Successful Marketing Tools Blog

Recession Proof Your Business

Who knows whether we are in a recession, a downturn, or a slowdown? We do know this. You will find it harder to separate money from your customer’s wallet. Here are seven simple things you can do to recession proof your business.

Prepare a worst case scenario. If over the next 12 months you were to lose 10-20% in revenue, what would you do? What changes would you make to make this reduction workable? Planning always beats reacting.

Stay focused on the long term. You are in business for the long haul. You expect bumps along the way. Do not sacrifice your long term direction for short term fixes. You still want a business after the slow down is over.

Audit your marketing and advertising. Every business has marketing or advertising efforts that don’t produce results. This is a good time to drop the losers and enhance the winners.

Improve your customer service to new and existing customers. Make sure you are providing a wonderful buying experience for your customers. Friendly greeting, good phone manners, courteous service, clean wash rooms—go after every point of contact. These changes will not cost money and will win you more customers.

Sell more to existing customers. In a slow economy, customers are harder to come by. McDonald’s “Would you like a coke and fries with your hamburger” generates 25% of their profits. Do more up selling, cross selling and add on selling so that you get more sales from each customer. What is your coke and fries?

Listen to your employees. Get employees involved to generate new ideas for the business, for customers, for product and for ways to save money. They know things you do not know.

Don’t discount your prices. Discounting will hurt your business. You will lose immediate profits. It will harm your image. It will take years to recover. Price is not the main reason most customers buy.

Implement these simple business steps and you will find your business will be much stronger on the other side of the economic slow down.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed...

Digital Economy and Slow Economic Times

It was recently reported that internet traffic to retail sites through the first week in March this year was up 16%-24% higher than the same week last year! These findings are interesting, according to InternetRetailer. There is usually a downturn in internet traffic to retail sites in the months following the holidays. This year is different, and experts speculate it’s because more and more consumers turn to the internet to access information and make purchases!

Economists tell us that 60% our current economy is fueled by consumer spending. Consumer confidence drives our current economy.

If these statistics are correct, then it becomes even more evident that we have embraced a digital economy.

What we discover with this economic slow down as we do in all economic slowdowns, not everyone is affected by the slowdown. (In the Great Depression 34% of the people were out of work. That meant that 66% of the people were still working!)

When lightening starts a natural forest fire, it destroys many trees and other forms of plant and animal life. It also gives birth to new forms of trees, plants and animals.

So too with economic slowdowns, recessions, whatever we call them. Many businesses will cease to exist when the economic times are harsh. Other businesses will prosper and grow as a result of the economic times.

How do you act in a digital economy when the slow down or recession occurs? What are the things you can do to not just survive but prosper in such an a recession? These will be the subject of my next series of blogs. How can you use your web presence and your belief in the digital economy to prosper in these tougher economic times?

I will start with some general thoughts on how to recession proof your business. Then I will dig deeper into the areas of a digital economy business where you can use the internet and their web presence to strength and enhance your business position in slower economic times.

As always your comments are welcomed.

The Power of Email Marketing

Small Series of Tips: Break Up the Monotony

To learn more about multichannel campaigns, check out the MineThatData blog. http://minethatdata.blogspot.com/

The other ideas discussed so far are all for creating "primary content" — the main focus of each campaign you send.

Even with an idea of where to start, and plenty of writing experience, you may find it exhausting to continually crank out thoroughly outlined, researched and proofread articles for your email newsletter.
Quick tips/ideas can supplement your main email content. They fit well in the sidebar of a 2- or 3-column

HTML email, or near the end of a plain text one.

The tough part about motivating yourself to keep doing those types of campaigns is that you know that some people simply won't end up reading the article thoroughly. They won't have time, or they'll want something they can scan through quickly.

This is where little "asides" or "mini-articles" can help. Since these are short, people are likely to read them, and they also require less of your time than a full-fledged article (so you can write a bunch of them in advance, and then just drop them into your campaigns as needed!).

Take a topic that you'd planned to turn into a full-fledged article — the primary content for one of your email campaigns — and break it up into bite-size packets of information. Then, put each of them into a different campaign under its own heading.

