Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Offer proof to your prospects. It’s not enough to say that you solve problems – you have to show that your customers are getting results from your business. Testimonials are one of the most powerful and cost effective selling tools you can implement in your arsenal of marketing. Why? Because you are offering evidence to your prospects from their peers attesting that your services/products actually work.

Providing testimonials from current and prior customers that demonstrate their actual problem and the specific results from your company enhances your credibility. Testimonials offer proof that you are the real deal. People receive a lot of information and they are often skeptical. But, they will be much more inclined to buy from you if you show examples of their peers who have achieved positive results. These third-party endorsements work to sell for you – even when you are not around.

If you are offering a new product or just starting your business, you can contact business associates and friends to offer them a free session or product sample to try. If you have been in business for a while but haven’t collected testimonials, make a list of all of your customers who you know have had a GREAT experience with your services or products. Even if you already have a number of testimonials, don’t stop collecting new ones. You can replace mediocre praise with the incredible ones. You can also keep your testimonials up to date and current.

Here are some ideas and opportunities to obtain new testimonials:

1. Write down the praise: Whenever one of your customers gives you a compliment in person or via e-mail, thank him or her and then ask if you can use their comment as a testimonial. Make sure he or she understands that you will be using it in your marketing materials. If someone sends you a testimonial that requires editing, go ahead and edit it, but be sure to send it back to ask if the changes are okay – explain the editing was for brevity, clarity, grammar, etc.

2. Create a website link: Another easy method to help you collect testimonials is to include a link on your website that lets people click on it to give their feedback. “Click here to let me know what you think.” Put this link next to testimonials you’ve already placed on your site to provide other examples.

3. Offer an incentive: Periodically you can have a “testimonial drive.” Send out an e-mail and offer an incentive for your customers to provide a testimonial. Depending on what type of business you run, it could be a coupon, discount, free services, and so on.

4. Make it part of your sales cycle. As you wrap up an interaction with a customer, ask them for a testimonial. BEFORE you complete your work with a customer, ask him or her to provide a testimonial with tangible and specific results from working with you or from your products. If you wait until your work is complete, you may have a more difficult time getting a testimonial since your customer can move into an “out of sight, out of mind” place. For example, if you are a financial planner, you could ask them toward the end of your sessions together. If you run a Garden Center, have cards by the register and a drop box.

5. Ask your “star performers” for testimonials. Almost every business collects raving fans. These are the individuals who buy every book you sell, the customer who you see in your store three times each week, or that individual who gets an incredible result from using your offerings. Make a point of asking these individuals to give a testimonial. If they have just had a BIG result, be sure to ask them right afterwards.

6. Follow-up after a purchase: Use an autoresponder like www.mavenmerchant.com to automatically follow up with a customer who has purchased something from you to ask them how they are doing. Ask them to provide a testimonial.

Here are some specific ways you can use testimonials to enhance your marketing materials:

** Use testimonials in a sales letter or on a postcard that you send out to acquire new prospects.

** Incorporate testimonials into your advertisements.

** Place testimonials and success stories on your website and in your ezine.

** When you are talking to a prospect, use success stories of other clients to help show the prospect how your other clients have excelled.

** During a seminar, presentation, or teleseminar, use testimonials and success stories to illustrate points and inspire people to take action.

Have you run out of ideas for postcard design? If you own a business, you should know by now how vital postcards are to your marketing stints. Not only this is affordable, this can also be effective as long as you are doing everything right and accordingly. But according to what? You will also be able to determine that as you last in the industry and as you utilize the tools over and over again.It is understandable that every once in a while, you pause and think what can still be done. This is especially true if you have been doing this for quite a time already. Marketing must be done periodically. It doesn’t necessarily have to be postcards all the time. It also pays to utilize variety of materials. But your goals must be the same all the time. Capture the attention of your target market. Make them comprehend the things that you are saying or your marketing message. And get them convinced by it all. With postcard design, once you have surpassed the phase when you are facing a blank piece of paper or blank new image document on your PC, everything else will go smoothly. This is as long as you have the support of qualified individuals to assist you in turning your visions into the kind of design that you want your target audience to receive and see. So that you will not get stuck with ideas, you can start off by changing your goals that you want your materials to achieve from time to time. For example, for this period the main thing that you want your postcards to attain is for them to be kept by the people who are going to get those for future references and other needs.So think of ways how this can be done.

