3 Ways to Get Your Marketing Materials Noticed
Your business’s marketing materials aren’t cheap, so if you’ve invested time and money into having professional brochures, pamphlets and other resources developed, why risk having them tossed into the trash by a well-meaning, but careless mailroom clerk?
The unfortunate reality is that most business people these days are so pressed for time that it takes a Herculean amount of effort to get your marketing materials into your prospects’ hands. So if you’re struggling to get your promotional content noticed, check out the following tips on how to stand out and get your materials read!
Technique #1 – Mail your materials via Fedex
If you really want to get a prospect’s attention, send your marketing materials via Fedex or UPS Next Day Air. Think about it – if you received one of these high priority envelopes, is there any way you’d even consider tossing it into the trash unopened? Chances are, you’d not only open the package, but also make a note of how much the sender obviously values your opinion.
Yes, sending your brochures this way isn’t exactly cost-effective, which is why it’s important to save this strategy for truly important prospects. However, if you’ve identified a great opportunity to pitch a potentially high value prospect, use priority mail services for your marketing materials to show how committed you are to the deal.
Technique #2 – Use hand-written addresses on padded envelopes
There’s something about receiving a padded envelope with a hand-written address printed neatly on the front that makes us subconsciously think back to care packages received at summer camp or in the college dorms. In some cases, these happy associations make it more likely that your package will be opened and read, versus tossed into the recycle bin alongside other unsolicited mailings.
As an added bonus, this technique isn’t nearly as expensive to implement as mailing your materials via priority mail. Padded envelopes can be purchased online in bulk at extremely low prices, while mailing them at the USPS Parcel Post rate can save you even more money.
Technique #3 – Deliver your materials in person
Delivering your materials in person isn’t always feasible depending on where you’re located in relation to your customer base. But if you’re able to, know that dropping off your materials off in person increases your odds of getting past the gatekeepers (namely, your prospects’ secretaries and mail clerks) who are tasked with keeping out uninvited promo pieces.
To make this strategy as efficient as possible, make a day out of it by scheduling a route that reaches various prospects who are located in a similar geographic area. Call ahead to find out to whom you should address your materials and ask to speak to that person when you arrive at each office. Even if you aren’t able to get a “walk in” appointment to meet your prospect face-to-face, you may find that simply being there demonstrates enough interest to get your materials read by your target client.
What techniques have you used in the past to get your marketing materials noticed by busy prospects? Share your techniques and advice in the comments below!
About the Author: Thunder Pack is an online wholesale packaging superstore where you can purchase all of the packaging supplies you need at real wholesale prices. Whether you’re interested in our extensive line of cardboard boxes or our high quality padded envelopes, find out how our exceptional customer service ensures our store stands out as the number one wholesale packaging provider in the UK.
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Market Research: What, Why, and How
Sun Tzu, a Chinese general writing in 500 BC and still studied today at West Point said, “If you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be in danger in every single battle.”
Prepare for Battle
Business today is a battleground. Business owners are generals with limited resources whose aim is to stay in business, make a profit and grow to a size that stays manageable.
Market Research is preparation for battle. Just as a wise general will scout the area ahead so the business owner must consider every move carefully before he commits his forces.
Check out the Competition
No-one enters an area of enterprise without challenge. There’s always someone there already serving the market. So the first question any new business or start-up should ask is “What are the competition up to?”
Talk to their customers. Are they happy with the service they’re getting? Are they being dealt with fairly? Does the product they’re currently buying deliver on all fronts? Could it be made smaller, better or cheaper?
Take nothing for granted. Sometimes dumb questions provide world changing answers.
Look carefully at competitors products. Look too at the mindset of your target market.
Two products can share an identical specification but be miles apart in terms of perception. When people buy something they’re buying the product, plus whatever else it is they “know” about the company.
A Hunt for Truth
The point about research is to discover the truth rather than confirm a prejudice. The trick if you’re doing your own market research is to ask the right questions and then listen to what people say.
Don’t assume that trends in the past will continue into the future. It didn’t take long for the pager market to collapse once mobile telephony took off. Market research cannot predict the future or suggest when a major new trend is about to break.