For example, a chef could use part of each email newsletter issue to highlight a little-known cooking tool and what it's used for (maybe linking to a page with more details, a demonstration by video, recipes and/or a purchase link).

Multichannel Marketing: Sync Your Communications

If you're taking advantage of other marketing channels like direct mail, radio and/or print media, think about how you can tie your email marketing campaigns in with those other media.
You might use email to alert subscribers of an upcoming promotion, or to look out for a flyer/catalog/postcard you're sending them (or vice versa — you could use email to follow up after a campaign run in another media).

Marc recently blogged on multichannel marketing and gave an example of how a retailer coordinated email and postal campaigns to raise their response rate.

To learn more about multichannel campaigns, check out the MineThatData blog. http://minethatdata.blogspot.com/

The Power of Email Marketing

Annual Industry Events
To learn more about multichannel campaigns, check out the MineThatData blog. http://minethatdata.blogspot.com/

Many of us work in industries that follow relatively fixed annual cycles, where certain things take place at the same time each year.

Since we know about such cycles/events well in advance, we can plan individual emails or multi-email campaigns to send in the time leading up to (and in some instances after) them.

Major industry conferences and trade shows

Other Consumer or Product Cycles

A publisher in the music industry might send an email newsletter about the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (occurs every March); if you write about cars, you might put a campaign together around the North American International Auto Show (each January); golf experts could talk about The Masters.
Other industry cycles work well, too. Are you an accountant? Create a campaign to send your subscribers from January up until (and through) Tax Day. Winery? Let readers follow the winemaking process along from harvest through crushing, pressing, aging and bottling.

Don't Forget Holidays!

Industry-specific events aren't the only annual occurrences that you can work into your email marketing calendar.

Holidays, while they shouldn't be a cause of empty greetings, can provide a backdrop for thought-out campaigns.

Many businesses create a series of emails for the "12 Days of Christmas"

The floral, candy and jewelry industries are known for putting together strong campaigns in the months leading up to Valentine's Day, but this holiday can work well for anyone marketing a unique product/gift idea.
Creating email marketing campaigns around the holidays may sound tired/trite to some of you — and in some cases, it is — but in my experience it's all about the planning and execution, and how narrowly you define "holidays."

For more holiday ideas, check out our holiday marketing calendar. It contains plenty of celebrations that you might never have considered…

"Special Features" — Narrowly-Focused Email Campaigns
Just as in other media, you can drill down to one particular area within the broader focus of your email newsletter and publish a group of articles on that topic.

Example: our features on email marketing for doctors, restaurants and realtors.
This type of "special feature" (to borrow the term from more traditional media) can be a welcome diversion from your typical email newsletter content, and grab the interest of particular groups of subscribers.
Are you a travel agent? Highlight 5 destinations that offer exceptional value. Interior decorator? Show how different color palettes can make a room exciting, calming, bigger, smaller, and so on. A woodworking expert could take a little-used wood and showcase 3 projects that your readers can tackle using it.

The beauty of special features is that they:

Spice up your email newsletter.

Have natural cohesiveness, making it easy for you to keep your content relevant (example: a 5-part series on "readying your classic car for the next show" gives you 5 emails that logically tie together).

Give you plenty of email content to spread over multiple messages and keep in touch with subscribers while providing value.

Unless your email newsletter focuses on so narrow a topic that there's absolutely no room to vary your individual message content, you can benefit from this type of campaign.

(If you think your email newsletter's focus is too narrow to do this, please explain in the comments… I'd like a shot at giving you some ideas for possible "special feature" campaigns!)

To be continued…

The Power of Email Marketing

Planning, Step 1: What Do Your Readers Want to Know About?

To learn more about multichannel campaigns, check out the MineThatData blog. http://minethatdata.blogspot.com/

This might seem like a pointless exercise — after all, isn't it obvious what they want to know about? Just look at your business, your site and your signup form; what do they offer?

I think this is worth doing because you might find that what you actually send to your readers doesn't necessarily match what they want to know about.

A couple common causes of this:

You've adapted your campaigns after getting feedback from readers.

