I’ve been working on the same strategy for the past three years now and I believe that despite so many tactics emerging in the industry, I can still rely on it to get me the leads I need to grow my business.
So what is this marketing strategy? I’m basically using database marketing to reach out to as many target customers as I can.
Database marketing may not be considered as one of those glamorous and brilliant strategies in the marketing industry, but it sure does work steadily to help me achieve the growth I need.
Whether you’re a small-time entrepreneur, a Fortune 500 company, or even a freelance professional, database marketing can work for you.
Whether it’s simple or more complex, database marketing can be developed to help you maintain a precise database of information of your current customers and prospective clients.
So how do you do that? Some business owners who have been successfully using database marketing as their strategy find it effective to send out a reminder every year to their current roster of customers. They mail out brochures and flyers to more active clients more than once, and they even place personal calls to their most loyal subjects – with the purpose of making their business recognized and retained in their clients’ minds.
Here’s how you can effectively optimize your database marketing strategy to help you grow your business:
1 – Database marketing works effectively with repeat marketing. This means that you use your funds to market your products and services to your best and loyal customers on a regular and repeat basis.
Send out brochures, catalogs, flyers, and even your postcards to your current clients just to remind them that you’re still around. You can also use database marketing to introduce new products and provide them with special discounts and freebies for repeat business.
2 – Experiment with new target customers. Even if you put most of your resources in keeping your relationship with your current customers, don’t forget to leave a little to generate new leads. You still need new customers to maintain your success even if you already have more than enough in your current database. More customers mean higher profits.
3 - Mix and match your marketing tools. You don’t need to stick with just one marketing vehicle to make your database marketing work. Direct mail may be your best bet when it comes to database marketing; but you still have many promotional tools that you can use that will surely have a positive effect on your business growth.
And don’t be afraid to mix and match your marketing vehicles. As they say, two heads are better than one, so does two marketing vehicles combined can work better in reaching out to your target audience.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Moving Your Business To The Next Level
Here’s how you can create a more effective printed material, be it postcards, flyers, brochures or catalogs, to grow your business:
A – Attention
This is the part where your main purpose is to get the attention of your target audience. You can only do that with a headline that hollers of the benefits to be had from your products and services.
Let’s face it. We humans are a selfish lot. We don’t care for much of anything unless they provide us with benefits – lots of benefits, that is. We don’t buy much of the products or even give the time of day for most marketing collaterals because of one reason: we don’t see any value to them. We only give our undivided attention when a product offers a benefit that would make life better for us.
I – Interest
You must create interest in your marketing collaterals that leads your target audience to the information you want to impart. You can do that by providing details that relate to an issue that concerns your target market. If you’re in the meat industry, for example, even with great content, you won’t be able to motivate interest among your audience if it’s composed of vegetarians, right.
D – Desire
Develop the ‘desire’ among your target audience to respond to your call-to-action in your marketing collateral. Benefits would be an interesting issue that would make your target audience to do whatever it is you want them to do after reading your brochures, catalogs, or postcards. Make sure that your content would make them ‘want’ to act, to your advantage of course.
A – Action
Your marketing collateral must be so effective that response would be immediate. Your target audience would want to ‘act’ on your message that they are raring to place that call or visit your shop for the item that they want. Remember that in marketing, a promotional effort that does not bring about any action on the part of your target audience is a wasted endeavor.
In order to get the success you want from your marketing collaterals, you need to have these four principles. These four principles would help guide you to develop an effective marketing tool that would create positive response from your target audience.
And remember that these principles are only good with the message you would want to impart. Your main message is the most essential part of your marketing collateral that would get your target readers to take action to your greater benefit.
So work on your marketing collateral and see how your business grow to the level you’ve always hoped for.
A – Attention
This is the part where your main purpose is to get the attention of your target audience. You can only do that with a headline that hollers of the benefits to be had from your products and services.
Let’s face it. We humans are a selfish lot. We don’t care for much of anything unless they provide us with benefits – lots of benefits, that is. We don’t buy much of the products or even give the time of day for most marketing collaterals because of one reason: we don’t see any value to them. We only give our undivided attention when a product offers a benefit that would make life better for us.
I – Interest
You must create interest in your marketing collaterals that leads your target audience to the information you want to impart. You can do that by providing details that relate to an issue that concerns your target market. If you’re in the meat industry, for example, even with great content, you won’t be able to motivate interest among your audience if it’s composed of vegetarians, right.
