What’s a Free Standing Insert (FSI)?
Whelp, I’m glad you asked.
A Free Standing Insert is a flyer or card that’s inserted into a newsletter, magazine, or newspaper that’s used to create an offer.
I see a lot of newspapers using FSIs advertising coupons for local businesses. I’m sure you’ve seen them too. Or, how about your favorite magazine… ever notice those little reply cards where you can sign up for a subscription of the magazine? That’s a FSI.
So, how can you use FSIs in your marketing?
If you have a newsletter, you can use an FSI to upsell some of your products. You can even segment your list, and make different offers to different prospects (You do keep track of your current clients right… what they have recently bought from you, how often, cross sell others products that they may be interested, etc.).
Say you own a retail pet store. You mail out a monthly newsletter to your clients, and you have the names of all the pets along with their birthdays. Well, each month you could send a FSI to all the pets who have birthdays that month. No need to send it out to every pet… especially when their birthday is 9 months away.
Or, say you’re going to have a sale on pet products. You can segment your list by cats and dogs. All the dogs get the dog FSI and the cats get the cat FSI. No point in spending money advertising to someone who has know interest in what you have to offer.
That’s one benefit… saves money! It also makes the offer more specific to your target.
Another benefit is, the FSI draws attention to the ad. What happens when you open up a magazine… the little reply cards fall out. You can’t help but notice it. Same goes with your FSI (just be sure you have a great headline, offer, deadline, and call to action).
Now, say you don’t have a newsletter. That’s ok. You can still use FSIs. How?…
You have a HVAC business, and winter is coming around and you want to target homeowners around a certain city. You can create a FSI and have them placed in the local paper or one of your local coupon booklets that get sent out monthly.
Usually, FSIs are cheaper to get inserted into newspapers and coupon books, because you have to get your own FSIs designed and printed (I’m sure you could always work something out with your local paper or coupon booklet provider).
Free Standing Inserts are a great way to have your ads stand out and get noticed.
Have you ever used a FSI? If yes, what kind of results are/were you getting?
Now go take action!