Local business marketing, explained without the pitch
What reaching local customers costs, how the options compare, and when each one is the wrong thing to spend money on. Written so you could act on them without hiring anybody, including us.
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Put in what a customer is worth to you and how many homes you would reach. It works out what response rate a campaign needs to pay for itself.
Answers whether the numbers work before you spend anythingDirect mail
What it costs, who it works for, and how to tell whether it paid.
The real cost of reaching 5,000 households in the Charleston area: every line item when you mail alone, what a shared postcard changes, and current prices from the rate sheet rather than a brochure.
8 min readHow Many Times Should You Advertise to the Same Neighborhood?Why the card that produces the call is usually the second or third one a household has seen, how often is too often, and how to plan a run of mailings to one area without wasting the first.
7 min readWhat Types of Businesses Get the Best Results from Direct Mail?Which local business categories a neighborhood mailing suits, why, and which it does not: home services, restaurants, dentists, new businesses and the ones that should spend elsewhere.
8 min readWhat Makes a Good Direct-Mail Offer?The difference between a card that gets kept and one that gets binned is the offer. What works for home services, restaurants and practices, dollar off against percent off, deadlines, and the offers to avoid.
7 min readHow Do You Measure Direct-Mail ROI?How to tell whether a mailing paid: QR codes, landing pages, asking every caller, judging at six weeks, and the arithmetic that turns a customer's value into the response a campaign needs.
8 min readCan You Guarantee I Will Get Calls?No, and no honest advertising company can. What a direct mail company controls, what the advertiser controls, and how to judge a campaign without a promise nobody can keep.
5 min readWhat If the First Mailing Does Not Generate Calls?How to read a quiet first mailing: awareness against response, high-ticket against low-ticket, the offer against the medium, and when the honest answer is to stop rather than spend more.
6 min readWhat EDDM Actually Costs in CharlestonThe real all-in cost of an Every Door Direct Mail campaign in the Charleston area (postage, printing, design and the parts nobody mentions) compared honestly against a shared postcard.
9 min readDirect Mail Cost Per Household: A Real BreakdownWhat direct mail actually costs per home in the Charleston Lowcountry, across shared mail, EDDM and solo campaigns, with the variables that move the number most.
8 min readIs Direct Mail Worth It for a Small Business?An honest answer, including the businesses it does not work for. What a realistic response looks like, what it costs to test, and how to tell before you spend.
7 min readLocal advertising
Reaching customers near you, with or without a postcard.
The order worth doing things in when the budget is a few hundred dollars: the free work first, then what to spend on, for a Charleston-area business that needs customers rather than impressions.
8 min readComparisons
One channel against another, with the cases where each one wins.
Intent against reach: what Google Ads is for, what a neighborhood mailing is for, what each costs a Charleston-area business, when search wins outright, and how the two work together.
8 min readShared Mail vs EDDM: Which Should a Small Business Use?Every Door Direct Mail on your own against a spot on a shared card: control, cost per home, design, what each is best at, and the cases where doing it yourself is the right call.
7 min readDirect Mail vs Facebook Ads for a Local BusinessA straight comparison for Charleston-area businesses: what each channel costs, what it is actually good at, the cases where Facebook is the better buy, and how to run both without paying twice for the same customer.
9 min readCharleston Direct Mail Companies ComparedValpak, Money Mailer, Clipper, solo EDDM, national printers and shared postcards: what each is genuinely best at, and how to pick for your business and budget.
10 min readBy area
What works in Charleston is not always what works in Summerville.
What actually reaches local customers here, what each option costs, and the order worth doing them in.
Looking for how the product itself works? Start here.