One cost effective way of taking a snapshot of opinion is to use an online questionnaire. These surveys are fast and flexible, providing answers in a few days.
Eliminate Surprises
Market Research helps us avoid surprises. A few years ago the Coca Cola company were using the slogan “Coke Adds Life.” No-one thought to question how this translated into Chinese and so Chinese consumers were bemused to learn that “Coke Brings Back the Spirits of Your Dead Ancestors.”
Remember too that people are generally helpful and encouraging. If you’re researching an idea among friends and family be aware that they’ll want to see you succeed and may therefore give you the answers which they think you want to hear rather than what they actually think.
Avoiding bias is one of the cornerstones of good market research. Avoiding assumption is another.
Sun Tzu, the Chinese General mentioned in the first paragraph also said, “The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.”
Market Research is an essential part of any successful enterprise. As the man says, “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
James writes for AYTM, who provides market research for small businesses and startups. AYTM allows you to create market research surveys specific for your business and get quick responses from their market research panels.
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The Best Ways to Market to a Senior Audience
No matter what you’re marketing or who you’re marketing it to, your first step in reaching your audience is to know that audience. If you try to market to “everyone,” you’ll sell to no one.
Marketers make one of two big mistakes in marketing to seniors. They either treat seniors like everyone else, or they treat seniors like old, closed-minded people.
Seniors don’t think, act or feel like anyone else in any other target market. They have different needs and priorities, and they’re interested in different ideas and products. That’s not a reason to not market to seniors, though; it’s a reason to understand how to market to them.
As for the belief that seniors are old and closed-minded, Seth Godin discusses this in a blog post on marketing to seniors. He says that there are open and closed people. Open people are “seeking out things that will make their lives better,” and closed people are “trying to maintain the status quo.” Seniors have traditionally been seen as closed, but Baby Boomers changed all that. Seniors today are looking for a great life. They’re open to anything, from fashion to travel to life experience.
Remembering that you have to know your audience, and understanding that today’s seniors are looking for ways to live fully and improve their lives, here are five tips to help you market effectively to seniors:
1. Build a relationship
In all of your marketing, show that you understand what your prospects are going through and that you are there for them. Use social media to reach out and build relationships with your prospects. You’d be surprised how many seniors use Facebook and Twitter. Create a community on your website where your customers and prospects can interact and support each other. Above all, build trust with your prospects and customers by doing what you say you’ll do and being who you say you are.
2. Be senior-friendly
This is about more than offering a senior discount, though that’s a start. Be easy to understand. Use plain English, not jargon and technical terms that make seniors feel left out. Make all of your documents easy to read, with high-contrast colors or black type on white and easy-to read type. The best type-styles for seniors are 12 or 14 point sans-serif styles like Arial and Verdana. Make sure your website is easy to read and easy to navigate, and that it contains the information you want to convey, based on your goals. If you have an office or store, provide clear directions on your website and over the phone. Make sure your building provides ample parking near the door, and that there is a clear, obstacle-free path from the parking lot to the door. Provide comfortable seating and plenty of light. Gear everything you do to making things easy for seniors, including everything they’re required to read, write, or do.
3. Be accessible and helpful
Provide information about your field that seniors can use. You can put this information on your website or blog and share it on social media. Publish a free newsletter, either print or email, that answers seniors’ most common questions and fills them in on new developments and information they may not know. Teach a class or seminar, or offer free consultations. Use any means possible to position yourself as knowledgeable, accessible and helpful. Become the go-to person for anything related to your field.
4. Communicate well
The most important thing to remember here is that seniors don’t respond well to interruption marketing, and will probably reach out to you after seeing your website or social media. “In your face” advertising doesn’t work with seniors, but interaction works very well. Create a website with informative, useful content. Consider writing a blog several times a week. Use social media to reach out to seniors in your market. Make your print communication informative and useful, not just marketing-oriented. If you reach out and interact rather than interrupting, seniors will respond.