You're now talking to them about different topics than you did originally, or with a different focus, but you never updated your site or signup form to reflect the changes.

Now new subscribers, who didn't see those changes as they took place, aren't getting exactly what they bargained for when signing up.

You've changed your signup page/s or form/s, testing new headlines and incentives to get people to subscribe.

Like the last example, there's now a difference between what subscribers expect to get, and what they actually get. In your haste to "get something out" to your list, you've sent emails that didn't deliver exactly what your readers came to you to get.

Go back and scan a few months' worth of email campaigns — if you find you've rushed content out like this a lot, you may find that what you think you're writing about, and what your readers are actually getting, are quite different.

To plan your email marketing campaigns, and put together a calendar, you first have to decide what exactly you're going to write about — and what type of content, stuff you may have sent in the past just because "it was time to send," you're not going to send anymore.

Look at your site and signup forms. What are your subscribers are signing up to your campaigns to get?

Now, based on that, write down what you're going to email them to meet those expectations — what topics are you going to focus on? What not quite on-topic content are you going to stop sending them?
Once you've decided what to send (and what not to), you're ready to start brainstorming content, and spreading it over the upcoming weeks and months.

Planning, Step 2: How Often Do You Plan to Email Them?

If you immediately said "daily" or "weekly" or "monthly," hold on a second.
It's good that you're that confident and decisive about your campaigns. That instinct (hopefully) comes from the experience you've gained in past email marketing efforts. You know approximately what your audience feels is the right frequency to hear from you.

But remember, we just spent time deciding what we are and are not going to send out. And the #1 thing that can blow all that planning we just did sky-high is our choice of email frequency.
After all, if you decide to send weekly, but you don't have enough of the right content one week, what do you do? Many publishers fall back into the habit of sending content that's not in line with readers' objectives and expectations.

A few things to consider when determining your email frequency:
How long will it take you to write an email of the quality your subscribers expect?

How many email messages do you intend to send in a week/month/year? Multiply this by how long you estimate it takes you to have a campaign ready to send to find out how much time you need to budget per week/month/year for composing emails.

To be continued…

The Power of Email Marketing

As I conclude my thoughts on email marketing, I will share a longer article/blog from MineThatData. You will enjoy them. It’s a vision on how some businesses are beginning to use email marketing as a powerful tool in their business. Because of the length of this article/blog I will spread it over several blog entries. To learn more about multichannel campaigns, check out the MineThatData blog. Enjoy. http://minethatdata.blogspot.com/

Today, I'd like to suggest a resolution that I think you can keep… because once you get going with it, it gets even easier over time, and it carries a few benefits that can significantly improve your email campaigns' effectiveness and profitability.

Background: What Determines When We Send Email?

In my experience, most small businesses sending email campaigns decide to send based on one or both of these factors:

Whether you have compelling content to send

Whether it's "time to send"

For most people, this translates to the following maxim:

In order to justify sending an email, you need to have something to say and pick a good time to say it.

Is That All There Is To It?

For too many businesses, yes. Their strategy stops there. They don't plan out what they want to say in advance, and when they want to say it.

Instead, they wait until it's "about time to email subscribers" or until something exciting gets dropped in front of them.

The big problem with this is that many of us say, "Oh no! I need to get something out to my email list today!" and rush to put together a campaign.

Our haste shows to our subscribers:

Our writing isn't as engaging as in early messages (such as our autoresponder and follow ups, which we planned out and edited over time)

We mis-type URLs and make formatting errors

Our emails lack continuity or transition — which indicates a lack of attention to their needs/interests

Surely There's a Better Way…

Wouldn't it be easier on you — and better for your subscribers — if you had a plan that laid out, in advance, when you were going to email your subscribers and an idea of what you were going to say?

I sure think so.

In my next posts, I'll show you how with a little planning and an easy-to-use (and free!) tool, you can create better email campaigns, stress-free.

We need a plan.

To be continued...

Get Email Addresses the Old Fashion Way

Get Email Addresses the Old Fashion Way!

The best way to get email addresses--call your customers and ask for them! Why can this be an effective business strategy?

