Improve the Effectiveness of your Newsletter
25 Feb 2014 Leave a Comment
in Design, Marketing, Marketing TIPS Tags: Ask the expert, newsletters, tips
Don’t believe that newsletters are a lost art..
Newsletters have a proven track record for creating front-of-mind awareness, establishing and maintaining credibility, and publicizing an organization to the community. Here are a few tips to improve the effectiveness of your newsletter:
- Become a resource by including how-to articles, helpful industry tips and tricks, and links to other articles and podcasts that may be of interest to your audience.
- Feature a special offer or promotion in each issue to track your newsletter results.
- Include a customer testimonial section to highlight customers who are finding success using your products or services. This will not only boost your credibility, but also increase customer visibility.
- Offer subscribers a “sneak peak” at new products. This will make them feel special and encourage them to spread the word about their insider knowledge.
- Create an “Ask the Expert” section, featuring industry experts to answer customer questions. Include the name and business of the customer who asks the featured question.
- Keep track of customer/recipient birthdays and send them a free birthday giveaway or discount.
- Provide highlights from an online customer portal or discussion board where customers can chat about industry trends, new products, and other relevant issues. Include a web link, and encourage newsletter readers to join in the discussions.
- Commit to a regular schedule. Readers will look forward to and expect your newsletter, so inform them if you take a hiatus from the regular routine.
- Post current and archived issues on your website with a link to subscribe.
Give us a call today if you’d like to see examples or need more ideas for creating a newsletter that your audience will look forward to receiving. Our creative experts would love to help.
Boost Your Marketing With Postcards
03 Sep 2013 Leave a Comment
in Marketing, Marketing TIPS, Products Tags: Direct Mail, Marketing, NeighborMail, tips
You probably get at least a few postcards in your mail every day. Have you noticed that you always look at the front and usually flip them over, too? Postcards are incredibly hard to resist because there’s something compelling about that small, stiff card stock.
Postcards are experiencing a revival as business owners and marketers are rediscovering the powerful impact postcards can deliver. What’s so great about postcards? Postcards have several advantages over many other marketing channels.
- Postcards are less expensive to print.
- They don’t require envelopes or other inserts.
- Postcards provide an instant visual connection with the recipient.
- The limited space for copy and graphics forces you to get to the point quickly.
- Recipients don’t set them aside to read later, leading to instant reaction.
- Postage is often lower than with other forms of direct mail.
- Postcards are great for personalization (with variable data printing – VDP).
- Postcards work very well in driving website traffic- Check out our NeighborMailTM program!
- Postcards are fantastic to use in a series sent over time to educate, engage, and drive sales.
- Graphics and copy are easier to create.
- Postcards work well for both short-run and larger-volume orders.
- Postcards make great appointment reminders, thank you notes, and follow-up cards.
Think of postcards as mobile mini billboards. They get your message across and can travel at very economical rates.
Of course, postcards do have some limitations. They’re obviously not great for any type of promotion or campaign that needs lots of space for copy due to the size limitation. It’s also not easy to generate direct sales with a postcard campaign. However, postcards are fantastic for creating awareness and generating sales leads. In fact, it’s hard to beat postcards for economical lead generation campaigns.
Postcard Creativity
Postcards can be created in traditional sizes, as well larger sheet sizes. They can be die-cut with custom-size shapes in order to stand out and create attention. Postcards can be made from very thick card stocks, laminated, and even made from plastic stock. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.
Using Postcards
Direct mail is only one way to use this powerful marketing tool. You can also include postcards as part of a media or brand identity kit; as a promotional handout at trade shows and networking events; and as part of a sales letter insert. You can mail an oversize postcard using our NeighborMailTM program for less that the cost of a first class stamp, including printing and postage.
Marketing Takeaway
The humble postcard is a powerful counter-measure to digital marketing. As more people are turned off by spam emails and other digital waste, they’re paying more attention to postcards. Postcards have a higher read-rate than many other marketing mediums because they are easier to digest quickly.
