How To Grow Your Business Exponentially “Direct Marketing Leads”

February 28, 2010 by · 4 Comments
Filed under: Direct Marketing Leads 

How to grow your business with direct marketing…..

By leveraging your assets safely this comes from analyzing, measuring, identifying and then replacing certain underperforming aspects of your selling, marketing, advertising or operations.

The first step is to think about what could be under-performing in your business?

  • The sales person or people in your business
  • Is it your advertising online/offline
  • Is it your direct mail or e-mail campaigns

If the sales person/people are under-performing than you need to look at the presentation and find out why it isn’t closing the sale. They could be working hard calling on the wrong unqualified prospects. Unless you have a compelling proposition (unique selling proposition) they could be calling on the wrong prospects and not having any type of proposition that sets you apart from the hundreds of other competitors.

The wrong advertising – This maybe under-performing because of the wrong offer or the wrong headline or no headline at all. You need to test these elements to make sure that the synergy is right for your target market. Your first statement headline or unique selling proposition must be the first thing everyone sees on your Website, direct mail piece, newspaper advertising or mobile coupon ad. This should be the first statement a sales person makes when cold-calling. This statement needs to be powerful and compelling. This is what your prospect will receive for using your product.

Articulate results…

The outcome is very self-serving to the end user (customer) and what advantage do they need to see for themselves. The clearer and more powerful you are at expressing, articulating, demonstrating, illustrating and comparing the more business you will get.

How do you achieve this level of articulation?

Through testing, analyzing, measuring, identifying and then replacing certain underperforming aspects of your business. You can start by analyzing the lifetime value of your average customer since retaining your customers is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your profitability.

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Seldom will direct mail, email, mobile or seminar types of campaign pay for themselves upfront you must do this by developing a back-end product that you can use to re-sell and keep customers for life. If you can sell the same many items to the prospect of the course of a lifetime than you will be growing your business in exponential ways with direct marketing leads.

It makes sense to pay more up front for an email address since the long run benefits will pay for themselves buy mailing lists Guaranteed and a 100 free leads if you open an account today!

Author Biography: By Timothy Little – Publisher MarketingListBroker.com
After earning my business degree 30 years ago, I was involved in strategic planning, brand management, corporate identity management, e-commerce, Web site management, direct marketing, advertising, corporate communications, financial database marketing and direct response analysis.

“The Secrets to Success” Direct Marketing Ideas

February 26, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Uncategorized 

The Secret to Success Is In The Details….

The ability to integrate, initiate and synthesize any concept or idea into your company on a constant and continuous bases. This would involve only an hour a week spent improving your business and recording measurable improvements each week.

Involve Your Staff

You need a step by step process exploring all the ways to make any and all areas better, smarter and faster than before. Next turn these ideas into procedures and policies. You than manage these activities to make sure they are implemented.

Look at your competitive edge this would be the one item that sets you apart from all of your competitors and look at ways to for continuous and incremental improvement.

You need to market a little better and manage a little better and all of this working on improving your most competitive assets will result in a higher level of result than any other activity that you can do in your business. If you have a staff you must involve them in this activity and make them accountable.

Goals

You need a marketing plan and set goals write down you financial plans as far as revenue you would like to be at three years from now and under that write personal income you would like to be drawing from the business.

Write down how many hours per week you would like to work and how many weeks vacation you would like to take. Next…. you need to get everyone involved in setting positive goals and solving problems.

Companies in trouble focus their energy on problems rather than solutions. Focus on on solutions not problems.

Planning

One of the reasons MacDonald’s is one of the most successful franchises in the world is because of policies and procedures. The turnover rate is 200% per year and they operate exactly the same from Harlem to Beverly Hills because there is no one that does the procedures down to the letter.

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by Tim Little,                                                                                                                      Biography

After earning my business degree 30 years ago, I was involved in strategic planning, brand management, corporate identity management, e-commerce, Web site management, direct marketing, advertising, corporate communications, financial database marketing and direct response analysis. I lost a cushy database marketing job 10 years with a major life insurance company because I refused to uproot my wife and I to Denver, Colorado.

I have always believed that you need to make the most from the resources that you already have. The articulation of a marketing plan and researching your competitive advantage with strategic database marketing techniques is something I can help you with call me at 313-268-9951 for free consultation or email at timglittle@charter.net

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Direct Marketing Association Report – Response Rates to Mailings

February 24, 2010 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Mailing List Program 

For over 90 years the Direct Marketing Association supported the needs of it’s members with special reports in research and marketing trends.

What is the typical response rate for direct marketing campaigns in your industry and which media will work the best?

