Optimum utilisation of Manual Traffic Exchanges in a marketing strategy

Manual Traffic Exchanges is a process of sending mailers or flyers to targeted households in an area, because it is not possible to sell directly on the porch for fear that they will steal the product. The strategy of using manual traffic exchanges helps increase brand awareness, sell more product and ultimately increase turnover. This article takes a look at when and how manual traffic exchanges can optimally be used to improve your marketing strategy.

In order to make sure that you get the best out of your manual Traffic Exchange marketing strategy it's helpful if you use some tools which give you updated statistics on where people live in your community. You can then concentrate on sending out the mailers to those households that you know you can sell to, rather than spending time and money chasing after households you know aren't going to take up the offer. These tools provide you with information on just how many people live in your area, their age group and where they live.

It is suggested that for your manual traffic exchange campaign a minimum of three mailers should be sent out: a flyer is sent first in order to get feedback from the recipients, then a second mailer advertising an event or giveaway and finally a third mailer explaining what the first two mailers were about. In some instances there will be four or five identical flyers distributed at different times.

How many mailers are sent out is of course dependent on the number of households the target advertising area, but generally two to five mailers should be expected. Different combinations of mailer types will also be issued, including: flyers with business cards or product samples, purely promotional mailers,  postcards or business cards and mailers with telephone numbers. Generally there will be no more than three different types of material being advertised in a manual traffic exchange campaign with the exception for some instances where their is a tie in between one product and another - for example if you are selling both cars and computers in your campaign then both may receive six identical mailers.

Most sales are made by people who receive a mailer through their letterbox or door step, often picked up during their weekly shop. In order to increase the chances of receiving mailers, many well known brands and companies send out large quantities of mailers to recipients in an area. 

Many companies opt for the "blast" method whereby they use mailing lists of households in the area that they want targeted and print as many flyers as they can get away with, enclosing each flyer with a business card or sheet of paper advertisement. This is likely to result in less than perfect results and generally not produce very much response from those receiving the flyers.

Manual Traffic Exchanges are often used in conjunction with regular e-mail marketing campaigns and this is particularly important for smaller companies or those with limited marketing budgets. You will find that the more effective your email campaign is the more likely it is that you will achieve a good response from recipients of your mailers. 

Companies which have tried manual traffic exchanges have found that the increase in business they receive as a result of using them far outweighs any money spent on the actual campaign. A company who sends out five mailers at $2 each will be looking at an increase in their sales of $500 - 1000 per month.

Conclusion

Although a manual traffic exchange can be extremely cost effective when used correctly and with emphasis on correcting any weaknesses in it's implementation, it is worth noting that the more mailers you distribute the less effective each one becomes. For this reason, use some of the tools available to you in order to minimise this and maximise your ROI (return on investment). This will require careful planning but is often possible when done right.

You can find further information about how to implement a manual traffic exchange campaign at http://www.sales-toolbox.com/marketing/campaigns/manual_traffic_exchanges/index.