Postcards have a place in your marketing campaigns. If you use eye-catching, powerful design in addition to strong, to-the-point copy, combined with a call to action, there’s a great chance your target audience will respond the way you’d like when you use postcard marketing.
6 Ways to Ramp Up Your Referral Marketing
26 Aug 2013 Leave a Comment
in increase business ideas Tags: CRM, goals, referrals, relationship building, Sales, Sales Calls, sales tips, time management, tips
It’s no secret that one of the best ways to grow a business is through strong referrals. Whether these referrals come to you through a system you have in place or because of the solid reputation your business has built over the years, each referral is a precious gift. You have one chance to turn this opportunity into a client who will in turn refer others to your business.
If you drop the ball in some way, not only will you lose this chance for new business, but you could also discourage others from referring business to you. Therefore, you must handle these warm leads with extreme care. Here are six key steps to consider as you guide a referral into becoming a real customer.
- Respond quickly. Nothing will stop a referral process faster than slow response and showing a lack of urgency in communication. Lead360 conducted a study of 25 million data points which showed that successful conversion rates are 391% higher when a lead is called back within a minute, 120% within two minutes, 98% within three minutes, 62% in under thirty minutes, and 36% in under an hour. Clearly calling back and following up with referrals quickly is the first and most important part of the process.
- Gather information and qualify. Once contact has been made, it’s time to gather any necessary information to make sure there’s a good fit between what the referral is looking for and what you can provide. Having relevant, open-ended questions to ask will help you find what you’re looking for while at the same time establishing your expertise in helping solve client problems. This is the time to develop insight into the scope of the opportunity and key factors.
- Be the expert. Once you’ve established that the referral is a good fit for your business, it’s time to do your homework. You must spend a little time to learn about the referral’s business. The more you learn about what your prospect is looking to solve, the better you can prepare a solution. This in turn will position you as the expert who took the time to present a customized solution when your competitors offered a generic, cookie-cutter bid.
- Make your offer stand out. The best way to make your offer stand out is by adding value. People like to buy, but they don’t like to be sold to. You can add value and help your offer stand apart by helping a referral evaluate your capability and see their problem clearer. Relevant, simple, and insightful information that helps your prospect will lead them to buy much more readily than if they feel they are being sold to.
- Use technology. As great as your memory may be, relying on the old pen-and-paper system is just asking for trouble. The way to truly systematize the referral process is by using a CRM system that can help you track your referrals. Determine if the software will help you give the prospects the experience you set in your action plan. But remember that technology can only go so far. Sure, it can help you manage the referrals, but converting those leads into customers takes the human touch that only you can provide. There are two great popular programs, SAGE ACT http://www.act.com/ and SalesForce http://www.salesforce.com/
- Create a powerful experience. Turning a referral into a client can be as simple as contacting them quickly with information they’re seeking. However, the real secret to make them truly want to do business with you on a consistent basis is to create a “wow” experience. Your “wow” experience doesn’t have to be complex.
Building it can be as simple as:
• Responding to inquiries within 30 minutes
• Offering a small gift or thank you note for contacting you
• Sending a small gift or thank you to the person who made the referral
• Delivering a professionally prepared, customized solution with clear information
• Following up after the sale to answer any questions
• Being persistent without being a pest
Turning referrals into customers is not an act of magic or accomplished through luck. It’s done by developing an action plan and by implementing the plan. Keep track, stay organized, and monitor the process. Referral marketing can be a gift that keeps on giving, but only if it’s treated with the care and respect it deserves.
Resources for Web Content and how to make your website better
11 Jul 2012 Leave a Comment
Came across this great article on information regarding content and evaluation sites, that I wanted to re post in case it disappeared. Thanks Bryan for the great info- you rock!
Original post is from the website: http://www.grokdotcom.com
33 Free Tools to Make Your Website Better
1. Site-Perf – get an accurate, realistic, and helpful estimation of your site’s loading speed. The script fully emulates natural browser behavior downloading your page with all the images, CSS, JS and other files – just like a regular user. A unique feature is that site-perf.com allows to measure packet loss ratio with reasonable precision.
