The other 50% - Through-the-door marketing needs to be part of your marketing mix

The power of through-the-door marketing with leaflets and local magazines is still strong, still delivering results and is still extremely cost-effective, when compared to online PPC campaigns or app advertising for instance. Over 50% of people in the UK do not make buying decisions using digital advertising or social media platforms. The main reason for this is TRUST.?

For many, especially the 60+ market place (where most of the home-owners exist), digital information carries greater risk when considering a purchase, whereas, a leaflet through-the-door or an advert in a local paper is far more tangible, trustworthy and legitimate. There's a huge amount of consumers who still don't actually use smartphones, social media and other digital platforms; so why are you spending all of your money in the digital realm to get to 50% of the marketplace?

Businesses who communicate 'through-the-door' to find new local sales opportunities, gain access to part of the marketplace that digital doesn't get to, while also creating longer-lasting, referable and repeatable business, based on trust and reputation.

Leaflets and local magazine going through-the-door ensure that campaigns reach more people than digital alone. In fact, campaigns that blend through-the-door and digital advertising are 16 times more likely to return on investment according to independent Market Research thinktank Gartner.

If you're in the Business to Consumer market, perhaps offering a service in the home improvement space or a local retailer trying to connect with potential customers from the region or perhaps even a national brand targeting local markets to compete against rivals; through-the-door marketing, as part of your mix, will improve your results without adding massively to the costs.

For instance, distribution costs for a small campaign of 5,000 households, can be as low as ￡500, including print and design of the leaflet and the distribution of the leaflets. Typically response to offers ranges between 1% and 5%, Even at 0.5% response rate and 50% closing, that's potentially 25 new customers. How many new customers would you have to gain to cover the cost of the exercise? One or two maybe?

That's cost-effective and powerful lead generation at a tiny cost per lead, but that's not all...

Through-the-door activity cuts through the digital noise. Every business is spending increasing amounts of marketing budget online for an increasingly smaller share of the pie. PPC costs go up, results go down. By reaching out to the other 50% of the market place, through-the-door marketing activity can give you a distinct advantage, while handing you a trackable mechanism (leaflet distributors these days are GPS tracked with routes monitored and verified) and gaining you exposure that you simply can't get in another way.

It's impossible to get to everybody with your message through digital advertising and messaging alone. 50% of the marketplace isn't looking. So why not try and see if your business offer can be turned into the ultimate mobile marketing platform; through-the-door?

If you'd like to try a campaign in Dorset or Hampshire, let me know and I'll let you know if Magazine Distributors Limited can help you.