D – Desire
Develop the ‘desire’ among your target audience to respond to your call-to-action in your marketing collateral. Benefits would be an interesting issue that would make your target audience to do whatever it is you want them to do after reading your brochures, catalogs, or postcards. Make sure that your content would make them ‘want’ to act, to your advantage of course.
A – Action
Your marketing collateral must be so effective that response would be immediate. Your target audience would want to ‘act’ on your message that they are raring to place that call or visit your shop for the item that they want. Remember that in marketing, a promotional effort that does not bring about any action on the part of your target audience is a wasted endeavor.
In order to get the success you want from your marketing collaterals, you need to have these four principles. These four principles would help guide you to develop an effective marketing tool that would create positive response from your target audience.
And remember that these principles are only good with the message you would want to impart. Your main message is the most essential part of your marketing collateral that would get your target readers to take action to your greater benefit.
So work on your marketing collateral and see how your business grow to the level you’ve always hoped for.
6 Laws To Follow In Small Business Advertising
There are six laws you need to adhere to in order to advertise your small business successfully. They are:
Law Number 1:
Convey a single message.
Don’t confuse your target audience with the message you would want to impart. Too many ideas would only spoil your marketing efforts. Try to quickly communicate your main message in not more than 3 seconds and you’ll be able to get your target audience to understand your business better.
Law Number 2:
Make it real and credible.
Advertising has become one of the words that people dread. The mention of it would set not only aversion but also distrust among your prospective clients. Anything that reeks of dishonesty would definitely get immediate disapproval. Hence, if you have a claim to impart, make sure that it is real and credible. People are wise to any advertising antics and anything that we distrust we generally avoid.
Law Number 3:
Testing…1,2,3.
With a small budget to work on, you don’t have the luxury to waste your hard earned money and effort. Testing your advertising campaign before you launch them at full blast would help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. You can always try a simple testing method of asking around if customers have heard about your product and how.
Law Number 4:
Include all contact information.
Every marketing material you have, be it full color printing materials or the basic black-and-white, you need to include all your contact information to make it easier for your target audience to get in touch with you. You’ll say, sure, everybody knows that, but you’ll be surprised how many still forget to enter their contact details when they’ve finished color printing their promotional collaterals.
Law Number 5:
Advertising that match your target.
Focusing your marketing efforts to your target market not only eliminates wastage but more importantly, it helps you tailor your advertising campaign to your target customers. The key is to focus your message to match that of your target market.
Law Number 6:
Generate interest and curiosity with your advertising.
Advertising per se does not sell your product or service. It actually generates interest and curiosity for your product that makes your target customer want to know more. That is successful advertising.
Finally, all these laws boil down to one main principle: the success of your advertising efforts is based on the message you want to convey. A clear and precise message would more than likely get you the success you want than any amount of money in the world.
Law Number 1:
Convey a single message.
Don’t confuse your target audience with the message you would want to impart. Too many ideas would only spoil your marketing efforts. Try to quickly communicate your main message in not more than 3 seconds and you’ll be able to get your target audience to understand your business better.
Law Number 2:
Make it real and credible.
Advertising has become one of the words that people dread. The mention of it would set not only aversion but also distrust among your prospective clients. Anything that reeks of dishonesty would definitely get immediate disapproval. Hence, if you have a claim to impart, make sure that it is real and credible. People are wise to any advertising antics and anything that we distrust we generally avoid.
Law Number 3:
Testing…1,2,3.
With a small budget to work on, you don’t have the luxury to waste your hard earned money and effort. Testing your advertising campaign before you launch them at full blast would help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. You can always try a simple testing method of asking around if customers have heard about your product and how.
Law Number 4:
Include all contact information.
Every marketing material you have, be it full color printing materials or the basic black-and-white, you need to include all your contact information to make it easier for your target audience to get in touch with you. You’ll say, sure, everybody knows that, but you’ll be surprised how many still forget to enter their contact details when they’ve finished color printing their promotional collaterals.
Law Number 5:
Advertising that match your target.
Focusing your marketing efforts to your target market not only eliminates wastage but more importantly, it helps you tailor your advertising campaign to your target customers. The key is to focus your message to match that of your target market.
Law Number 6:
Generate interest and curiosity with your advertising.
Advertising per se does not sell your product or service. It actually generates interest and curiosity for your product that makes your target customer want to know more. That is successful advertising.
Finally, all these laws boil down to one main principle: the success of your advertising efforts is based on the message you want to convey. A clear and precise message would more than likely get you the success you want than any amount of money in the world.