Starting a postcard marketing campaign takes more than just having a postcard and sending them out for distribution. To have an effective marketing strategy, you need to know your consumers and what appeals to them marketing does not solely involve advertising.  The latter is a parcel of the whole pie.  To get a better idea of the basic process of postcard marketing, here is an overview of the preparation steps:1.    Research your marketBefore you create your product, you must know who would benefit from its use.  You should also get better idea of which individuals your product specifically caters to and much more.  If your products are household cleaning materials, you can zero-in on mothers, housekeeping companies or accommodation businesses like hotels and resorts.  If your commodity comes in the form of a service like auto detailing and maintenance, you target car owners.  You can also be age- or gender-specific. You can also look into their spending patterns, and get an idea of what affects their decision when it comes to purchasing products and services.  For instance, if your potential consumers are those aged 18 – 25, you can study their common source of funds, as well as their usual purchases and needs.  By getting an idea of who your target market is, you will know who to communicate with and who are likely to respond with a purchase.  2.    Conceptualize your postcard designs Create a good postcard design that you deem would click best with the population you are aiming for.  If they are young, bright colors may appeal more to them.  For the older community, one that has a more formal tone may be more engaging.  But it really depends on what commodity you are marketing.Cardinal rule is to make sure that the design is clear so you can effectively convey the message of your postcard ads.   3.    Have your postcards printedYou may have walk-in printing shops, or you may go to an online printer for convenience.  Submit your postcard design file and get the prepress proof that you will need to check how your postcard design would look like once printed.  It is also your chance to check for typographical errors and other faulty details in your design so you can correct them before your project proceeds to printing.4.    Create a mailing listBased on your target population, you can determine your mailing list — a collection of the names and addresses of your potential customers.  Narrow it down based on gender, age range, location or even zip code.Determine if you want a consumer list or business list.  To get this, there are brokers of mailing list addresses.  You can also approach data providers.  Remember to check their reliability and see how comprehensive their lists are.   5.    Mail to your target audienceSend the postcards to each individual on your mailing list through direct mailing.  You can actually shorten the process of designing, creating the address list and mailing through some online printing companies since they offer ready-to-use design templates, mailing list preparation and direct mailing.  One way of indirectly soliciting response from them is by adding promo coupons which they can use when they purchase your products, and then you will know that the postcard enticed them to try your product.  Follow these basic guidelines to launch your postcard marketing campaign smoothly.

It’s a fact that your customers are your best leads. This means that the most likely people to purchase your products and/or services are the ones who have paid for them before. It’s also a fact that it costs far less money to keep a customer than it does to go out and get a new one. These are the two reasons that using direct mail postcards to keep in touch with your customer database is a must. There are a few rules to follow when marketing to contacts in your company database.

Rule #1: Collect all of their information.

It sounds like a no-brainer but you would be surprised. The more information that you have on your customers the more likely it is that you will be able to get in touch with them to let them know about specials or to remind them it’s time for their next service. Also, don’t neglect to ask for your customers’ email addresses, everybody has one and most will give it up pretty easily.

Rule #2: Don’t treat your customers like prospects.

Make sure when you collect the information in your database you differentiate between people who have placed an order in the past and people who have not. Customers want to feel like you are paying attention to them and when they have placed a few orders with you and are still getting your “10% for First Time Buyers” postcards they tend to feel unappreciated. Bottom line, if they don’t qualify for an offer you are sending out, don’t send it to them.

Rule #3: Don’t let your designs get stagnant.

When you are mailing to databases of people that you have never spoken to before it is OK to send them the same postcard multiple times. It helps to increase recognition and will eventually increase your response rate. Dealing with customers and prospects that you have already spoken to (meaning they already know most or all of the details of your business) you need to mix things up a bit. Your mailings should be attention getting and informative. If you have started offering a new service recently, a postcard designed to let your database know about it would be a smart move. The main point is to keep your company in the front of their mind and to keep them reading your postcards.

If the promo that you send to your database gets too repetitive your customers will lose interest and at that point you are just wasting your money on postage because your postcards won’t get the attention that you want.

