Are you surprised to receive advertising material in your letterbox?
It’s election time in Australia and I recently heard a radio announcer utter her surprise that in the next couple of weeks we will be seeing more advertisements for the election as well as brochures placed in our letterboxes. The announcer was surprised that in this digital age there was a need for letterbox drops. Yes there are ads on social media, text, digital TV and free to air but why the big surprise that political parties are using the letterbox too? It got me thinking that the radio announcer has just fallen into the trap that many business owners fall into. That trap is thinking that you customer is just like you.
Understanding Customer Preferences
Here’s a tip – some might be like you but I’m guessing many are not like you! In a National Election of course political parties want to attract the attention of as many people as possible. Therefore they are using as many communication channels as possible. There are lots of ways to communicate both online and offline and everyone has their preference. What’s your preference? The big mistake is to assume that everyone has the same preference. Yet I see businesses do this all the time. The business owner loves Facebook so chooses to direct message people or they don’t like the telephone so only ever communicate via email.
Sometimes it is because of the software programs they are using that provide a one size fits everyone model. How many health appointment reminders come via text? Is this the best method for the customers? For some yes for others maybe not.
How Many Options Are You Providing?
We now have so many options for connecting with our customers. We have email, mail, phone, text and social media has provided the option to direct message. If you can identify which is the prefer method each customer likes you will get a better response when you use that method for communicating with them. We intuitively do it with our friends does this sound familiar? “Don’t try and phone Darren he never answers his phone send him a text”. But so often we don’t do it with our customers. We make assumptions like oh everyone is online, everyone’s on facebook. Well they might be but that doesn’t mean that’s their chosen method to communicate with you.
So the reason there are letterbox drops for an election is because they work. There are still people who will take more notice of something they are holding in their hand than what they see on a screen. It may change in the future but for now we have a combination of the old and the new and the best way to alienate potential customers is to narrow their choices for communicating with your business.
If you need help with finding out your customers’ preferences feel free to get in touch.
