That’s 5000 Postcards I Don’t Have To Mail: Social Media Economics For Local Businesses

posted on May 26 by Tim Conley in the Social Media Marketing category

I recently read an article about Twitter.  Of course, everywhere you look there is an article about Twitter, which is why I can’t remember in which one I saw the following quote from a local area business owner.

“In the next 90 days, I want to add 5000 Twitter followers.  That’s 5000 postcards I don’t have to mail.”

That quote is more profound than it’s literal meaning, which is important enough.

Let’s say you send out some cheap postcards to 5000 prospects this month.  That will probably run you about $2500.  What if you sent 5000 out each business day for a month?  $50,000 spent.  Done correctly this could be profitable.

But what if you had 5000 local Twitter followers?  How much would it cost you to send out just one promotional tweet per day?  It would cost about 1 minute to tweet plus the time to craft a promotion.  I won’t go into the other uses of Twitter here such as customer service and community building.

So, what should you spend to get 5000 followers?  If you got 5000 targeted followers, I would recommend spending about $1 each to get them.  Depending on your business, it could still be profitable to spend $10, $20 or even $50 for each one.  Sound crazy?  How much is a customer worth to you?

You’ll have to test to find out how many people you can get to respond to your promotion and how many of those actually purchase.  Also, you will want to track the lifetime value per follower to see how profitable they are compared to your email and mailing lists.

I’m not ALL aflutter over Twitter.  We have no idea what Twitter will be like in 6 months let alone 3 years from now.  Postcards—direct mail in general, are predictable with a long history of predictability.

What I recommend is a combination of Twitter, Facebook, email and direct mail.  The “followers” on Twitter behave differently than the “friends” on Facebook, the “subscribers” on your email list and your mailing list.  They all have different behaviors from each other, but they all, in combination, allow you to connect deeply with your prospects and customers.  Much more than one or two used as individual tools.

As a general guideline you could send a printed item once per month, an email once a week and make Twitter and Facebook posts daily.  Finding the right combination of promotional, branding and connecting messages will take trial-and-error.  The reward  is that the more you communicate with your customers—if you actually like them—the more connected and loyal they will be to you and your business.

Think about building a 5000 person list for Twitter, Facebook, email and mail addresses as a beginners goal.  Then keep building and keep communicating.

Tim Conley

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