As technology continues to evolve, businesses constantly seek out new ways to market their products or services. In this digital age, one method that is often overlooked is fax marketing. In the right hands, it can still be a highly effective method for businesses to reach their target audiences. In this article, we will explore what fax marketing is, how you can benefit from using it, best practices for creating a fax campaign, and more.
Fax Marketing: A Quick Definition
Also known as fax advertising, fax marketing refers to the process of promoting a product or service through a fax machine. This involves sending out promotional materials, such as flyers, brochures, or coupons, to potential customers via fax.
Do You Need a Fax Machine to Send Faxes?
In the past, sending a fax required a physical fax machine. However, with the advancement of technology, businesses can now send faxes electronically without the need for any physical equipment. Online fax services, such as FaxBurner, allow businesses to send faxes directly from their computer, smartphone, or tablet. Online faxing is a great way to reduce your costs around the office. More importantly, in the context of this article, it allows you to create a coordinated, mass fax marketing campaign with much less work.
Creating a Fax Campaign: Best Practices
When creating a fax campaign, there are certain practices that businesses should follow to ensure their message is effective and reaches their target audience. Below, you can find three of the main fax marketing strategies you might want to implement to make your fax marketing campaigns as successful as possible.
Use the Whole Page
When designing your fax advertisement, it’s important to use the entire page to maximize the impact of your message. This means avoiding leaving blank spaces or margins on the page. Additionally, it’s important to use a font size that is large enough to be easily read by the recipient.
Fax-Ready Designs
As you go about creating your fax message, it’s important to consider the limitations of fax machines. Fax machines do not always produce high-quality images, so it’s important to use designs that are fax-friendly. In doing so, you should stay away from designs with fine lines or small text that may not be easily readable by the recipient.
Ad Testing
Before sending out your fax advertisement, it’s important to test it to ensure it is effective and reaches your target audience. This can involve sending test faxes to different fax machines to ensure that the image quality and font size are appropriate. Additionally, businesses can send test faxes to a small sample of their target audience to gauge their reaction to the message.
The Benefits of Fax Marketing
Despite being an older technology, fax marketing still offers a number of benefits for businesses, which help these techniques remain relevant in this day and age. Here are some of the main ones.
It’s Cheap
One of the most significant benefits of fax marketing is the fact that it’s quick and affordable. Unlike other forms of marketing, such as radio, television, or print advertising, fax marketing requires minimal investment. It doesn’t require expensive equipment or a large marketing team to execute. All you need is a fax machine or an online faxing service, a list of recipients, and a message to send.
Additionally, sending faxes is much cheaper than other forms of communication such as traditional direct mail. The cost of printing and sending letters through snail mail can add up quickly. In contrast, faxing is an affordable alternative that has the potential to provide a high return on your investment.
Your Brand Visibility Will Improve
Another benefit of fax marketing is that it increases your brand visibility. When you send a fax to a potential customer, you’re placing your brand directly in their hands. They are bound to interact with your message in one way or another, making them more likely to remember your company as a result.
Moreover, sending faxes to customers and potential customers keeps your brand top of mind. When they see your message repeatedly, they’ll start to recognize your brand and automatically associate it with the services you offer. This can help position your brand as an industry leader.
Customized Faxing
Direct fax advertising is also highly customizable. You can tailor your messages to meet the needs of your target audience. For instance, if you’re sending a fax to a client who recently purchased a product or service from you, you can use the opportunity to upsell them on additional services or products.
Similarly, you can send targeted messages to customers who have expressed an interest in a specific product or service. This allows you to deliver personalized messages that resonate with your audience, which is critical to building customer loyalty and trust.
Develop Stronger Relationships with Customers
Finally, fax marketing is a valuable tool for building stronger relationships with your customers. By sending regular faxes, you can keep your brand top of mind and communicate important updates, promotions, and other relevant information.
Additionally, fax marketing provides an opportunity for customers to reach out to you directly. You can include your contact information in your faxes, allowing customers to call or email you if they have questions or concerns. This two-way communication can help you build stronger business partnerships and improve customer satisfaction. Whether you’re trying to strengthen existing relationships or build new ones, fax marketing can help you do both.
Fax Campaigns vs. Email Marketing
When it comes to direct marketing, businesses have a wide range of options to choose from. Two popular methods are fax and email marketing. Here’s a breakdown of when to deploy each type of campaign:
When to Deploy Fax Marketing
With direct faxes, you can send promotional materials, advertisements, or other messages to recipients via fax. Despite being an old-school marketing method that has been around for decades, it’s still a viable option that can yield great results.
It is particularly useful for businesses that target older or more traditional audiences. Many older business owners prefer receiving information via fax, and they may not be as tech-savvy as younger generations. Additionally, some industries, such as healthcare, legal, and financial services, require the use of fax machines for legal or regulatory reasons.