In a resulting Direct Marketing Association 2009 response rate report offered an up to date look a the bottom line in direct marketing.

What’s working and what’s not?

The following are a few of he highlights:

  • The goal of  two-thirds of respondents was order generation
  • The media that achieved the highest response rates was outbound telephone calls and this method is also the most expensive
  • Response rates from email, excluding prospect Open 14.92% for Click-through 9.36% and 5.26

It was also determined in this report that mailings that were personalized with campaign objectives were the most successful because of well-executed personalized marketing programs.

Personalized mailings can provide better response rates when combined with dynamic, multi channel marketing solutions. Businesses, regardless of their aim to attract another business or end user, and whether their offering is a product or service, need background information and ideas  in order to plan their best balance of investment and return.

The more you know about your prospect and the more you can include this knowledge into personalized mailing in combination with other campaign including Website, mobile phone coupon offers and email the better your response will be.

It makes sense to pay more up front for an email address since the long run benefits will pay for themselves buy mailing lists Guaranteed and a 100 free leads if you open an account today!

Author Biography: My professional direct marketing experience began in magazine circulation management from this I honed my skills in list purchasing, testing, and analyzing. I learned the importance of direct response planning and budget forecasting and most importantly, providing a follow-up with back-end analysis, fulfillment of orders and inquiries. I also gained some valuable job experience with Jackson National Life Insurance as Marketing Database/Direct Mail area and with Alumni Association of the University of Michigan as Membership Manager.
Sincerely,

Tim Little

5 Hot Direct Marketing Trends “Direct Marketing Ideas”

February 22, 2010 by · 4 Comments
Filed under: Uncategorized 

How your business can earn an edge with these new trends!

The current recession will have a impact on the direct marketing industry in the years to come and some of these trends include….

Mobile marketing – major retailers and chains like Subway and Dunkin Donuts have been perfecting this direct marketing channel with coupon offers and making offers to customer Facebook and Twitter followers to tap into huge customer networks. The smartphone also has e-mail GPS capabilities and 90% of all american own a cell phone. 70 million US consumers use their cell phone to access the web.

Social Integration

Social networks are expanding into e-commerce and companies can now listen to customer needs through the social networks. For example Facebook’s marketplace allows anyone to post their items for sale and people are following each other within their networks to new trends in the marketplace.

Personalized Marketing

Draw as much information as possible from your customer database and integrate with social and mobile marketing. Understand the buying trends and habits of your customers with digital technology you can use variable information to include personalized data into your direct mail, email, mobile and social networking channels.

Marketing Automation

Using technology to follow-up and interact with prospects and customers. Integration of databases into Websites to collect customer information than trigger a series of letters in follow-up to customer buying behavior. Automating the simple tasks allows marketers to free-up time to work more on strategy and tactics analyzing customer data.

Targeting your Direct Mail

Using direct mail better by targeting prospects that have a specific need for a product. This need was researched by observing if customer has purchased before (in last 90 days) by credit card and is comfortable purchasing online and has a specific problem that your product addresses.

It makes sense to pay more up front for an email address since the long run benefits will pay for themselves buy mailing lists Guaranteed and a 100 free leads if you open an account today!

Marketing List Program – “Your Ultimate Marketing Plan”

February 20, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Mailing List Program 

The secret is learning to grow your business effectively!

Their are several strategies you can use to grow your business quickly without spending more on advertising.

Attract more new customers.
Increase the average sales amount.
Make your customers buy from you more often.
Hold on to your customers for life

Attract more new customers…

Diversify and focus on one small customer problem and dominate that market within the market you are currently in.

Develop an Education-Based Marketing program that compels your prospects to contact you to learn more about how you can help them. Webinars could be a great and in-expensive way to test this program with your current customer e-mail list.

Establish a proactive referral program with centers of influence that can open new channels of growth for you and your business. A system in place that will always capture referrals from your best customers during the start of the buying process.

Increase the average sales amount…
Up-sell your customers to high quality products and services. Segment the top 20% of your customers record purchase and dollar amount and how frequent of purchase and e-mail or mail offers that:

• Suggest accessories and add-on items and services that compliment your customer’s purchase.
• Combine several items into a package that would cost less if sold separately.

Make your customers buy from you more often…
• Establish ongoing communications that present compelling offers that can’t be turned down.
• Follow up with your customers(relationship building) to see how they’re enjoying the benefits of the new product or service you sold them, and suggest products or services that would increase their satisfaction.
• Track your customer’s usage and buying patterns to suggest purchases right before they actually need them this gives you a competitive edge

Re-Think Your Marketing Strategy and write all of this in your new marketing plan.