5. Use community outreach to build relationships
This may include speaking at libraries or local senior groups. Consider speaking at local companies to provide information that employees might share with their parents and grandparents. Guest blog on senior-related blogs. Volunteer at senior-oriented charities. Network with people who can help you reach out through community organizations. The more visible you make yourself in the community, the more seniors will trust you and think of you first.
These tips will help you market much more effectively to seniors and reach your marketing goals for this market.
About the Author: Tom Demers writes for Assisted Living Today, a leading source of information on senior care providing a directory of assisted living facilities in PA..
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Why Improving Your Business Signage Is a Must (As Explained By An Award-Winning Orange County Signs Maker)
Having an attention-getting sign is critical for your local businesses – no matter the industry. Your business signage identifies your business and location and it establishes your business image. Your business signage is the core of your brand identity strategy, whether it is proudly mounted on the building, on your booth or display at a trade show, or on your company vehicles.
It’s also the most cost-effective advertising you can do. The Small Business Administration says, “…signs are the most effective, yet least expensive form of advertising for the small business.” Building signage is often taken for granted, but signs are always on the job, advertising 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
How Improved Business Signage Will Help You Brand Your Company, Communicate with a Highly-Mobile Society & Leverage Your Advertising Efforts
1 Your business signage is the only indicator that you exist and would like your prospect’s patronage.
2 A frequently-noticed business sign sends your message to more people per dollar invested than any other form of advertising. For example, if you display a $200 sign for one year at a location where 10,000 cars pass every day, you’ve reached over 3.5 million people (not counting passengers), at a cost per person of less than $.000057. (Less than six hundred-thousandths of a dollar.) Even a high-end, lighted or monument sign that costs $5000, still reaches those people at a cost of $.0014, or a little over a tenth of a cent each.
3 95% of retail business is location-based. As consumers pass by your place of business, an attractive and effective on-premise sign will leave a positive impression. When the time comes to make a decision or purchase, consumers will be attracted to you.
4 About 40 million Americans move annually to a new home, all needing to buy goods and services, and looking for brands that stand out.
5 Enhanced sign technology allows sign faces to be easily changed to match evolving marketing circumstances. New developments in lighting, plastics, digital printing resolution, and color profiling mean signs can now achieve the same visual effect as four-color magazine advertising.
6 Your company does not need to be a national franchise with a major advertising budget to “brand” your site with effective signage. If appropriately designed and placed, your sign can develop top-of-mind awareness of your products and services, no matter the size of your business.
7 Many communities and cities have strict sign codes requiring that signage remains attractive and in harmony with the look and feel of the community, while encouraging business activities. Advances in sign design and technology means that via signage, your company can communicate more effectively to potential customers in a way that enhances both your site and the community at large.
8 Purchase habits can be influenced with effective signage. Pricing or product information can influence a purchase decision or prompt an unplanned stop, which is critical, since nearly all businesses rely in part on impulse visits.
9 A well-designed sign can provide a positive perception of quality and service and create the image of a leader, even for the smaller business. For the national franchise or chain, on-premise signage reinforces all other media advertising, and maximizes advertising effectiveness at a low cost.
10 By adding your business signage to your car and “wrapping” your company vehicles with striking vinyl, you can generate over 600 visual impressions for every mile driven At about $0.35 per thousand impressions for a typical vehicle wrap, the cost is almost trivial compared to $3.56 for outdoor advertising or over $20.00 for typical magazine advertising.
About the Author: Orange County Business Signs Specialist Martin Neil contributes value to businesses and non-profit organizations across the United States by increasing their brand awareness with the very best sign solutions. He specializes in custom requirements for commercial building signage, vehicle wraps, office inside signage, trade show displays, promotional banners & flags, and large-size wall graphics. Improve your business signage by going to: http://www.Calibersi.com/Building-Signage.html
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Mobile Marketing: Seven Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Small Business Owners in 2012
You’ve heard all the stats and read all the news: smartphones are a big deal, right? But with all that noise out there, how can a small business owner actually get customers and make money from those smartphone junkies? Here are seven tips, tricks and techniques to help any small business owner go mobile without busting the bank.
1. Claim Your Business and Your Location
With smartphones, a consumer searching for a hardware store will automatically be shown the nearest hardware stores relative to their device’s GPS signal. That means you want to be sure your physical facility shows up (even if your office is just the location for people to call).
