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Marketing Strategies during slow January

NYFLPizza

New member
January’s are slow for the obvious reasons.

New Year’s Resolutions = a few weeks of trying to eat healthy
Holiday Spending = a few weeks of cooking at home

I’ve been direct mailing my new menus, about 1500 a week for the past 8 weeks. It’s been working pretty well. Plenty of new customers who had no idea we were in town even though we’re on year 3.

My concern is that even though I may still generate a + ROI if I continue to mail through the slow month of January, it may damage the long term potential of the direct mailers by hitting homes during a time where they’re more likely to discard food advertisements. My 5% redemption rate may drop to a point where I’m still making money, but losing out on the long term benefits if the full 5% were hit.

It’s too tough to quantify some of this stuff, so I’m looking to see how people approach marketing during times where they know people are less likely to be receptive to any type of advertising, regardless of how you approach it.

For now I’ve decided to continue with the cheap generic direct mailers that I do every month that get packaged with other businesses, and then get aggressive with the higher return more expensive stuff once I feel like people are back on the pizza train.

Thoughts?
 
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What is your total number of mailing addresses?
Let’s say you have a list of 15,000 households. That means you will be sending out for 10 weeks before you send to the full list, which would not exhaust your efforts or diminish return.
If you list is only the 1,500 then every week is a bit much.

A menu mailer is probably best only going out to residents and businesses once a month, but other advertisements can have a greater frequency.

Build an email list and build a following on Facebook, that will serve you well.
 
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I always reduced my marketing budget in January. It is a trick I learned at Domino’s a few decades ago. Your marketing ROI will be lower in Jan. I took my monthly marketing allotment and banked it for use in a busier month to maximize the ‘bang for the buck’.

Do some major cleaning and cross some projects off your list instead of marketing.
 
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