Another advantage of fax marketing is that it’s a more secure method of communication than email. Emails can be intercepted or hacked, whereas faxes are more difficult to access without physical access to the machine or a compromised telephone line. This makes fax marketing an ideal choice for businesses that need to communicate sensitive information on a regular basis.
Furthermore, fax broadcasting allows businesses to send personalized messages to multiple recipients. Faxes can be customized with the recipient’s name, company logo, and other personalization features. This can help businesses build stronger relationships with their customers and increase brand loyalty.
All in all, if you want to utilize the power of fax marketing to its full potential, do it when carrying out campaigns that target older audiences and traditional companies, industries that are known to rely on faxing, and when you want to send highly personalized messages to your audiences.
When to Deploy Email Marketing
Email marketing is a digital marketing channel that involves sending promotional emails to subscribers or potential customers. It’s a more modern marketing method that has become increasingly popular in recent years.
Much like fax advertising, email marketing is cost-effective. It doesn’t require expensive equipment or printing costs, and it’s a highly scalable channel. Businesses can send hundreds or thousands of emails at once, with the cost remaining relatively low.
Another advantage of email marketing is that it allows you to track and measure the success of your campaigns. You can track open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics to determine the effectiveness of your messages. This data can be used to optimize future campaigns and increase ROI.
However, email marketing has its drawbacks. One of the primary challenges is getting recipients to open and read the emails. With so many promotional emails flooding inboxes daily, it can be challenging to stand out and get noticed. Additionally, many people have become wary of unsolicited emails and may mark them as spam, which can harm a business’s reputation.
Moreover, email marketing is subject to legal regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act, which requires businesses to include an opt-out option in all emails and obtain consent from recipients. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in significant fines and penalties.
What Industries Can Benefit From Fax Marketing?
While fax marketing can be effective for businesses across a range of industries, there are some industries that may benefit more than others:
Finance
The finance industry, including banks and financial services companies, can benefit from fax marketing in several ways. First, fax marketing allows them to send personalized messages directly to their customers. For instance, banks can use fax marketing to inform their customers about new products, services, or promotions. They can also use fax marketing to send account statements, loan approvals, or other important financial documents to their customers.
Another way that fax marketing can benefit the finance industry is by improving customer loyalty. By using fax marketing to send personalized messages to their customers, banks and financial services companies can create a sense of trust and loyalty with their customers. This can lead to increased customer retention, higher customer satisfaction rates, and, ultimately, increased revenue.
Legal
Legal firms and independent lawyers also stand to gain a lot from sending marketing materials via fax. It allows law firms to send legal documents directly to potential clients, with a high chance that they won’t go unnoticed, as is often the case with marketing emails.
Another way that fax marketing can benefit the legal industry is by promoting legal services in a more professional way. Law firms can use fax marketing to advertise their legal services to businesses or individuals who may need legal assistance, and their marketing materials will be delivered promptly to the office of a company in need. This can help law firms to expand their client base and generate more revenue.
Insurance
Insurance companies are major beneficiaries of fax marketing. They use it to inform their policyholders about changes to their policies, such as rate adjustments or new coverage options. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and retention rates.
Of course, fax marketing is widely used in the insurance industry to acquire new corporate clients. Insurance companies can use fax marketing to advertise their insurance products and services to businesses that may be in need of insurance coverage and are known to rely on faxing as a primary communication method.
Real Estate
Real estate agents and Realtors might opt to use fax marketing to send out property listings, open house invitations, and other relevant information to potential buyers, especially if they are in the business of commercial real estate.
Much of the work of a real estate agent is communicating with out-of-town clients. They can use fax marketing to send property information to clients who may not have access to the internet or prefer to receive information via fax.
Is Fax Marketing Regulated in Any Country?
In some countries, fax marketing is subject to regulations that aim to protect consumers from unsolicited faxes. In the United States, for example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has rules in place that require businesses to obtain prior consent from recipients before sending fax advertisements. Additionally, the FCC requires that fax advertisements include an opt out request, allowing recipients to request that they not receive future faxes from the sender.
In Canada, fax marketing is also subject to regulations that require businesses to obtain prior consent from recipients before sending fax advertisements. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has rules in place that require businesses to include an opt-out notice on all fax advertisements.
Before devising a fax marketing campaign and sending out unsolicited fax advertisements, always be sure to double-check the fax marketing laws and advertising regulations that exist in any of the countries you do business in. Otherwise, you risk getting in legal trouble and damaging relationships with customers.
Swap Your Old Fax Machines for a Modern Solution with FaxBurner
Fax marketing is a great direct and personalized contact method for businesses looking to advertise their services to other companies. It’s also one of the most secure instant business communication systems. If you’re looking to diversify your marketing efforts, fax marketing is definitely worth your consideration.
FaxBurner allows you to send customized messages to dozens, if not hundreds, of recipients at a time, all done from your computer or mobile device. Visit our website to try our services out for free, check our rates, or simply learn more about us!