So what can you do to be “found?” It’s pretty simple really – just be sure that you visit each site such as Yelp, Bing, Yahoo Local, Google Places, Foursquare, and Facebook and “claim” your business and its location.
Cost: Free
2. Mobilize Your Website
Mobile searches have grown 400 percent since 2010, according to Google. And when they find you on their phone – consumers visit (59%) or they call you (61%).
So, be sure you can be found. This means making sure the website you initially launched back in 2000 is accessible by mobile phones, or “mobile-optimized.” There are a number of new and reasonably priced tools to help make your site mobile-optimized. But, before you plunk down any money, check out Google’s “GoMo” site that has a testing tool and resources to help businesses with their websites.
Cost: Free (depending on your site)
3. Make Your Coupons Mobile
Have you ever been in line at a store and watched a clerk refuse to honor a coupon on someone’s phone. Claiming “no, you need to print that before I can accept it” just sets the consumer off even more.
Don’t be that business. The days of clipping coupons has come and gone. Now, most consumers would simply prefer to open an email or webpage with your coupon, flash it to you on their smart phone and get the discount. Make it clear that showing the coupon on your phone is sufficient and consumers will thank you for being mobile-friendly. Plus, you’ll avoid an awkward confrontation with your store clerks.
Cost: Free (other than the cost of your coupons)
4. Monitor Your Reviews
Did you know that 81 percent of consumers say they read reviews before making a purchase and 51 percent of consumers say they’ve used the Internet IN SHOPS before making a purchase? If you have a bevy of negative reviews or poor feedback, that consumer may decide to shop, eat, drink or pay somewhere else.
The first step to keep tabs on your reviews is to set a Google Alert for the name of your business. Watch for any reviews, postings or other news that you might need to address. Then, find out the review-focused sites people use regularly to review your business, like Google Places, Yelp, and Angie’s List. For a more detailed tracking service, try Reputation.com for Business that monitors and provides real-time alerts for your business.
Cost: Free (for Google Alerts); Starting at $34.99/mo. (for Reputation.com)
5. Talk to Your Customers
Guess what? Consumers want to talk with, and hear from, brands they like. In fact, 43 percent of consumers “like” at least one brand on Facebook and 53 percent of individuals with a Twitter account recommend products or services in their tweets. And, more and more consumers are using social media on the go.
Both Facebook and Twitter are free to setup and utilize – so schedule time daily to engage. Put links to your accounts on your website and in your facility (if you have a physical location) and talk to your customers: respond to questions or concerns, and consider offering deals for fans or followers. The most important lesson? Talk like a human not a brand. Remember, as consumers are out and about, they are talking to you, about you and with you – so be a part of the conversation.
You can manage most of these conversations using the standard Facebook or Twitter platforms. If you want something more advanced, try Hootsuite.com which can help you manage your efforts, schedule messages and track conversations from a single interface.
Cost: Free (Hootsuite provides free basic social media plans)
6. Be Able to Take Money Wherever you Are
Quick, how much cash do you have in your wallet? Enough to buy something over $100? Over $50? Over $20? People are becoming more reliant on credit cards for all of their transactions, so rather than force someone to run to the nearest ATM (and pay the enormous fee for withdrawing from a non-bank ATM), consider taking payment right on your mobile device.
With services like Square or Intuit GoPayment, providing a device that plugs into most smartphones to take a credit card on the spot is actually quite simple. Plus, new technologies are coming along to allow you to pay without needing any hardware at all.
Cost: Free (other than the credit card processing fees)
7. Tried Text Messages?
According to the Pew Foundation, 73 percent of cell phone users utilize the text messaging function on their phones. And, 44 percent of Americans have opted into at least one text messaging marketing campaign. So, why not share deals, information and updates with your customers via text.
To get started, check out Tatango’s Beginner’s Guide to SMS Marketing.
Cost: Varies depending on the SMS Marketing Software partner
Conclusion
This year, with more people expected to be using mobile than ever before, business owners must think about how they can interact with these potential customers. With the simple actions and activities listed above, any business can go mobile to create a positive environment for their customers, leads and partners.
