13Reaching your audience

How choosing the right delivery method can maximise your coverage...

So, you need to contact a lot of people… but where do you start? Adverts and editorial features are a great starting point, but there’s nothing like getting your name out there, into people’s homes and into their subconscious thoughts.

On paper, getting information to potential customers sounds like it is really easy, but when it comes down to the logistics, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Do you use Royal Mail or hand delivery or do you take everything online and ‘go digital’?

The right choice could net you loads of new customers. The wrong choice… well, that could be an absolute waste of money.

GET YOUR MESSAGE OUT THERE

At STORM we know regularly help our clients contact their customers and so we’ve built up an extensive knowledge of the best ways to get your message out there.

Many people want to hit an entire area or region and want to make sure every single person within those borders gets the message. This is especially true if you have a product or service that is set to be universally popular, rather than one that will only affect or be of interest to a very small number of people.

However, hitting every household isn’t always as easy – or as economical – as you might think.

The first option you have is to use good old Royal Mail. This is pretty straightforward on paper. Once you have your information – be it a letter or a brochure – ready, we can work with a distribution house to get envelopes stuffed, postage sorted and the letters whisked off to all the homes on your list.

Being Royal Mail it is pretty reliable, although you can’t guarantee that every piece of mail will get through, you know the receipt rate is going to be very high. However, this method isn’t cheap. To send a single ‘small size’ letter, second class, costs 27p. Multiply that by 50,000 and you’re looking at a very costly method indeed.

ARRIVING ON DOORSTEPS NATIONWIDE

But what are the alternatives? Well, there is another way of posting out your information to the masses – plus it is much cheaper too.

Every week, hundreds of thousands of free newspapers are distributed across the UK and – as you’ve probably seen yourself – they’re often accompanied by a slew of advertising material. Some good, some bad, but all of it arriving on doorsteps nationwide – week in, week out.

This is a great, cheap way of getting your message out there… but, of course, there are a couple of catches.

Although free newspapers are received by most people, they’re not received by everyone. Some postcodes aren’t covered, so if you’re particularly targeting certain roads, you need to make sure you’re not missing a key demographic.

Similarly, some residences – blocks of flats and sheltered accommodation – don’t receive free newspapers at all due to health and safety reasons. Again, if you’re targeting young professionals or the over-60s, this approach might mean you’re missing a large slice of potential customers.

TARGETING THE RIGHT PEOPLE

If you do have an idea about who you want to reach, then you can of course ensure you engage with potential customers by buying a good clean mailing list. This obviously means that you don’t waste time and money communicating to people who aren’t going to care about your company and your products.

And, if you can get an email list you can save even more money – nothing to print and a guarantee of reaching everyone’s inbox.

GETTING A GOOD RESPONSE

However, it is important not to lose sight of the most vital part of all this hard work – getting a good response.

You need to think about what you want to get out of your mailing. Do you want to just get people down to your store? Or do you want people to fill in their details and give you tangible feedback? If you do need to ‘find out more’ about your potential customers and their views, then you need to think about how they can respond. From email and online questionnaires, through to pre-paid response forms – there are a multitude of ways to get the information back to you – you just need to weigh up the best method for you and your potential customers.

But whatever you choose, you know that, by working with STORM, you can get your message out to the right people.