One of your main goals should be to educate your customers about how your product or service works and this will in turn help them to get more use out of your entire line of products and services. Many times it is as simple as sending out mailings that make your customers aware of all that you can do for them.

Take, for example, a California based software company called Forté Systems. Not only do they use direct mail postcards to acquire new business, they know how to use them to effectively market to their current customer database as well. To fully understand how you will need a little background information.

Forté Systems is one of the current leading companies in Medical Practice Management and Billing Software. This means that their software will essentially run an entire medical office. The software can be purchased in any one of four levels, depending on budget and number of doctors working for the practice.

Once a medical practice becomes a customer of Forté Systems the marketing strategy is changed to reflect the rules above. They are no longer trying to convince the doctor to become a customer, they are now educating them on how better they can be served by Forté Systems’ products. Now the customer receives direct mail pieces concerning:

·Updates on software upgrades (example 1)

·Notices when they are running specials (example 2)

·& information about Other Forté Systems products such as software training tutorials on CD (example 3)

This enables them to continue to service their customers at the highest level and also helps to strengthen the customers loyalty to Forté Systems. Sometimes you lose customers because they either forgot who they dealt with last time they made a purchase or they received some kind of promo from one of your competitors and decided to check it out. If the customer is constantly updated about what is available from your company they will not have to spend their valuable time doing research and will be less likely to “shop around.” This will help to control the normal attrition of your database to other companies.

The pieces are all designed with the Forté Systems logo prominently displayed on the front and back – the same general feel and most importantly the same color scheme. Picking a company color or group of colors and sticking with it will help to increase recognition and readership of your promo. Simply put, your customers will get to the point that they read what you send them. They need to know it is from your company before they read it because if it doesn’t look like what they are used to you sending it may go in the trash without a second look.

Being great at what you do is not always enough to keep the customers that you have earned. With all of the competition out there today you need to be constantly reminding your customers that you are the best at what you do. Direct mail postcards are the best way to give them that reminder.

Always remember to keep mailings that you send to your database informative, attractive and most of all current. Personalize everything that you can and make sure that what you are sending to a past client actually pertains to them or their company. Anything less and your customer may start to drift, and the only people that are going to be happy when that happens are your competitors.

The most successful businesses of today have implemented postcard marketing on their advertising strategies many times throughout their stay in the industry. With such popularity, do you ever wonder when postcards were first used?In the United States, postcard was first patented in 1861 by a Philadelphia native, John P. Carlton. After that, he sold its rights to the owner of Lipman’s postal card, H.L. Lipman, in 1861. Such cards were complete with decorative elements as borders. The Europeans adopted this tool nine years later.From then on, postcards have gained a niche in the marketing industry as well as on the lives of ordinary people. Many types of cards have emerged through time. Here are some of the kinds of postcards that remain to be popular.1.    Greeting cardPostcards are widely being used to send out greeting to families and friends. This type will also appeal to customers, especially when they get one on the special days of their lives. Businesses take advantage of the affordability of these cards to help them be remembered by their clients and likewise help on their goal to retain them.2.    E-CardThe digital age introduced people to this type. The idea was basically patterned from a regular postcard. This has gained enormous popularity as people began using the Internet more often.This can also be used by businesses to send out greetings to their clients. But it creates an impersonal touch. So the printed form is still being favored by people in the trade.3.    Advertising postcardThis can also be called postcard marketing. It helps businesses to promote their events and gimmicks. It helps them with their aim to always remind people about them. They can also use postcards to follow up on interested clients.4.    Travel postcardThis is available on the different tourist spots all around the world. People who love to travel may either collect this type or send those out to friends to keep in touch while they are away.5.    View cardsThese types of cards are intended for collectors. This may contain pictures of historical places, sights and people. Some hobbyists trade their collections with other people. Such cards have significance to the nation’s history. That is why these are being treasured by people who have the passion in collecting this type.6.    Art cardsThis type can be used by artists as their portfolio. They can avail the service of the right printing company to have their masterpieces like photographs or paintings to be printed on postcards.With such colorful history that postcards have gone through, you should no longer question about its effectiveness. All you have to be equipped with is the right elements in their proper place and order.As you last in the industry, you should be able to adapt ways for more effective postcard marketing tricks. Make sure to look around and learn from what you see. You will be surprised to learn bright ideas from simple things and happenings.