Does "old School" Marketing Still Work

[LostDollar]

Are you suggesting that old people like cookies? What about milk to wash them down with?

Your recent response in another thread reminded me of this one.

The way to do it is to be "doing a survey" to find out which is more popular-
F, G or N. The cookies will be in those letter shapes.

My friends (and critics) will be happy to know that I can't come up with an easy cookie shape to represent the HDF plan so I guess the poll would have some built in bias.

 

[Rick Deckard]

I use this principle in my marketing: It is much better to connect with a hundred people five times than it is to connect with five hundred people once.

I like Alston's posts. Person seems very logical and down to earth but still full of energy to go out there and tear it up.

That is all, you can return to your regularly scheduled program.

 

[Markthebroker]

I worked in advertising for 10 years, and sold my agency to come work in insurance. With all that experience guess what is the one and only type of marketing I bought? Direct mail. Also Craigslist but that's free. The great thing about direct mail is that because of the data out there, you can target exactly who you want to reach. I was going after large apartment building owners at the time.

I have stopped all advertising now because I frankly don't need it. Now my phone just rings with referrals. I was very happy with direct mail, but it worked well largely because I was targeting larger clients, so I only needed a couple to pay for it. Craigslist was good to bring business in, but it was a lot of wishy washy people, and most of those accounts have fallen off. As a matter of fact, along with very poor retention, I have had some sort of problem with every client that has come in from Craigslist.

By far, the most effective thing I am willing to share (aside from referrals) was door knocking. I have one thing that works waaaay better, but I am not willing to share. But as far as door knocking, I have gotten some huge deals from that, with relatively small amount of work. Most people don't have the stomach for door knocking though. But coming from someone in sales for 15 years, and a decade of advertising experience, I’d say door knocking is your best bet.

 

[billyb]

I buy 15 DM final expense leads a week and door knock every one. Been in this business almost 40 years and I would starve if I waited on my phone to ring from someone wanting to buy life insurance.

 

[Markthebroker]

I worked in advertising for 10 years and sold my company to go into insurance a few years ago. When I got here, I did 5 things to market myself. Craigslist, direct mail, cold calling, canvassing and networking. Craigslist was very effective, but had very wishy washy customers (like most internet leads) so I canceled it. Direct mail was very effective, I could target my clients very well. Cold calling worked ok. Canvassing was by far the most effective. Most of my largest clients I got from canvasing. Networking worked ok, but took a very long time, and had a poor roi from time invested, but I still get leads every few weeks from the networking I have done in the past.

I now do very few of any of it now, as I have enough referrals to keep my busy most of the time.

 

[mr_furly]

I worked in advertising for 10 years and sold my company to go into insurance a few years ago. When I got here, I did 5 things to market myself. Craigslist, direct mail, cold calling, canvassing and networking. Craigslist was very effective, but had very wishy washy customers (like most internet leads) so I canceled it. Direct mail was very effective, I could target my clients very well. Cold calling worked ok. Canvassing was by far the most effective. Most of my largest clients I got from canvasing. Networking worked ok, but took a very long time, and had a poor roi from time invested, but I still get leads every few weeks from the networking I have done in the past.

I now do very few of any of it now, as I have enough referrals to keep my busy most of the time.

when you say canvassing...are you talking about going business to business doing cold drop ins?
Were you covering whole city blocks...or were you only targeting certain places?

 

[Warrior]

The best OLD SCHOOL methods are these and you must be very persistent or it will not work.
2x per week go to:
Real Estate Agents
Car Dealerships
Mortgage Loan Officers
Certain Businesses you want to swoon to buy your products
Senior Living areas if you sell senior products
Apartment Complex managers

Start with 2-5 of these referral partners. Buy boxes of doughnuts or fruit bowls and bring a 3X5 business card in a holder with regular size business cards available. Get magnets from Staples and place them on your business cards.

I get about 20-40 quotes per week this way. It works and it is cheap.