Introduction to the Web Marketing
As you probably know, the modern world market is directed by the technology, evolving day by day with multiple choices to the different sectors. One of the most amazing and newest ways of economy is the Internet, It have around 23 years evolving and helping country’s economies and personal profits all over the world. As a complement of this, the web marketing is one of the also newest and popular services, contracted by millions of companies to help them in the competitive world of online business.
This companies dedicated to the online web marketing have as objective only make popular the companies who contract their services. It can sound really simple and easy, but is one of the hardest and detailed works in the modern age.The web marketing is constituted by different factors can make it indispensable for the web sites are using their services, it has to be manipulated only by a specialized person or team who know the way the web search engines work to evaluate web sites and rank positions.
This work include spend a lot of hours in manual article and blogs submissions with backward links can make a website famous in the web. Also a technical work by the web masters to direct the title tags and descriptions of the pages to specialized keywords referent to the website’s main theme.
To get those special keywords will make unique a website, web masters must make competitive websites analysis to determine the right words to develop all articles, blogs, title tags, and descriptions; will help the website reach positions in the search engine’s rank list.
All this work depend completely of the time the search engine takes to analyze the entire internet in the planet, normally those search engines give a name to the computer and program who do that, for example the biggest company dedicated to this “Google”, call their computer Google-Bot, it takes around 3 months to explore the web and rank websites.
The companies dedicated to this normally organize a plan of 4 months to update websites and offer their services in different sections to manipulate different areas, the ones their customers like to update.
The web marketing is a dedicated work, once somebody learn and understand what to do it turns to be a simple tool to the web masters. But depends completely of the person is manipulating the different areas and the time can spend.
This companies dedicated to the online web marketing have as objective only make popular the companies who contract their services. It can sound really simple and easy, but is one of the hardest and detailed works in the modern age.The web marketing is constituted by different factors can make it indispensable for the web sites are using their services, it has to be manipulated only by a specialized person or team who know the way the web search engines work to evaluate web sites and rank positions.
This work include spend a lot of hours in manual article and blogs submissions with backward links can make a website famous in the web. Also a technical work by the web masters to direct the title tags and descriptions of the pages to specialized keywords referent to the website’s main theme.
To get those special keywords will make unique a website, web masters must make competitive websites analysis to determine the right words to develop all articles, blogs, title tags, and descriptions; will help the website reach positions in the search engine’s rank list.
All this work depend completely of the time the search engine takes to analyze the entire internet in the planet, normally those search engines give a name to the computer and program who do that, for example the biggest company dedicated to this “Google”, call their computer Google-Bot, it takes around 3 months to explore the web and rank websites.
The companies dedicated to this normally organize a plan of 4 months to update websites and offer their services in different sections to manipulate different areas, the ones their customers like to update.
The web marketing is a dedicated work, once somebody learn and understand what to do it turns to be a simple tool to the web masters. But depends completely of the person is manipulating the different areas and the time can spend.
Goals: The Time-Tested Secret To Success
When I was growing up, my parents would always tell me to have a goal in life. They keep on telling me that I should know what I want to be when I grow up so that I’ll learn to work on how to get there.
Now that I’m all grown up and have a business of my own, I still adhere to what my parents told me. When you want to achieve your dreams, you got to have a goal to get it.
Even with the regular things that you do, you need to set a goal to achieve it. Without a goal in mind, you wouldn’t even amount to anything that you’ve hoped to accomplish.
I remember what one conference speaker said about goals being the essential ingredient in achieving success in every business. When you want to have your dreams fulfilled, your goals would be your schedule to achieve your dreams.
For example, a student’s goal would be to finish college to get a good job. The good job is his or her dream. And in order to get it, his or her goal is to finish the rest of his or her schooling.
For someone building a house, five to seven months would be their family’s goal to completely finish their dream home.
Simply put, a goal is your deadline to get your dream. When you clearly set a deadline, you are most likely to achieve your goal and have success.
Similarly, when you start your business, you need to have a specific and tangible goal to attain the success you want. Everything you do to operate your business should have timetables and schedules to help you get closer to the success you’ve always dreamed of.
Even your most routine task such as your postcard marketing campaign needs a specific timetable in order for it to be effective in helping you achieve the growth you want for your business.
What’s your timetable in coming up with your postcard printing? How long will it take before you are able to send them out to your target customers? What’s your timetable from the start of the design until you bring them to the post office to be mailed?
The common mistake of everyone, even with business owners, is to have a fuzzy goal. Saying for example that you want to be successful in your chosen field someday, is not helping you to define what you need to do to get there. Or saying that you’ll do your postcard printing this month and will just wait for it to come out of the printers, just won’t do.
