Well put, Kevin. But I d like to encourage you, Teacher, to think of marketing your class online in addition to or instead of through direct mail. Postcards involve printing costs and postage. And if you re marketing by email, you can bring those costs to almost zero. If you use your own email program and spruce it up with some color and graphics (not too fancy since you want people to be able to read it on a mobile device as well as on their computer), you can reach an unlimited number of people for free. I ve taught a writing class for nearly 10 years and have done all of marketing for that class through an email newsletter. At first, I used my own email as I ve just described. But once my mailing list went over a few hundred people, it was easier to use a newsletter service since I wanted to send several mailings out per year and I wanted to manage the list in ways I couldn t do through email. For a small monthly fee (ranging from about $15-$60 depending on the kinds of bells and whistles you add and how many mailings you send), you can reach thousands of people just by hitting the send button. Online newsletters offer a slew of other benefits -- the biggest being information about your recipients. The moment you send out your newsletter, you can start tracking who has opened it and which links they ve clicked on. If this interests you, check out ConstantContact.com or MyEmma.com, two good online newsletter providers.
The easiest way to answer this one, Teacher, is with a word that is very familiar to you: T-e-s-t. There is no magic formula for direct mail -- nor for any advertising medium -- but most direct-mail marketers will tell you that they can get you returns of about 2 percent. I ve found that s overly optimistic; in the past, I ve found that well-designed campaigns average about 1 percent. Of course, a strong campaign can exceed that. That s where testing comes in. You want to use different designs, wording, pricing and lists to determine which of the mailers is your most successful. Most printers will work with you to be able to vary your order every few hundred cards to help you test. An important note: Make sure you track your test with different codes! I once learned that mistake the hard way, and had no idea where my buyers were coming from.The trick to direct mail is to find the center of your marketing bull s-eye as often as possible. Before creating any mailer, be sure you have defined the perfect customer for your class (not the perfect student, the perfect customer -- in other words, the most likely to buy what you re selling). Have they taken other classes to continue their education? Have they shown an interest in similar subjects to the one you re teaching? Are they members of trade groups that reflect your subject matter?The point of all this, it goes without saying, is to make your marketing campaign more efficient.
I work at promoting a small list of clients. I would recommend mailing bi-weekly. It s enough to get in their face without completely annoying them. You may also save by purchasing in bulk
