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Marketing Information
Top Five Tips For Designing Marketing Strategies That Get Results
?But this won't work? said Steve. ?I?ve tried it in the past and had no response.? Does this sound familiar? My newer clients often resist implementing certain strategies based on past experiences. However, I usually find out that it wasn?t the strategy itself ? but how it was implemented that caused the dismal results.
Planning Your Postcard Marketing Campaign
Before you create your postcard, do a little planning. Ask yourself:1. Why are you doing this card mailing? Do you want to get new clients? Or do you want to stay in touch with existing clients?2. To whom are you going to be mailing these cards? Which begs another question: who's on your mailing list? Now, you may be saying, "Martha, how can you ask such a thing? I don't even have a mailing list!"Okay, you don't have a proper list quite yet, but do you know anyone? I mean, do you have any friends, family, colleagues, former classmates, former coworkers, military buddies, or neighbors? I'll bet you do.Now, all you need to do is get their names, addresses and other pertinent info into a database program like Act!, Capstralia Contact Expert, Microsoft Excel, Goldmine or Microsoft Outlook. There. Now you have yourself a mailing list.And, furthermore, you have the best kind of mailing list there is, because it's made up of people you know. They're going to be much more interested in what you have to offer than a list that's made up of a bunch of strangers.Your list of people who know you may well do a lot of business with you. Or your list folks may send you business. Mine sure do!
When Designing Postcards, Aim for Refrigerator Door Mindshare
If you want to design effective marketing postcards, then aim for "Refrigerator Door Mindshare." By this, I mean that you should create a card that someone would be proud to display on his or her refrigerator door.The image on the front of your postcard should be simple, but attractive. I?ve found that brightly colored cards pull a better response than dark, moody cards. Save your artistic angst for some other medium. You should also create an image that?s easily comprehended. Why? Because your recipients will only give your cards a one- or two-second glance before deciding to keep them or throw them away. Think billboard. A billboard must get its point across quickly?because people are driving by at high rates of speed. It also must be memorable. So, here's a homework assignment, the next time you're out and about, look at the billboards. Advertisers are paying good money to put them up, so why not use them as a source of free design ideas? Now, ask yourself a couple of questions:1. Which billboards are memorable? 2. Which billboards are forgettable? You can also do the same thing with advertising you see in bus and train stations, or in airports.You may have noticed this when you've been sending postcards, or doing some other form of marketing. Your responders will fall into one of the following groups: 1. People who respond right away. 2. People who respond several weeks, months, or even years later. You may get a lot of "right away" responders, which is the desired result of most marketing activities, but you'll still get replies from people who've saved your postcards. And "keeper cards" are a good thing. Why? Because if your recipients are keeping what you?re sending out, chances are good that they?ll eventually do business with you.
Getting Ideas for Your Postcards
If you're going to do postcard marketing on an ongoing basis, it's a good idea to have a collection of cards to inspire you. In advertising and marketing circles, this is called a "swipe file."
People Do Business with People They Like
People do business with people they know and like!
Shopping Comes Back To The Community
THE GREAT BRITISH TRADITION OF STREET MARKETS IS UPHELD AT STREETTRADERSUNITED.COM
Four Super-Deadly Marketing Sins - And How To Fix Them
11 Rock Solid Techniques For Generating Product Ideas Anytime Anywhere!
Whatever business you are in, either online or offline, you've got to constantly generate business/product ideas.
Ten Crucial Questions
I'm a business coach. I've worked with hundreds of small, medium and very large business, and over the course of the past eleven years, I've asked my business coaching clients endless questions which have helped them achieve much greater levels of success than they would have otherwise. While the following may not be the only ten questions -- or even THE ten questions, they are ten questions that you must answer if you want your business to flourish. The right answers are critical to your company?s future.