About the Author: Eric Koester is the founder and COO of Zaarly, a mobile, real-time marketplace. Eric is a former securities lawyer who has testified before Congress on matters of startup and small business financing, immigration reform and business taxation. Zaarly provides tools for small-businesses and consumers to transact right from their mobile devices. For more information or to sign-up for mobile alerts, visit www.zaarly.com/business.
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4 Free Online Marketing Tools Every Small Business Owner Should Use
As the Flying Lizards once sang, “the best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees – I want money. “ And really, who doesn’t? Small business owners all have paper chasing on the brain, but what many of them don’t realize is that some of the best online marketing tools are free – and they can help you get sales.
Here are four free online marketing tools that will help boost your bottom line:
1. HARO and Reporter Connection
Ever wish you could be quoted as an industry expert in a major media outlet? Now you can – but you’ll have to sign up for HARO and Reporter Connection emails first. These will put you in contact with reporters looking for quotes and information, and if you can type up a decent response email you’ll get placed (and linked to) in a variety of different outlets. If you’re not using HARO and RC, you and your business are missing out.
2. Social Media Management Software
First and foremost, you should have social media accounts set up on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Once you have that all finished, you’re going to need something to manage your updates – and Hootsuite, Cotweet and TweetAdder are all free. It seems like most pros prefer Hootsuite, but if you only have one person managing the accounts you can’t go wrong with any of them. Use the keyword streams to find people tweeting about needing your products/services, and don’t be shy about reaching out (preferably with a coupon code). Hashtracking will tell you which hashtags to target for maximum visibility.
3. WordPress Plugins
You do have a blog, right? If not, that should top your to-do list. They’re crucial for SEO, and the fresh content also gives you a good excuse to link back to your site on your social media accounts. Plugins help optimize your blog, and there are a variety of free ones you can benefit from. WordPress SEO by Yoast is a good place to start, as it’s widely regarded as THE SEO plugin to use these days. SexyBookmarks is also a favorite, since it gives cute little buttons that make your content ridiculously easy to share. Just remember: the more plugins you have, the slower your pages will load.
4. MediaBistro Forums and Quora
Have questions? There’s no need to guess when you can ask an expert and know the answer for sure. The MediaBistro forums are crawling with PR pros, copywriters and all-around marketing mavens who are usually happy to share their expertise. Quora is like a useful version of Yahoo! Answers, sans the spam and poor advice.
As with all things, there’s a learning curve to online marketing. If you don’t get discouraged and keep at it, though, you’ll hone your skills and see serious results over time. It may take you three months of responding to HAROs and Reporter Connection emails before you get placement, but if that placement is in Entrepreneur Magazine or Good Morning America the effort is totally worth it.
About the Author: Kari DePhillips is the owner of The Content Factory, an online PR company that specializes in web content writing and social media marketing. Give her a shoutout on Twitter (@ContentFac) or become a fan of TCF on Facebook.
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How Your Business Will Benefit From A Loyalty Card Program
It seems like almost every business has jumped on the loyalty card program bandwagon. From grocery stores to pharmacies and restaurants, retailers everywhere are launching customer rewards programs.
Have you ever wondered why?
Sure, customers stand to benefit from participating in loyalty card programs. They get discounts, special offers and cash-back opportunities. But the benefits for retailers are just as great, if not better. Even with the cost of a loyalty gift card program, you still end up being a winner in the end.
If you’re considering launching a loyalty card program, here are some of the many benefits you’ll pick up along the way:
1. Better Data Tracking
Every time a customer swipes a rewards card, you’ll get a clearer picture of who is buying what. The data will allow you to examine shopping patterns and use the information to make better business decisions. For example, use the information to make better choices about product selections and inventory supply.
2. Improved Marketing
Armed with all the data you’ll collect from customers who fill out a rewards program application, you’ll be able to develop marketing campaigns tailored to specific groups. Offer customers special, personalized deals based on their age, interests or previous purchases.
