and product eradication. Instead of fitting your needs into a pre-made package, Action Shred provides customized service schedules and programs. The team is very hands-on including a live person to help when called (no voicemail maze), accessible owners and management, no hidden fees or surcharges, and a dedicated assigned account manager and inside support team.

If you’re looking for secure paper shredding (and more!) in Dallas, Texas and surrounding cities, contact Action Shred for safe, dependable and professional service.

Last week I spoke to the Legacy Mastermind group of Dallas women business owners on using Promotions to make your marketing delicious. It was a 1-hour presentation filled with take-away ideas, advice, statistical data and examples. The group gave great feedback and it was very well received.

If you know of an organization, networking group, or business club who could benefit from this topic, will you please contact me (Suzi Berman, Creative Director) for speaking availability or pass my name along? Thank you!

Q: Our service-based company has a large staff. Do we need to list ALL our employees on the website Our Team page?

A: For businesses that have a large staff, but want to limit the “noise” on their website and instead market with a concise, targeted message, consider drafting a list of criteria to help decide who is included on the website Our Team page.

My professional advice is to list any staff member on the website that has continual direct contact with clients/prospects and/or is part of providing the valuable service that your company offers. Examples:

• If John Smith directly helps customers, list him. If he merely answers the phone and has no other contact, maybe not.
• If Jane Doe never has contact with customers but is part of the team that directly provides the service, someone whose work is integral and might be mentioned to a client, include her. If not, don’t use the space.
• For sure, include business owners, managers, sales/account execs, customer service reps and any key operations staff who customers rely on to get orders completed.

From a marketing perspective, the purpose of listing staff on the website is to instill a level of trust and confidence in your customers and prospects. You want them to feel:

1. They know the people at your company, even though they may never have met them personally, and
2. Your business provides experienced, skilled professionals, whose dedication and hard work is integral in delivering a quality end-result.

If you want to limit the space, and avoid a forever scrolling-down “Our Team” page, these tips may help.  If you want to extend “Our Team” from one page to an entire section, and include multiple pages for staff members who provide different functions (examples: executives, managers, receptionists, customer care reps, etc.) that is a different blog post altogether.