Timothy Little – Marketing Consultant with over 15 years of successful direct mail and database marketing experience!

Service Description
We will customize and write a strategic marketing plan based on your competitive edge and Unique Selling Proposition
The Free marketing audit is focused on your hidden assets can be done by phone or fact to face.
The marketing audit will save you between $10,000 – 100,000 in advertising costsWe will help you to discover your assets and grow your business in several ways Guaranteed.

Develop selling skills to increase sales
Marketing plan development with a focus on your unique selling proposition including market needs, demographics, analysis, strategy, break-even analysis and marketing budget. I have innovative database techniques to increase response rates with testing and analysis.

Telephone: Call (313) 269-9951

Direct Marketing Ideas – Close More Sales

February 18, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Leads 

This is how to use direct marketing ideas to boost your personal sales and image

Use a Testimonial Book

This is why major advertisers spend millions to have celebrities endorse their products. You simply go to a satisfied customer or client and ask them for a written endorsement.

Display these endorsements in a plastic pages binder and this book becomes part of your sales presentation and this helps you close the sale. You could even place it in a leather portfolio and use it like a trophy case to show all of your accomplishments.

Using customer feedback and testimonials are direct marketing techniques used by e-Bay and Amazon.com  the biggest e-commerce companies on the Net.

Go Back To Build Rapport

One of the first steps in the sales process is to build rapport with your customer. People do business with people they like and it will always be difficult to do business with someone that doesn’t trust you.

One of the best opportunities is to go back to previous or existing customers and make them an offer . You can use direct mail, e-mail or personal phone call to do this. If you are not doing this then you need to discover how effective you are at contacting existing customers for repeat sales.

In direct mail marketing it is a fact that it cost 5 times more money acquiring new customers than it does to re-activate or cross-sell and up-sell new ones. The lowest hanging fruit is here and waiting to be picked

Optimize Your Sales Habits

This separates the best sales professionals from the average. Try to change a couple of bad sales habits you have and monitor  improvement. Like…. not asking for referrals from your best clients.

Attorneys Build their Practice with Referrals, so should you

Referrals should become part of your sales system by striking a deal with every customer that you currently have and offer them outstanding support and follow-up if they refer a couple of friends to your practice tell them this is how you build your business is with there help.

Talk to the best sales people you know and ask them what best selling habits are and why and implement these habits into your presentation.  It’s common in direct marketing to offer incentives by mail to current customer referrals.

Model Yourself From the Top Producer

Model brilliance becoming a top producer could be as simple as modeling other top producers in your organization. Emulate their actions and adapt their methods into your personality. Focus on their beliefs.

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Medical Mailing Lists – Aging Population

February 16, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Buy Mailing Lists 

The Internet has provided information on healthcare to today’s aging population looking for answers.

With the U.S. population aging and fighting diseases like obesity, cancer and diabetics, today’s consumers now have a wealth of information at their fingertips.

Consumers turn to the Internet and other sources in search of information about reliable healthcare resources.

This has opened up opportunities for direct marketers

That want to talk directly to consumers a call center can dovetail with a direct marketers Web site. Healthcare marketers that are turning to direct response to reach new customers is long and still growing.

Test marketing the Hispanic market and targeting larger nations in South America as well as the U.S. Hispanic markets could prove to be very profitable in the years ahead because of the aging demographics.

Healthcare companies targeting the senior-care market as well as those that work in the over the counter/pharmaceutical segment are seeing profits rise as more of the aging baby-boomers begin to retire.

Manufacturers are moving more dollars to direct response

The government’s attempt to adopt a national healthcare  reform bill could extend the coverage to an additional 30 million more Americans. With the additional coverage will come added responsibility for one’s own healthcare.

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This is a great opportunity for direct marketers to use the Internet and direct mail to to help consumers with weight loss and smoking.  A specialty that that encourages healthier behavior and allows marketers to target their messages.

It makes sense to pay more up front for an email address since the long run benefits will pay for themselves buy mailing lists

“Direct Marketing Strategies” How DUNKIN’ DONUTS’ takes Direct Marketing To Next Level

February 14, 2010 by · 7 Comments
Filed under: Direct Marketing Strategy 

How Dunkin’ Donuts’ makes its brand unique in a ultra competitive market!

How to make yourself unique when you have two of the most successful world franchises McDonald’s and Starbucks breathing down your neck for more market share.

Dunkin Donuts sells more than a billion cups of coffee per year in a very competitive market. Direct response advertising
gives Dunkin Donuts the perfect opportunity to talk to it’s customers about their unique selling proposition (USP) quality and great value.

