How a single REAL communication generated a 249,900% ROI...

If you really want to improve your marketing communication results, particularly in tough times, you need to do more REAL communications.

And by “REAL” I mean tangible bespoke messages, not marketing automated messaging delivered via pixels.

Here’s how a small Pilates Studio just generated a 249,900% ROI on a single mailing.

My wife recently started a new Pilates class at Fusion + Pilates near our home. Within a fortnight of her joining, the owner mailed her a handwritten letter.

The letter welcomed her to the class, advised how the instructor would work with her to achieve her fitness target and thanked her for being a customer.

More importantly, the owner also included two Vitality Pack vouchers in the mailing for my wife to give to friends or family.?The vouchers are worth $49 each and are a free trial at the Pilates studio - a classic member-get-member offer.

In less than 24 hours, two friends of ours had been given the vouchers and registered with the studio to use them.

So, let’s look at the numbers

The mailing took about ten minutes to write and compile, plus postage – say $2 for materials and postage, without labour cost.

The open rate is 100% - way higher than the open-rate if the same offer had been emailed.

As a result, the studio now has two new customers, both of whom were delighted to get the free trial offer from my wife.

Assuming they just stay for a year doing two classes a week at the best value package rate, they are each worth roughly $2,500 PA to the studio.

This real customer service in the form of a personal handwritten letter has the potential to deliver $5,000 PA via the new customers, as well as retain my wife’s patronage at another $2,500.

That’s one hell of a return on the investment of $2!

I owned an email SaaS business used in 54 countries and have never seen email perform anywhere near as well. And as my wife said – “if the studio owner had emailed the offer, I may not have seen it, let alone opened it or shared the trial offers."

You don’t have to handwrite a letter, but you can personalise your salutation and signature in your typed letter for similar impact.

Curiously, in my seminars I often ask the audience "what is the best new business lead you can get?" The answer is always "a referral." I then ask "how many of you are running a referral programme?" Silence usually dominates the room, as very few marketers ask for referrals.

In my experience, a simple member-get-member or friend-get-friend referral programme always pays for itself.

As the economy gets tougher, you need every advantage you can get. Don’t be a marketing sheep and follow your competitors, hoping marketing automation can run your business for you.

Take time to be polite, use some manners and write a real letter to your customers. Make them an offer and ask for a referral. I suspect you’ll be surprised at how much your letter is appreciated and how much revenue you can make from a single mailing.

In other words, what a fabulous customer experience you can create.

After all, REAL customer service almost always outperforms synthetic automated customer service.

If you want to learn more about how to improve your digital marketing results by integrating with direct mail, click here to buy the book.

#directmail #referral #membergetmember #customerexperience