In my last post I mentioned that i had created a Facebook page named “Lake Today”. I later decided to name it something more identifiable so I changed it to “Lake News, Events, and Deals”.
Then I had the idea of also creating pages for Green, Jackson, and Plain Twp with the idea that they could build on each other. I also needed matching Instagram pages.
Then I started running ads to build likes for all pages. That was going okay. I was also trying to post on each page which wasn’t easy. After a week or so of this, I felt that maybe I should be building a subscriber list (with name, email and/or phone) instead of just page likes so I started a giveaway. The prize was a Groupon deal. It’s still running now.
But, as you can guess, this is a lot of work with no clear path to cash so I started having second thoughts (as usual). I needed a lot of page likes and posts to start getting noticed. How many was a guess. And even after I started getting some attention, it wasn’t clear how I was going to start making money.
I considered the possibility of joining a Chamber of Commerce (possibly in Green) and begin attending meetings to offer to post news and offers for the members (assuming I had a significant number of likes and subscribers). I also decided to improve my website as a business directory so installed the Geodirectory plugin and made some tweaks. Also got giveaway signups working properly to encourage sharing.
By the way, I also changed the name from YaySaver.com to LocalLeader.us and I feel good about it, despite the fact that I can’t get the “.com” extension. The name fits the image I want to have. I’m also imagining that business owners wouldn’t mind being featured on “Local Leader”.
But back to the marketing strategy. The “Local Media Hero” stategy seemed a little too vague with no clear path to income any time soon.
So I kind of reverted back to focusing on selling the postcard advertising. This seemed like the most direct path to cash. The Facebook Instagram pages will still be useful down the road, as will my website, but am not devoting time to those right now.
Instead, I’m focusing on getting the cards going. After investigating the chamber route a bit, I decided the exposure wouldn’t be great enough, or worth the time and investment required. It looked like the Green Chamber, for example, had less than 100 members which didn’t seem like enough. I would have meant a lot of travelling as well.
So I’m back to the idea of reach prospects through direct mail. Specifically, I intend to mail mockups of the 9×12 card and attach a personalized note to each using a bright (and large) address label.
Here’s a mockup of the front and back. I created the whole thing in LucidPress, but then had a Fiverr designer tweak the colors:
I’m also selecting mailing zones for the target region. I’m planning to mail each card to 5000 homes in higher income neighborhoods. I’ve selected $50k household income as the minimum threshhold. It looks like I can do 3 cards each in Green, Lake, and Plain/N. Canton, and 4 in Jackson — 13 total.
I’ve been advised that sending a new card every 3 months to each area is about the right frequency. 13 areas (or zones) is enough then to send a card out as often as once a week to cycle through all the areas over a 3 month period.
I’m hoping to be smart about which businesses to contact. I’m planning to focus on ones that already are doing some advertising so next up is to gather this information. I’ve asked my brother Doug to collect any appropriate ads that come in the mail (he lives in Green). Also asked Andrew to help (he lives in Lake).