Their USP is to serve the freshest most delicious coffee and donuts quickly and with courtesy. This is how you set yourself apart from the competition.

Developing loyalty with price in a poor economy

Dunkin Donuts is not only involved in CRM loyalty and digital marketing but also mobile, online social media and online promotions. One of the strongest areas of success is Dunkin Donuts leap into mobile direct response marketing with built in SMS platform which has been able to test and pilot it’s direct marketing.

It has new platforms uses for customizing local offers in real time and distribution via opt-in mobile marketing.

The mobile marketing also gets their foot in the door with social networking and communications. With specialized online software Dunkin Donuts was able to be either online or mobile in which a person can reach out to friends and colleagues and tell them they’re making a Dunkin Donuts run.

Using mobile coupons to redeem special offers that can be redeemed by employees at Dunkin Donuts by showing the coupon stored on cell phone.

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Social Media

Currently Dunkin Donuts is online with social media and has more than 1 million fans on Facebook and about 40,000 followers on Twitter this is ran by Dunkin Dave that has developed a personality and style that keeps loyal customers coming back.

It makes sense to pay more up front for an email address since the long run benefits will pay for themselves buy mailing lists

Direct Mail Marketing – Insurance Products

February 12, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Leads 

Direct mail campaign supported by a telephone call

Some insurance companies market their life and health coverage products to professional associations as well as affinity groups that would offer insurance products to it’s members.

The strategy is to target groups that currently don’t offer insurance products to its members and others that would offer your company as an alternative.

Segmenting the lists

Separate the list by income, size and by membership one could be a group of associations with no current offerings against another small list that are potential insurance prospects that may switch carriers.

In the insurance industry it is difficult to sell a insurance product without meeting with your prospect face to face.  The solution is to create an invitation to each contact to meet personally for a brief talk over a cup of coffee with a key sales expert.

With a caption that “the best things in life are free” with a $5 gift card from Starbucks proclaimed to the gift holder with the offer that they could relax while discovering how to get the most out of their group portfolio.

The mailing of a free gift like the Starbucks certificate for $5 has a way of making feel the recipient feel a little guilty. This invitation becomes a start to a little dialogue.

The cover letters are tailored to each of the two target groups stressing the value and offering additional member benefits and the other urging a re-evaluation of the current insurance providers.

This can be refined to include a series of communications including e-mail, Website and phone call follow-up.

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It makes sense to pay more up front for an email address since the long run benefits will pay for themselves buy mailing lists

“E-mail Marketing Lists” Lead Generation

February 10, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Email Lists 

Getting Beyond the Clutter – E-mail marketing lists

It is estimated that the average American gets about 35,000 e-mails per year and these are relevant and work related.  How does your e-mail message compete with a full in-box of e-mail messages?

Your direct mail campaigns need to include three basic elements to compete:

  • Be trusted and invited to start a relationship with this customer or targeted prospect
  • Compelling copy with affinity an understanding of the niche and what customer wants
  • Make it easy for prospect to build a relationship with you

You make it easy for the prospect by including a call for action with links back to your Website. A limited time offer, make it easy fro them to refer a friend or add to shopping cart. The call to action to get the capture information once they are on your landing form page from the link in e-mail. The call to action is to get them to subscribe or sign-up.

The compelling copy would include a call to action along with some strong benefits starting with personalization by talking with them directly by saying you. Be sure to mention that you respect their personal data and that you will follow up with them after collecting their data or product transaction.

Call To Action

The call to action should be placed on your landing page linked to the e-mail. The landing page needs to be clean, simple and laser focused. After clicking on button on landing page they would next be taken to a form with PayPal or credit card information to complete the sale or you would ask for more information like phone number for follow-up by the sales department.

Targeted Mailing Lists

Be sure not to include anything but one focused product since anything else like external links or distractions like advertisements can hurt your chance of completing the sale or lead generation. Since your targeted mailing list are prospects that are engaged in your product or service allow them to sample the type of information or taste the product by either providing a short-term trial or small sample of what they can expect when they pay for the full version.

This is called gradual engagement and this helps to make prospects more amenable to signing up or paying If you are looking to acquire leads, one effective approach is to focus on third party opt-in email list rentals.

If you are increasing awareness of a new product or doing research among existing customers, then conducting a permission-based internal email campaign could be the most efficient use of your resources. Free demonstration and trial use: 2009 Inc. 500 Winner Discover Why MegaMeeting.com was voted The #1 Video & Web Conferencing Company on the 2009 Inc 500 List!

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