3. Better Customer Retention
A few incentives go a long way in creating loyal customers. If your customers believe there’s something to gain from giving you their repeat business, they’ll come back time and time again. Simply by offering a coupon for $2 off the next purchase, you’re dramatically increasingly the likelihood that a customer will come back.
4. More Frequent Business
With a loyalty program, the more often a customer shops, the faster they can start claiming rewards. A customer who’s just $5 away from earning a $25 gift certificate might find an excuse to stop by your store. Customers who used to come in once a month might start coming twice a month or once a week.
5. Increased Product Awareness
Do you offer a valuable product that – for one reason or another – is simply sitting on the shelves? Maybe you’re a retail shop that specializes in handmade goods, but the greeting cards in the back of the store just aren’t selling. By offering items like these as incentives, you can promote items customers may not know you have.
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Are you Wasting Your Money on Mobile Emails that Don’t Work?
Email marketing is one of the most lucrative online channels. And it looks like the combination of mobile is a powerful team.
According to a recent report from HubSpot, “43% of people on mobile devices check their email over four times per day”.
That presents a huge opportunity to reach people instantly at any time, and any place. But the problem is that an email that looks great on your laptop will look terrible on a mobile device.
So you need to improve your email marketing, and make sure that what you’re sending will perform on any device. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time (and money).
1. Write a Killer Headline
The headline is the most important element of any email marketing campaign.
How important?
According to a recent study from MailChimp, average open rates are only around 10 – 30%.
That means that 70 – 90% of the people didn’t care enough about your headline to even open the email.
People today don’t have time. So they don’t read everything. They scan and only open things that look interesting. If your headline doesn’t grab their attention, then they’ll never open it. And the the first step to making more money with an email marketing campaign is by improving the open rate.
Start with Copyblogger’s guide if you need help.
2. Focus on One Goal
The screen on a mobile device is really small. You literally only have an inch or two to get your point across. So keep it really simple. Pick one goal for each email you send, and focus only on that. This will drastically improve your Click-Through-Rate (CTR) for that one element.
Most people try and put several calls-to-action in one email. They want people to click a link to their website, become their Facebook friend, and buy something all in one email. That doesn’t work on a tiny screen. And the goal of your email isn’t to sell. You just want to pique your reader’s interest enough so they click through to a landing page.
Once you have them on your mobile site, then you can worry about converting them.
About the Author: Brad Smith is the founder of FixCourse.com, a blog about online customer acqusition and how to grow your traffic, generate leads, and make more sales.
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Why You Should Use Free eMail Marketing to Keep Sales Going Beyond the Holiday Season
Businesses of all kinds are giving free email marketing a try for first time. Many have decided to give it a go with the goal of cashing in on the shopping frenzy that accompanies the holiday season. This is easy to understand when seeing how it is great for keeping in touch with customers, enticing them with offers, and providing stellar after-sales service as well. If you are thinking about abandoning this tool once all the shopping is done, get it out of your head. This article will explain why free email marketing has value that goes beyond the holiday season.
It Fits in the Budget
Some businesses will give email marketing a whirl for the holiday season. Several will throw in the towel and go back to what they were doing previously. Why? Because they can’t fit the extra expense into the budget. Even though email marketing is very cost effective, it is another expense, one that some businesses cannot justify in this economy. If a strained budget is what attracted you to free email marketing in the first place, then you should definitely keep at it when the holiday season wraps up. You can use this tool to support a sizable portion of your overall marketing needs, and invest in other critical areas with the money you save.
It Still Drive Sales
Although many of the big sales end once Christmas comes to a close, the shopping continues for some time after. In fact, some retailers enjoy even more sales once the holiday season officially ends by cleaning up on the leftover traffic. During the months of January and February, stores are often packed full of people who are redeeming gift cards and taking advantage strategically timed sales offers. Free email marketing can keep you in touch with these ambitious consumers. Whether you are trying to get rid of your last bit of inventory from the holiday, or move a line of entirely new products, it can keep them connected with whatever you’re selling.