The key to being successful is to have goals. Without your goals, you won’t get anywhere with your business. You alone can set your goals so it’ll be easy for you to achieve what you want. Providing a goal for yourself gives you a clear target that you can plan for and give direction to your business. So get yourself a goal and see your dream become a reality.
Now that I’m all grown up and have a business of my own, I still adhere to what my parents told me. When you want to achieve your dreams, you got to have a goal to get it.
Even with the regular things that you do, you need to set a goal to achieve it. Without a goal in mind, you wouldn’t even amount to anything that you’ve hoped to accomplish.
I remember what one conference speaker said about goals being the essential ingredient in achieving success in every business. When you want to have your dreams fulfilled, your goals would be your schedule to achieve your dreams.
For example, a student’s goal would be to finish college to get a good job. The good job is his or her dream. And in order to get it, his or her goal is to finish the rest of his or her schooling.
For someone building a house, five to seven months would be their family’s goal to completely finish their dream home.
Simply put, a goal is your deadline to get your dream. When you clearly set a deadline, you are most likely to achieve your goal and have success.
Similarly, when you start your business, you need to have a specific and tangible goal to attain the success you want. Everything you do to operate your business should have timetables and schedules to help you get closer to the success you’ve always dreamed of.
Even your most routine task such as your postcard marketing campaign needs a specific timetable in order for it to be effective in helping you achieve the growth you want for your business.
What’s your timetable in coming up with your postcard printing? How long will it take before you are able to send them out to your target customers? What’s your timetable from the start of the design until you bring them to the post office to be mailed?
The common mistake of everyone, even with business owners, is to have a fuzzy goal. Saying for example that you want to be successful in your chosen field someday, is not helping you to define what you need to do to get there. Or saying that you’ll do your postcard printing this month and will just wait for it to come out of the printers, just won’t do.
The key to being successful is to have goals. Without your goals, you won’t get anywhere with your business. You alone can set your goals so it’ll be easy for you to achieve what you want. Providing a goal for yourself gives you a clear target that you can plan for and give direction to your business. So get yourself a goal and see your dream become a reality.
It is so difficult to start a business. Marketing and creating your niche in the market is a consuming task with a constant requirement to look for fr
The thing I hate most about sales people is the fact that after they have closed the deal, you will never hear anything from them ever again.
I recently bought a washer and their advertising flyer says that I get a flat iron and a hamper if I buy it in cash. Since I needed one and I had cash that time, I bought the machine. I got the flat iron all right, but since they ran out of stock of hampers, they promised to send it to me. It has been a month now but no hamper.
For all the business people reading this: Do what you promised to do!
Because of this recent experience and several others (including a pest control company that never came back after I reported seeing cockroaches again), I developed some theories on why people do not do what they promised to do. Here goes:
They forget. Yes, a simple reason but companies really tend to forget. They may have every intention of calling or delivering their promises but was just too caught up in running their business. This is not a justification. We are clients and we expect that all appointments, promises, especially those that are written in your postcards and advertising flyers are made real.
They would not make money on you anymore. A follow up will not make any difference in their business or income. Wrong! They should not expect me to come back to their store if I was not pleased the first time I was duped. Second, I will not sing praises about their product or service but instead talk about how dissatisfied I was.
They do not know the value of cumulative effect. Always remember that satisfied customers multiply mathematically while dissatisfied clients multiply exponentially. If you know this then you would not want a dissatisfied customer only because you did not make that follow-up.
As a consumer, I cannot underscore the importance of a follow-up. It may not be worth anything for the company but a follow-up sends a signal that your company cares. It does not have to be as pompous as an elaborate thank you postcard or as personal as a hand-written note from the CEO. A quick phone call after the delivery of the product or after performing a service will do the trick as it confirms our decision to buy you.
I guess what determines businesses that care from businesses that are just there to make a quick buck is the follow-up. Companies can differentiate themselves by making a conscious effort to follow-up with customers or clients. Is your company one of them?
I recently bought a washer and their advertising flyer says that I get a flat iron and a hamper if I buy it in cash. Since I needed one and I had cash that time, I bought the machine. I got the flat iron all right, but since they ran out of stock of hampers, they promised to send it to me. It has been a month now but no hamper.
For all the business people reading this: Do what you promised to do!
Because of this recent experience and several others (including a pest control company that never came back after I reported seeing cockroaches again), I developed some theories on why people do not do what they promised to do. Here goes:
They forget. Yes, a simple reason but companies really tend to forget. They may have every intention of calling or delivering their promises but was just too caught up in running their business. This is not a justification. We are clients and we expect that all appointments, promises, especially those that are written in your postcards and advertising flyers are made real.
