Direct mail marketing in Las Vegas can target new customers in addition to maintaining contact with current and previous customers. For any business to grow, especially during a recession, sales need to increase, and the best way to do that is to expand your customer base by adding new customers to your Las Vegas business.

A good campaign to reach new customers can be done efficiently, with reasonably low costs via direct mailings. Many types of lists can be purchased. Selections can be made by demographics such as geography, age, income, education, marital status, previous purchases of similar items, and many other categories. Select the ones that you feel will reach the audience most likely to be interested in your product or service. Sometimes your direct mail printer or distributor can offer sound advice on this topic.

Next, design your direct mail piece. This also is a time for thought, because there are many direct mail vehicles to use. Post cards, calendars, business cards, flyers, and brochures are just a few you may want to use. Some businesses like to send out small samples using a direct mailing.

Direct mail companies can offer lists, design, packaging, labeling, and mailing services. You can use part or all of their services as desired. There can be postage discounts for pre-sorted items. These are usually sorted by zip codes, which saves the postal service time and money, so you get a discount in postage costs.

Common direct mail results run about 1% to 4% response. If you send out 1000 pieces, you should be able to expect to receive 10 to 40 responses. Sometimes you can get more, depending on the product, the offer, any freebies, and popularity of the item or service you are offering. This is why many direct mail programs are sent to tens of thousands of addresses. Using a direct mailer that has a return card can help boost response numbers. Repeat mailings can also boost customer response.

Increasing postal, paper, and printing costs have generated new opportunities for direct mail campaigns, such as the monthly group mailings that go out. These can save costs and keep direct maillings very affordable.

Marketing your Las Vegas company in a recession is just as important as marketing in a more stable or fat economy. Even if your marketing budget is reduced, you cannot and must not eliminate that marketing budget during a recession.

Don’t Cut Out Marketing

Reason why? If you don’t keep up with your company’s marketing, your competitors surely will.  The number one way to lose a foothold in the market place is to disappear from the public’s eye. When your competitors are cutting back, you can forge forward with increasing your visibility and market share.

Optimize Your Website’s Home Page

Having a clear call-to-action and a clear competitive edge on your website’s homepage is essential to attracting and retaining clients and customers. Make sure that your website’s home page is enticing, has plently of links to subpages, testimonials, and facts to back up why your company could benefit their business during a recession.

Focus on Customer Retention

One of your greatest assets as a company is your current clients. Work with them during harder times, keep costs low for them. Also suggest ways to help them grow their businesses during tough times, they may have the budget and you may be able to help. Keep them happy and keep them satisfied!

Follow Up On Old Leads

You never know what business you may find when following up on old leads. Pull out every business card, open every email, follow up with every friend and family member that has referred business in the past.

Sometimes business owners and marketing professionals get so caught up in launching websites, developing marketing collateral, running ads, creating direct mail campaigns, and managing the various expenses of a business that we can forget that there are common sense and fool proof methods to marketing your company that are completely free.

With a looming recession, rocky stock market and budget cut backs, there are always completely free marketing tactics we can take to promote our business, so I thought I’d list them out to remind everybody, especially with turbulent economy:

• Hand out your business cards. Keep them not only in your office, but your home, your car, in your purse, in your wallet. Such a simple tactic that we sometimes forget.
• Always keep brochures handy.  You never know where and when you will run into someone interested in your products or services, again, keep your brochures everywhere you are.
• Talk to people you meet everyday.  Not a hard-sell sorta person here myself, however, hard-sell or not, talking to people and simply asking them what they do for a living, where they live, etc. can open the door for other people to ask the same questions about you.
• Network at parties. You have friends (I hope), you go to parties, dinners with friends (I hope) and this is an excellent opportunity to remind your good friends what you do.  I always make a casual mention that if they know of anyone who is in need of a marketing consultant, a website or graphic design services, that my company handles all of that and more (see www.perkolate.com)
• Volunteer for pro bono work within your community (my hood is Summerlin/Las Vegas).  It’s always nice to give back to the community and help a worthy cause by donating some of your time to a charitable cause once in awhile.  Makes you feel good (it does me) and you can meet some great people in your community that will keep your company’s products and services in mind down the line.
• Utilize social networking websites.  Websites like linkedin.com, facebook.com and myspace.com are powerful networking and community building websites.  You can find friends, add them to your contacts and remind them of what your company does.  You can also add photos, blog feeds and links to your company’s website.