It’s a Great Learning Tool
What were the results of your holiday email program? Was it an overwhelming success, or did you come out of it feeling like your strategy was in need of some fine tuning? If you thought the results could have been better, sticking with free email marketing is probably the best thing you can do. The more you continue to use it, the more familiar you will become with aspects such as campaign creation, list management, and tracking. By the time the next holiday season rolls around, you could potentially be a seasoned email marketer with the savvy to take on the world, or at least your target audience.
Who Needs Free Email Marketing?
Free email marketing does not discriminate. It can be an ideal solution for a small business, a large enterprise, a non-profit organization, or an entrepreneur with only a handful of clients. Find the right service provider, and it could be the solution that enables you to thrive year-round.
About the Author: Aidan Hijleh is a freelance copywriter and serves as the Non-Profit Partnership Liaison for Benchmark Email. Aidan advocates free email marketing services to assist with the flourishing of grassroots organizations.
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5 Ways To Ruin Your Business Rep With Email Marketing
As a small business owner, you know what it means to have to fight for your share of the market. Competition is everywhere and you only have a few chances to set yourself apart to show that you are the company that deserves attention.
So what sets you apart from the next guy? I would say that the two things a business should be judged on are it’s products, of course, and it’s level of customer service. That’s always important!
But take a step back and think, what do you get when you combine those two elements? What do your consumers really consider before they choose who to do their business with?
Reputation. That’s what it all boils down to.
If your company has a good reputation, any number of small sins can be forgiven, and you can be sure that you’re in good standing with most, if not all, of your customers. On the same hand, if your company has a rep that’s the equivalent to an Atlantic City loan shark, well, odds are, you aren’t going to be in business very much longer.
So, what does this have to do with email marketing?
Well, people can tell a lot about a company by how they market themselves, and with email marketing being one of the most effective options for small businesses these days, it’s important for you as a small business owner to make sure your email marketing campaign isn’t hurting you when it should be helping.
Here are a few examples of what NOT to do. Avoid these hazardous practices, and you’ll be on your way to not only a successful marketing campaign, but a successful business.
Start Fresh
An email marketing campaign needs one thing to get off the ground – emails. Now, gathering emails can be a tricky business, and, of course, while everyone wants to get their marketing campaign up and running as soon as possible, buying a pre-gathered email list is pretty much not allowed.
Think of it this way: you will be sending emails to people who never asked for them. I’m sure part of that sounds great, I mean, who wouldn’t want a crack at roping in new customers, but what it looks like on the customers’ side of the street, is SPAM, and nobody trusts a SPAMmer.
Double Opt-In
I hate to sound like a broken record, but this helpful little hint is very closely related to the last one, and will go a long way when it comes to separating you from the SPAMmers out there.
Always use the double opt-in method when gathering email addresses. Basically, all the double opt-in method entails is sending everyone who subscribes to your mailing list a confirmation email, making sure that they signed up on purpose. If you don’t use double opt-in, you are opening yourself up to SPAM complaints which, like I mentioned above, are one of the quickest ways to lose your customers trust and ruin your rep.
If You Love Them, Set Them Free
People get antsy when they don’t have options. Just because someone signed up for your email a year ago, doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to keep getting it this year. Make sure that each and every email that you send has an easy to see “opt-out” link (usually at the top or bottom of the email). Again, if you don’t give your subscribers this option, you are treading dangerously close to SPAM territory.
Tell The Truth
Another way to ruin your business’s rep is to go back on promises that you’ve made to your subscribers. Anything that you tell your readers, from the length of a warranty to a product description to the amount of times they will be receiving an email from you, is a form of promise. Once you start breaking those promises, you may as well say goodbye to whatever reputation you had.
Keep It Fresh
The very first thing you learn when you enter the world of email marketing is: Content is King.
Everyone knows it. Some version of that phrase is in pretty much in every email marketing guide and article that has ever been written.
Why?
Because it’s true. The minute you start sending out sub par content is the minute your readers begin to lose interest in you, and your business will become stagnant, stale, and out of date. If you want to keep your reputation strong, deliver the fresh content every time.
About the Author: Daniel Cassady is an experienced freelancer, guest blogger, and frequent contributor to a blog hosted by Benchmark Email, one of theworld’s global email marketing company.
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