They would not make money on you anymore. A follow up will not make any difference in their business or income. Wrong! They should not expect me to come back to their store if I was not pleased the first time I was duped. Second, I will not sing praises about their product or service but instead talk about how dissatisfied I was.
They do not know the value of cumulative effect. Always remember that satisfied customers multiply mathematically while dissatisfied clients multiply exponentially. If you know this then you would not want a dissatisfied customer only because you did not make that follow-up.
As a consumer, I cannot underscore the importance of a follow-up. It may not be worth anything for the company but a follow-up sends a signal that your company cares. It does not have to be as pompous as an elaborate thank you postcard or as personal as a hand-written note from the CEO. A quick phone call after the delivery of the product or after performing a service will do the trick as it confirms our decision to buy you.
I guess what determines businesses that care from businesses that are just there to make a quick buck is the follow-up. Companies can differentiate themselves by making a conscious effort to follow-up with customers or clients. Is your company one of them?
The Referral Side Of Your Business
It is so difficult to start a business. Marketing and creating your niche in the market is a consuming task with a constant requirement to look for fresh, qualified prospects. Finding the ‘right’ leads do not come from cold contact situation, but from building a strong referral business.
What do you get from referrals? Well, it reduces your sales expenses and sales cycle. With less time spent prospecting, you can focus on establishing a relationship with referrals. More importantly, it can build your level of satisfied customers.
Let me enumerate some strategies to strengthen your referral side of your business:
Set an achievable target. Most businesses practice the saying, 'Aim for the moon, shoot for the stars.' In the first place, the saying is not entirely correct as stars can be farther from the moon. This just suggests that you aspire for something big and then in the process, you settle for something near it or closer to it. Well, that is not practical. You have to set out for achievable goals. For example, a five per cent increase in referrals over the next three months.
Do not be far too aggressive. Most sales people ask for referrals immediately after the closing of a sale. This may be putting too much pressure on your client. Why don’t you give them time to experience your service or product first before you ask for a referral? The best time to ask them is when you do a follow up whether they are happy with the product or service.
Be selective. If your client was not happy during the follow-up stage then do not even attempt to ask for referrals! The key here is to find those that were ecstatic and ask them for referrals.
Be appreciative. After the referrals, it would be appropriate to thank your customer for not only buying your product or getting your services, but also for referring their contacts.
Rewards program. Come up with a rewards program for referring customers on a regular basis. If your customers give you, let’s say, five sales, offer them something that, as the Godfather would say, 'something they cannot refuse.' Advertise this program through your brochure printing pieces, flyers or direct mail.
If your product or service really speaks for itself then it would be the trigger for a good referral system. A delighted – no, an ecstatic client, is a treasure. He or she will voluntarily call up friends or family to tell them about this wonderful product or service. In short, the best referral tool is the product or service itself.
What do you get from referrals? Well, it reduces your sales expenses and sales cycle. With less time spent prospecting, you can focus on establishing a relationship with referrals. More importantly, it can build your level of satisfied customers.
Let me enumerate some strategies to strengthen your referral side of your business:
Set an achievable target. Most businesses practice the saying, 'Aim for the moon, shoot for the stars.' In the first place, the saying is not entirely correct as stars can be farther from the moon. This just suggests that you aspire for something big and then in the process, you settle for something near it or closer to it. Well, that is not practical. You have to set out for achievable goals. For example, a five per cent increase in referrals over the next three months.
Do not be far too aggressive. Most sales people ask for referrals immediately after the closing of a sale. This may be putting too much pressure on your client. Why don’t you give them time to experience your service or product first before you ask for a referral? The best time to ask them is when you do a follow up whether they are happy with the product or service.
Be selective. If your client was not happy during the follow-up stage then do not even attempt to ask for referrals! The key here is to find those that were ecstatic and ask them for referrals.
Be appreciative. After the referrals, it would be appropriate to thank your customer for not only buying your product or getting your services, but also for referring their contacts.
Rewards program. Come up with a rewards program for referring customers on a regular basis. If your customers give you, let’s say, five sales, offer them something that, as the Godfather would say, 'something they cannot refuse.' Advertise this program through your brochure printing pieces, flyers or direct mail.
If your product or service really speaks for itself then it would be the trigger for a good referral system. A delighted – no, an ecstatic client, is a treasure. He or she will voluntarily call up friends or family to tell them about this wonderful product or service. In short, the best referral tool is the product or service itself.
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