When was the last time a business called you for customer input? Most business never take this simple step to call and talk with customers. Does anything more need to said?

What if you called one of your existing customers every day? Start with your best customers. Ask for five minutes of their time. Tell them you are upgrading your marketing efforts and need their help. If they like your business they will give you their input. Ask how your product or service is working for them. What do they like best about it? What has not worked so well? At the end of this brief conversation, ask for their email address so that you can keep in touch with them. They will give you their email address.

What will be the result of this 10 minute daily exercise?

1. Customers will feel appreciated because you called and talked with them.

2. You will clearly separate your business from the competition because they are not doing this.

3. You will receive the best input about the strengths and weaknesses of your business from the people that count—your customers.

4. You will get the customer’s email address. Over a year’s period of time you could add 200 emails to your mailing list.

5. At least 20% of these people will appear at your business or refer others to your business sooner rather than later. You will see a spike in new business.

To accomplish these results, you will have spent no money from your pocket. You can use employees during their down time to follow a script and make additional calls. You will see some profound differences in your business. Make one call a day or make five calls one hour.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Customer Service Tips for Your Website

Another blogger has done a very nice job providing customer service tips for your website as part of a larger blog on customers service tips. Here are her suggestions.

Website Tricks

Make sure your website is user-friendly and attractive otherwise your future clients will leave you for someone sleeker and more organized.

23. Update your blog: Your business blog keeps customers in the know about upcoming projects and the daily grind at your office. Use this guide to ensure maximum blog usability.
24. Create a simple navigation system: Designing a clear, simple navigation system will help customers find out information about your company easily and quickly.
25. Write an “about” page: Don’t forget to publish a short bio about yourself and the history of the company. Your new customers will want to do a background check before they enlist your services, and it’s best if they hear the truth from you.
26. Link with CSS: The website NetMechanic.com encourages Web designers to set up their links with CSS. Follow the tutorial to find out how.
27. Make searching for information easy: Include a search box that allows visitors to search for information and archives on your site easily.
28. Give customers access to their own account information: Let your customers have secure, online access to their account information, including billing statements, deadlines, services requested and more.
29. Set up 24/7 support: A live chat software program will give customers online support anytime they need it.
30. Link your homepage to your logo: This tip isn’t just about website usability: any action you can take to promote your logo is a smart move.
31. Advertise security: If you want customers to buy products from your website, you need to convince them that your site is secure.
32. Encourage feedback: Set up a feedback form on your site to let your customers know you care what they think and are dedicated to making improvements.

To see more of the 100 tips click http://www.businesscreditcards.com/bootstrapper/100-tiny-tips-to-create-and-maintain-loyal-customers/

To be continued, your comments are welcomed...

The Power of Email Marketing

Consider: If You Send 2 Emails per Week, That's 104 Emails per Year (or About 9 per Month)
To learn more about multichannel campaigns, check out the MineThatData blog. http://minethatdata.blogspot.com/

And that's per campaign. What if you have multiple campaigns and you're sending to each one twice per week?

I'm not trying to scare you away from sending that often. My point is this:

If it takes you just an hour to create an email (going from nothing in front of you, to written, tested and ready to send), and you always wait until the last minute to create your campaigns, that's 104 hours each year that you're unnecessarily stressing yourself out by not planning and using an email marketing calendar.

I sure don't want to be stressed out unnecessarily, and certainly not for 100+ hours a year.
Wouldn't it be easier to spend a little time each day planning your future campaigns, instead of the odd panicked hour here and there on the days you send?

Planning, Step 3: How Far In Advance Will You Create Your Content?

For many email newsletter publishers, this can be the hardest part of planning. They think:
“I've promised my subscribers the latest news in my industry, so how can I possibly write my emails in advance? They wouldn't contain the latest news!”

Please don't take this line of thinking. It's a productivity-killer.

Consider the following:

News that is "old" to you typically isn't old to your readers. You're much more aware of the latest news in your industry than they are (after all, they're waiting to hear it from you!)

Even major weekly news magazines like Time and The Economist contain news that's a week old.

