After profitability, marketing is the backbone of success for any successful brand. As a business owner, you need to come up with ideal ways of building an audience around your business.
Your overall marketing strategy should enable you to reach out to a broader audience at a lower cost. With technology, digital marketing is becoming more of a game-changer in this regard. Many companies and businesses, however, are still using Letterbox drops as their primary marketing strategy. Entrepreneurs are continually developing targeted letters and dropping them in various streets and estates where their prospects reside.
The right marketing strategy is the one that helps you cut through the noise to reach as broad an audience as possible at as low a cost as possible. In this article, we compare and contrast digital marketing and letterbox drops to help you pick the most effective option to drive your sales.
Read on to learn more.
Marketing Cost Efficiency
undeniably, the cost is the first factor you should consider as you roll out your marketing campaign.
You want to adopt and utilise marketing options that are cost-efficient and that have a broad reach. Like other traditional marketing methods, letterbox drops are quite expensive. This approach requires a budget to cater for:
- Letter design
- Letter content
- Printing
- Distribution and delivery to your target audience
On the contrary, digital marketing is more cost-efficient. Though you’ll need to design your marketing material, there are no delivery or printing costs. You only need to publish them on the relevant online spaces where your target clients spend their day.
Also, your budget is minimal compared to letterbox drops and will most definitely reach a broader audience. For instance, to design, print, and deliver a single letter may cost you approximately $30. The message will only reach a limited audience. When you use the same amount on digital marketing, on platforms like Google Ads and such as Facebook Ads, you have the opportunity to reach more prospective clients with lower spend.
In terms of cost, digital marketing is miles more cost-efficient than letterbox drops.
The ROI of Your Marketing Approach
The effectiveness of your campaign is the next aspect to consider when choosing a marketing approach. A practical method is the one that enables you to reach your target audience in real-time with minimum effort while capturing your audience attention to keep them engaged.
Between digital marketing and letterbox drops, online marketing wins the day for its effectiveness to reach a wider audience with little to no effort. Letterbox drops take time to reach target audiences due to the distribution and delivery, which could take days or weeks. Again, once your target audience receives the letterbox drop, they may also take some time to open and read the contents.
As for digital marketing, the message reaches the audience in real-time. Once you post an ad online, your audience will see it immediately, and make decisions to act in real-time. Also, different online marketing channels offer various customisation aspects. These options can help you to enhance your online targeting and pick and choose who you want to see your ad.
The type of business you operate will largely impact whether a broad marketing campaign will make more sense or online. Speaking with Alex who owns lgbtqflags.com.au states that he focuses his marketing 100% online, as it makes more sense to be fully visible to his community, than a broad marketing campaign which wouldn’t be as relevant.
Customers are likely to take the intended action on an online ad than on a letterbox drop. Hence, digital marketing is more effective for driving leads on your business compared to letterbox drops.
Remarketing and Targeting
Sometimes, prospects need to hear the same message repeatedly for them to take action. This approach calls for effective remarketing techniques that drive the message home creatively.
As the audiences browse various websites, they also store cookies on their browser history settings. These elements play a crucial role in digital marketing.
Through cookies, online advertisers can relay marketing content to the right audience. Also, it is possible to view locations where people are seeking for particular products and services frequently. This way, it becomes easy to target prospects with high conversion possibilities, known in the trade as remarketing and targeting.
As for letterbox drops, remarketing and targeting isn’t as easy. It’s impossible to tell the locations or areas where customers are likely to buy your products. So, this approach is ideal when marketing to a more general audience.
Bottom Line
As you can see, digital marketing stands out as the best approach if you want to spend less to reach a wider audience or indeed, a niche audience.
Through online marketing, you can also utilise excellent techniques like remarketing and online targeting. Letterbox drops through personalised, are even more expensive. This marketing approach has a short reach and is probably better if you’re marketing to a ‘warm’ audience or older demographic.