2. Customer Focus Calculator – will analyze the words on your page and determine if your copy is more about yourself or your customer. This tool will measure if you are we-we-ing all over yourself.
3. BT Buckets – Engage your users with a free segmentation and behavioral targeting tool.
4. 4Q from IPerceptions – developed with web analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik. When evaluating how you website is doing obviously it helps to get your customers’ opinions. This free tool helps you answer four important questions:
* How satisfied are my visitors?
* What are my visitors at my website to do?
* Are they completing what they set out to do?
* If not, why not?
* If yes, what did they like best about the online experience?
5. What’s the Buzz? – a keyword research tool with one simple aim: to find out who’s talking about a certain keyword. To do that, it does five things:
* It displays the Technorati Blog Popularity Chart, showing how popular the keyword has been blogged about in the past 90 days
* It displays the Google Trends chart for the keyword
* It finds blog posts tagged with the keyword
* It finds blog posts containing the keyword (a straight-forward search)
* It finds social bookmarks tagged with the keywords
6. Bad Neighborhood Link Checker – scan the links on your website, and on the pages that your website is linking to, and flag possible problem areas.
7. Backlink Social Celebrity SEO Tool – discover who bookmarked a webpage and who linked to that webpage. The bookmarks are searched for in the various social bookmarking services, such as del.icio.us, Raw Sugar, and others. The backlinks are found using Google and Yahoo!.
8. Webbed-O-Meter 2.0 – can help track how effective you are at inspiring consumer generated content online, call it buzz marketing, social media marketing or viral marketing.
9. Website Grader – provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
10. Spider Simulator – help you find out for yourself how a search engine reacts to your pages and what can be done to boost your visibility.
11. Spider Test – Shows the source code of a page, all outbound links, and common words and phrases.
12. Google Analytics – web analytics with new “enterprise features” and a ton of plugins and hacks.
13. Google Website Optimizer – Free A/B and Multivariate Testing
14. Yahoo! Analytics – still in beta, but incredibly powerful. It is currently available with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Standard, Professional, and Yahoo! Store plans.
15. Microsoft adCenter Analytics – by invitation only, but you can apply at the link provided.
16. Piwik – This is an open source web analytics solution.
17. Linkscape – allows access to link information on more than 30+ billion web pages across 200+ million domains.
18. BacklinkAnalysis – Get a look at what keywords websites are linking to you with.
19. Trifecta – Measures metrics to estimate the relative popularity and importance of Page, Blog or Domain.
20. Firebug – this plugin for Firefox provides a number of development tools. For the purposes of analysis, Firebug will allow you to monitor and debug HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from within your browser.
21. YSlow for Firebug – YSlow will analyze your page to make suggestions for how you can speed up the page. YSlow is integrated with Firebug.
22. Google Webmaster Tools – see which phrases your ranking well for, what pages are causing problems for Google when crawling your site, which pages are getting the most links, rss subscribers, etc.
23. Morgue File – offers free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.
24. OpenAds – for sites that want to serve and track advertising.
25. Sitescore – analyzes the quality of incoming and outgoing links, keyword density, page titles, plagiarism, popularity rank, the usage of popups and the effectiveness of site’s structure. Sitescore also grades the printability, readability, spiderability and usability of the page as well as spelling and W3C compliance. This is no longer available for free, sorry.
26. mon.itor.us – use this to monitor uptime, website performance and other hosting abnormalities.
27. Orangoo Spell Check – spell check your website.
28. The Scrutinizer – offers 283 tools to test your website in one place.
29. Product Indexation Check – use this handy tool to check how many of your category or product pages are included in the major search engines.
30. Kamplye – allows your visitors to give feedback on your site, via a little button that sits at the edge of each webpage.
31. Google’s Free Custom Search Engine – create your own custom search engine, indexing your website or add additonal websites as well.