Not all readers are going to open/read your email the very day you send it… so even if you did wait until the last minute to get the latest news, by the time they read it, it's a day or more old anyway.
So it pays to put our campaigns together in advance. But how far in advance?

For me, this depends on the frequency you choose for your messages, the amount of content you intend to put in them, and whether or not you're sending a series of closely-related messages on a certain topic.

Frequency

The more often you intend to email your subscribers, the further in advance it pays to plan — if you think it's bad trying to put one email together at the last minute, try doing it for two or three at the same time.

Amount of Content

The more you intend to put into your individual messages, the further out you should plan — instead of creating the email all at once the day you want to send it, try doing it in thirds, starting 2 weeks (or as far as you can) ahead.

By breaking up the amount of time you need to dedicate to that email, and giving yourself plenty of "buffer" in between when you create the email, and when it has to be sent, you take a lot of stress out of your email marketing.

Closely-Related Email Series

Think of these as mini-campaigns within your larger email marketing efforts, where you have so much to say on a topic that it can't fit into one or two "normal-sized" (for you) messages.

You'll want to plan these out furthest of all, to make sure that:

Content flows well from one message to the next

The size of each message in the series is appropriate and consistent with what your subscribers expect

The messages are spaced out at appropriate intervals
These "features" or mini-campaigns require a little more planning than your typical messaging not only because you have so much going into them, but also because your subscribers are going to realize that these are special (after all, you're going to market it to them, aren't you?) and may notice if the planning isn't there.

So today, let's get into some email content ideas — that way, when we talk next time about how to make all this even easier by using calendar software, you'll be able to jump right into coordinating your campaigns for the upcoming months/year.

To be continued…

3 Deadly Easy Ways to Get More Emails

3 Dead Easy Ways To Get More Subscribers
And Build Your Opt-In List

It is obvious in the Internet world that people have to go
to websites to find and get what they want. However the
decision to buy the product can be quite hard for the
customer to decide. This battle going on in the mind of
your customer needs credibility and persuasion in order for
your customer to set the decision you want them to make.

It has been said and proven that the email marketing
strategy is the one of the strategies you should not miss
out when you're doing any system of Internet marketing.
This is because first visit sales rarely make the cut.
Customers have to be persuaded, reminded and told to visit
our sites again to make them confirm and get the product.
To properly administer email marketing, you first need an
autoresponder like Aweber or GetResponse. The autoresponder
is a software that can make automatic and sequential emails
to your subscribers. What you should do next is to create
an opt-in page for people to subscribe to you on your site.

The three easy opt-in strategies you can use to get people
to subscribe to your opt-in list are:

1.Provide Them With A Bonus

Give your potential subscribers something to look forward
to when they subscribe to your list. People get excited
when they receive something they could get for free. You
can provide for them a free bonus product that is of value
whent hey subscribe to you. It can be a digital product
such as an ebook or a physical sample of a product that
you're selling.

2.The Subscription Box

The Subscription box is a large square or rectangle formed
by bold and dotted lines. The opt-in form where people
impart their name and email address is placed into that
box. The main purpose of the Johnson box is to get the
attention of the visitor to psychologically move their eyes
to the Johnson box, read the benefits of being your
subscriber and subscribe to your list.

3.Write a Good Opt-In 'Copy'

Other than providng your customers with a bonus, another
better way of making them happy is to promote the bonus
with powerful copywriting and persuasion techniques. For
example, "Just Enter Your Name And Email Address To Claim
Your Personal Development E-Book Worth $27, Absolutely
FREE!" Make sure every word of that sentence is
capitalized, and emphasize on the bonus and the opt-in list.

These three extremely easy ways of getting subscribers can
be applied to websites and blogs. Simply automate your
emails to your list and keep reminding them of what you're
selling on your website and always have a URL link that
links to your website. You can search for email templates
online that can guide you on how to effectively let your
customers take action and purchase your products from your
site.

About the Author:

Jo Han Mok is the author of the #1 international business
bestseller, The E-Code. Unlock the code for unlimited
online profits for yourself by visiting his website today
at: http://www.SuperFastProfit.com