How You Can Execute a Low-Cost, High-Impact Grassroots Marketing Campaign

As a travel advisor, standing out and connecting with potential and existing clients can be challenging, especially on a budget. What if you could turn $12 a week into a $10,000 annual income stream?

Many of us indulge in the occasional fancy coffee drink from Starbucks, or any number of other things that may suit our tastes. Whatever it is that you spend a few more bucks on than you probably should, what if you could replace that consumption with an investment? What if this investment could grow over time to deliver real value to you and your business? Even better, what if this investment was easy to execute?

Adopting an investor’s attitude generates future returns that allow you to consume more of what you want in the future. The irony is that as you see the success investing in your business can have, you’ll want to do even more of it and actively seek ways to consume less so you can invest more. Crazy, but true.

If you’re thinking that "investing" is only for rich people or that your business just isn’t ready for it, let me stop you right there. What I’m about to describe doesn’t take a fortune to execute and the payoff isn’t immediate, so start early, even if you think your business isn’t ready for it.

A well-crafted grassroots marketing campaign leveraging postcards and voicemails can both effectively attract new clients and generate repeat business from your existing clientele. Here, I’m focusing on postcard campaigns for new client acquisition.

I’m a proud numbers nerd, so let me back up my claim that trading in your $12 weekly Starbucks runs can be transformed into a $10,000 income stream; then I’ll show you exactly how to do it.

Trade-In Your Starbucks for $10,000

Let’s say you buy a Grande Latte twice a week. At $6 each, that’s $12 per week, $52 per month, or $624 per year. Not a fortune, but a pretty good chunk of change. So how does $12 per week turn into $10,000?

Customer Value

First, let’s start with understanding the value of your customer. Here are some general assumptions. Your clientele may differ depending on your niche. Let’s assume that your average client purchases a trip every 18 months. Some will purchase more often, others less, but ideally, we want to target clients and niches where we can see good repeat buying. If a client purchases a trip every 18 months, or two trips every three years, that means over a 3-year period, they are spending $12,000 and earning you $1,200 in commission, which works out to be an average of $400 per year. That’s your expected annual customer value, $400.

To produce a $10,000 annual income stream, that means you need 25 active clients. Your total income target should be much, much higher, but remember, we’re just talking about creating a single campaign to trade in our Starbucks habit for an investment habit that will eventually generate $10,000 per year (and more if you keep it going).

We know our average client is worth $400 per year and now we know that we need 25 clients to produce $10,000 per year of income. So now how do we turn $12 per month into 25 clients?

Postcards Are The Perfect Vehicle

A simple postcard direct mail campaign can be the perfect vehicle to achieve the outcome we want. The key is to remain consistent, week in—week out.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
The great thing about postcards, and I mean travel postcards with a hand-written note on the back, not mass-printed postcards with lots of sensational ad copy and cheesy graphics, is that they immediately communicate the excitement, intrigue, and fascination of a destination you specialize in. A well-chosen postcard image can communicate your niche and even your target client persona without saying a word. That leaves a personal note on the back to communicate your value prop. More on that later, back to the numbers.

Postcard Campaign Cost
Postage for a one-off postcard is 56 cents (as of July 2024). The postcard itself can vary, but Amazon sells a wide variety for around 27 cents apiece. So, each mailed postcard costs 83 cents.

If you have $12 per week, at 83 cents per postcard, that’s 14.5 postcards per week. You can’t send half a postcard, so alternate, sending 14 one week and 15 the next week, or just "round up" like so many fast-food chains are happy to ask us all to do.

A great direct mail campaign should generate a 4% response rate. We’ll assume just 3%. That means for every 100 postcards we send, we should receive 3 responses. As you can tell from that number, if we send just 14 postcards in that first week we shouldn’t expect a new lead just yet. In fact, we shouldn’t expect a new lead until the third mailing. But these are averages, and we need to send several hundred before we can effectively tell if our campaign is working. 

When To Expect Leads
Over time, you should start to see leads. Some of these leads may come via your website or online profiles as people go online to check you out. Always ask new leads where they found you to help tell if your mailing campaign is working. As you receive leads, let’s assume you convert 35% of these into new clients. If you’re not tracking your close rate, please start! If you find you’re not closing at least 30%, it’s time to review your sales process and your pitch.

After a year of steady weekly postcard mailings, your $12 per week will have translated into 755 postcards and an expected 22 leads (755 postcards x 3% response rate = 22 leads), and 7.7 new clients (22 leads x 35% close rate).

Annual Expected Value
The annual expected value of those 7.7 new clients is $3,080 (7.7 new clients x $400 expected annual customer value = $3,080). We’re not done though. Referrals are a huge part of growing your clientele. Always ask for referrals. This doesn’t mean having a note at the bottom of your emails that asks for referrals, though you certainly can. This means, verbally, asking for referrals from your existing clients. Your referral rate should be at least 10%. That means that for every 10 clients in your client list, you should get at least one referral each year. Many advisors do much, much better.

Our 7.7 new clients from one year’s worth of postcard mailing should produce 0.77 new referred clients, totaling 8.47 new clients for your first year of postcard mailing, with an expected annual value of $3,388.

You don’t stop here though. Year two starts, and you continue your $12 weekly mailing campaign. In year two, you generate another 7.7 new clients. And you generate more referrals. The chart below shows that this $12 per week campaign can continue, practically forever, but after year three your expected annual value produced from this campaign is $9,548. At the end of year four, $12,628, and so on. Want faster results? You can always increase your weekly spend to accelerate the results.

Year > Expected Value
Year 1 > $3,388
Year 2 > $6,468
Year 3 > $9,548
Year 4 > $12,628
Year 5 > $15,708
Year 6 > $18,788
Year 7 > $21,868
Year 8 > $24,948
Year 9 > $28,208
Year 10 > $31,308

Just One Piece of the Puzzle

Of course, this is not the only way you’re growing your business. You’re also networking, creating online profiles, engaging on social, producing web content to drive organic traffic, and more. This is just ONE tool in your marketing arsenal, but as the numbers show, don’t overlook it.

Hopefully, you’re on board by now, so click the button below to see exactly how to execute this low-cost, high-impact postcard campaign.