32. Feng-GUI – generates heatmaps for your website (upload a screenshot) by simulating human vision during the first five seconds of viewing your website.
33. Scrutinizer browser – a web browser, based upon the Adobe AIR toolkit and the WebKit browser, that offers a simulation of the human visual system. Using this simulation, you can get a better idea of how users interact with your site design.
What are some of your favorite free tools to make websites better? Are you having success? If you aren’t satisfied with your progress, or aren’t sure what to do with these tools, maybe you need an OnTarget subscription for continuous improvement. Contact us and find out how we can help.
An Important Message from…You
28 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Inspirational, Marketing, Services Tags: A letter from the owner, blogs, connections, messages, relationship building, tips
Create Relationships
If your business is looking for a great way to relay important messages and create a favorable impression of your company, consider a “message from the owner” (or president, CEO, etc.). Here are a few tips to create a “message” that speaks for itself:
In addition to creating a standard “mission statement” message from the owner, consider offering regular messages via a company website, newsletter, blog, sales letter, Facebook page, Twitter feed, etc. to communicate new initiatives, announce new products, or simply offer an insightful perspective on a relevant subject.
Include a photo of the owner/president/CEO. Readers feel more of a connection when they can put a face with a name.
While the messaging is most effective when it comes from the owner him/herself, consider help from a member of your communications team for message ideas, editing, and wordsmith help.
In addition to sharing a message with customers, a message from the owner is also a great way to create a sense of community within an organization and narrow the gap between the owner and coworkers.
Encourage feedback and open lines of communication whenever possible. A forum where customers or coworkers can ask questions and receive a response from the owner can be a powerful marketing tool. Consider highlighting questions and responses as topics for the messages.
Anti-SPAM Laws
16 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
in Marketing, Services, Web Tags: anti-Spam, Design, email blast programs, email marketing, email newsletters, email programs, Marketing, Print, tips, websites
See how sending out email blasts works!
See how sending out email blasts works!
$16,000 fine for sending emails?
Do you email in your business? Or, how about receiving tons of junk emails in a day that not only make you and your staff unproductive but clutter up the important emails as well? More
Perfect Your Proofing
21 Jul 2009 Leave a Comment
in Design Tags: Proofing, tips
It may seem like there is never time to proof something thoroughly the first time, but when it is not done, you may end up making time to do the entire job a second time. Just what are some of the things that should be checked during the proofing process? Here is a list to perfect your proofing strategy: More
To Do Lists
10 Jul 2009 1 Comment
in Inspirational Tags: inspiration, Organize, peace of mind, Smead, time management, tips
I seem to be one of the few who has a ‘To Do List’ and can’t remember why I put that item on my list. Better yet, where did I leave that list? Today we will cover the subjects of “To Do Now” and “To Do Later” items. I am learning in my daily walk of reorganizing my habits to put items in priority of their importance. Also to not rely on my memory and to put the list in the same place. When writing it down give a brief explanation along with any promised date or time for completion. Recently I went on a 10-day vacation and because of my new habit of writing things down, we did not leave one item behind that we needed for the trip. I would like to encourage you to go to www.smead.com for more helpful hints.
First you need to sort the items out by date or time if noted on the item, then by importance of immediate or later – some time in the future! Here is what I have found to be very helpful. More
Marketing Tip #5: Low-Budget Printing Tips
25 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment
in Marketing, Print, Services Tags: Budget, tips
With all of our purse strings tied right now, any printing project you pursue could probably be all your business can afford, perhaps for months or even years. At Print & Copy Factory we understand it has to be done right, or there may never be a second chance. That is why we are your Marketing Resource Center! More
Marketing Tip #8: Brochures & Rack Cards
24 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment
in Design, Marketing, Print Tags: brochures, Design, Marketing, Print, rack cards, tips
Every product, service or idea you sell needs a brochure or rack card. Through the years we’ve probably printed several million brochures, and while that doesn’t automatically make us an expert, it sure doesn’t hurt.
