Successful Marketing Tools Blog

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...