$10,000 to Invest in MARKETING. Direct Mail or Google PPC?

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Hello all,

Very simple question. You're brand new to REI. You've done a bunch of reading and listened to a bunch of podcasts. You're ready to dive in and you have $10,000 to invest in marketing. This is the first time in your entire life that you've ever invested 5 figures into anything with so much uncertainty.

If you were forced to pick one; direct mail, or Google PPC - which one are you picking? Why?

The keyword to this hypothetical is "forced."  You have two options; PPC or direct mail? Which one?

Really interested in hearing you guys' feedback as I ponder this exact decision.  

[Melissa Ward]

For PPC to be effective you need to have a good web site with a clear call to action.  Your landing page has to capture the attention and create the desire to cough up a name and email address (or whatever info you're collecting). 

If you are new and do not have other online profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, no Google Business Page / Reviews) this can be a bit risky as the savvy internet user is not going to just toss up info.   Having said that - Facebook lead ads work well.  The information doesn't even need to be typed in, a person can just click a button and poof, their info is filled into the form.  I've done a number of lead ad campaigns with success.  The cost is usually a fraction of google PPC.

Direct mail has a longer turn around time, does not really have the "spontaneous-ness" of PPC, but when someone does reach out they are typically more qualified and tend to take action. 

For my 2 cents - depending on the size of the market you want to mail to, I'd do both.  The advantage to digital marketing is you can measure success quickly. 

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@Melissa Ward

My experience tells me that the most effective PPC campaigns start with keyword selection - and by extension, keyword elimination.  Levels of motivation can be gauged from keywords. Example; "sell house fast" is a keyword that is bid up to as high as $70 in Google. People are paying because there's enough profit to be made at the end of the funnel. That actually inspired my post.  The people who are buying traffic on Google are buying the attention of people who are typing in very specific problems into Google, and they are able to turn these problems into solutions.  

 To me, if you only have $10,000 AND you know as much about direct mail as you know about PPC (if you're brand new to both), it makes total sense to buy HIGH INTENT clicks.  You're accelerating your education by constantly putting yourself in position to talk to people with problems, much faster, and on a much more consistent basis.  You can start getting leads in 2 days on Google, and in 2 months in direct mail.  In terms of time lost, that's pretty pricey to me.  However, I do understand many starting out do not have $10,000 to invest in marketing and have to start with maybe $2,000 and mail 300 people 7-10 times. That makes TOTAL sense. 

Facebook lead stuff is awesome. I view Facebook as a "follow up tool" - place a pixel on your site and re-target them if they not converted into a deal.  

All that aside, I was just curious how people thought about this.  To me, it's a no brainer. If you've got $10k, buy clicks at an average cost of $10 per click, so long as they are HIGH intent (highly motivated), get a 15-20% conversion rate as most folks are not going to give you their info right away, and convert more of them via Facebook and Google Re-marketing.