Why Cutting Prices Is Like Cutting Your Own Throat
Why cutting your prices is like cutting your own throat. It?s the oldest sales tactic in the world? And one of the worst? Price cutting. Before you make your next price cut in the face of sales resistance, the question you have to ask yourself is not, ?Does it work?,? but rather, ?Can you live with the bargain?? Here?s a pop quiz: you ? in your role as salesperson ? go for the close. You ask the prospect to make a commitment and they don?t. What?s your first response? Well, if you are like most people in a selling situation ? whether you are the hired sales guy or the CEO?your first response to people not buying?for whatever the reason?is to say, ?Would you buy if? ?,? and the "if" is always some variant of, ?...if the price was lower?? And you ask it almost before you ask them WHY they won?t buy. And it?s not only when they tell you they won?t buy. Many people in sales mentally calculate the discount into their profit calculations, and start discounting even before they try to close the deal. In almost every sales job that I?ve worked in, people faced with an end-of-quarter crunch to ?make the numbers? start playing the discount game. In many industries, it?s become common practice to give away all the profits, and many customers are trained to expect it. Trouble is, people are not usually ?not buying? because your price is too high. If you?ve taken the trouble to establish the real of your product or service, you ? and your prospect ? already know that the value far exceeds the price you are asking. (If not, you better go back and rethink the math.) So if they are saying ?no,? or simply not saying ?yes,? it either means they are experienced buyers waiting for you to spontaneously cut your price, or it means they just do not see a sufficiently compelling value?yet. Cutting your prices will almost never lead to new sales if they didn?t plan on buying in the first place, and the effect on your profits can be devastating. Follow these numbers: Let?s say you sell a product for $100. Your cost is $70. That means it carries a thirty percent margin?your profit is $30. Now, to make a sale, you are ?forced? to cut your price by twenty percent. Your new selling price is $80. All things being equal, your profit is now $10?instead of $30. That means a 20% price reduction cost you 66% of your profits. TWO-THIRDS OF YOUR PROFITS for a 20% price reduction! Cut your price much more and your profit quickly goes to zero. Or lower. And that?s not even the worst of it. Once you lower prices, they tend to stay low. That $100 widget you just sold for $80? Well, sorry to say, but it?s now an $80 widget. Even more damaging, your like-minded competitors will almost definitely lower their prices, and you, my friend, are in a price war. To win in this scenario, you need deep pockets to sustain a losing position for the duration. So for these three reasons?depressed profit margins, permanently lowered prices, and the devastation of a price war?it?s a bad idea to lower your prices to buy business?regardless of the economic climate. What can you do instead? The two main strategies are clarifying and quantifying the value, and packaging products or services to maintain higher prices. Here?s an interesting example. One of my clients?a software company?had a hot prospect who didn?t want to buy the typical contract for software maintenance. They felt that 18% per year was just too expensive, and wanted to pay ad hoc instead. My client knew this was a bad idea. Customers without maintenance contracts typically become your worst. Why? Because they know it?s going to cost them each time they pick up the phone for support, so they try not to. Thus, they don?t get the right level of service, they don?t know how to use the product and they don?t get the results they paid for in the first place. And even though it?s their fault for skimping, they point the finger at you and badmouth your company. On my advice, my client offered the prospect a four year non-cancelable maintenance contract, and gave them the first year for free. And although it was a 25 percent reduction in total purchase price, it never lowered the per year pricing, and it actually guaranteed more than the prospect?s original commitment. Plus, my client locked in that customer for four full years, during which time they rightly expect to sell them additional products and services. Price cutting is the ?lazy man?s? response when it?s hard to make sales. Unfortunately, it may not boost total revenues, and results in drastically lowered profits on the sales that do get made. Often the outcome includes permanently reduced prices and margins, and even a price war, which has disastrous consequences for all players, except very deep-pocketed ones. Sell the value instead. Spend the time to discover what your prospect is trying to accomplish, and make sure your product or service helps them do that. Then establish the quantifiable financial impact, and sell them that. Or package, bundle or go for the long-term, multi-year commitment. There are other approaches that not only maintain price levels, but even support higher ones. To get an overview of those approaches, visit http://www.lemberg.com/tipsandtools.html and download ?5 tactics to avoid price cutting.? --PL © Paul Lemberg. All rights reserved Reprint rights freely given. Please click here for details.
Thinking About More Business
Did you increase your business in the past 12 months? Don't discriminate between more new clients or old clients spending more money--count the increase either way. If you didn't, you really should be asking yourself why not.
Marking Your Territory
We all know the familiar adage "if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..." it's nearly always a duck. The same is true with image, particularly when it comes to the images we portray of ourselves as writers.
Using Flyers In Your Business
If you are not using flyers in your business you are missing out. Flyers can be used to sell your product, promote your product, promote your services, and in a number of other areas.
10 Ways to Get Your Flyers Noticed
An inexpensive way to promote your services is to createvarious flyers and distribute them wherever you go -- pinthem to the bulletin boards at the library, bookstore,handout out at networking events, or playing tennis. Hereare 10 tips on how to get your flyer noticed and remembered.
Mail Orders Most Common Mistakes
THE GREAT MAIL ORDER MYTH There are a number of totally unrealistic beliefs about the mail order business. To belive in any of them can be dangerous to your pocketbook. Here are some of the most common ones:
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