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 to keep in touch with your customer database is a must. There are a few principles to follow when marketing to contacts in your company database that can maximize your bottom line.
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, most everyone 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 piece 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 promotion.
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 is 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.
Pipeline Rules Of Thumb
My spouse and I would both love to stay at home and work, so I decided to set out to find some real answers to that question. While I didn't find any ?eureka!? solutions, I was able to lay down 5 basic rules of thumb that beginning entrepreneurs who covet the work at home mom's lifestyle should keep in mind as they plan their online home business.
Work At Home Moms Rule #1: The Tooth Fairy Doesn't Exist in Reality. Neither Does GRQ!
If a webpage, ad, article, email, letter, infomercial or live salesperson says you can get rich quick (GRQ) through a stay-at-home internet business, they're hoping you're a sucker. There's no such thing as GRQ except through the lottery or the occasional inheritance from your wealthy great aunt Edna who lives in Topeka.
Reality Check! You aren't going to win the lottery, and you never visited Great Aunt Edna because she smelled like mothballs and tried to feed you 10-year-old fruit cake. So you can safely rule those two out. Do yourself a mother-in-law-sized favor and rule out GRQ now, too. It's no more likely to happen than the first two, and GRQ schemes can wipe out your startup capital in a hurry.
Some of the most common GRQ scams include, but certainly are not limited to: selling TV access to the internet; selling public internet access; giving seminars on making money on the internet; some multi-level marketing companies (those that focus more on team-building than sales); ?no money down? real estate plans; and ?guaranteed? returns on the stock market.
Work At Home Moms Rule #2: You've got to Learn to Earn
If you want to succeed in small business on the internet, plan on a big learning curve as you're getting started. The absolute minimum you'll need to get knowledgeable enough to be dangerous includes:
* Know some basic programming ? especially html ? and learn how to use graphic software.
This is an essential cost-saver even if you're going to pay someone else to start your site; it allows you to use beginning pages as a template for the rest of your pages rather than paying someone to build every last page.
* Learn how to write for the web. ?Content is King,? or in this case, ?Queen!? If your writing reminds people more of the pauper than the prince, they won't stick around for the royal punchline.
* Learn e-commerce from the experts. The least expensive way to do this is by regularly reading a good e-commerce magazine.
I don't recommend subscribing to multiple mags; they all cover the same things. But the things they do cover are important to know and keep up with. You'll get ideas, learn new ways to save money, and hear about cutting edge internet products and services before the vast majority of other folks do.
If you can't afford a subscription right now, go to your local library to read it.
Work At Home Moms Rule #3: Know Thyself
I know: you've heard that before. It's so true, though! I'll use a ?mom? analogy to explain.
Your new business comes into the world totally dependent on you. It's like you have a new baby! If you can know yourself well enough to determine what the one hobby, talent or passion is that you genuinely enjoy and know more about than most other people; and if you can have the discipline to focus your new business on that one thing, you might just succeed.
If you can't love and nurture your new e-business into an ?adolescent with an attitude? without growing tired of it, your e-business baby will almost surely fail.
While we're on the topic of failure, face this fact: the odds are great you'll fail the first time you start a business. Be prepared to learn from your mistakes if you do, and ?try, try again.?
Work At Home Moms Rule #4: Be a Persistent Professional
* Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for ever and ever Amen?
You better, if you want to succeed. People can smell a phony from a mile away, and it only takes one lapse into dishonesty or one too-obvious case of cutting corners to lose a potential customer forever.
* Have a solid graphic identity for your website, letterhead, envelopes and business cards. You don't have to spend a ton of money to achieve this: you can use your own graphics program and printer, or pay a starving digital artist to produce something that looks professional for an affordable flat fee.
* Successful professionals are experts in their field. If you've followed rule #3, you can achieve this through offering to speak about your favorite subject to churches, schools and civic groups. You can also sell yourself as a consultant and President of your own company, which of course, is focused on this wondrous thing for which you have strong knowledge and passion.
* Join a good professional organization to help you network. Be sure to get to know the groups before you choose one; if there's not strong leadership and vitality when you visit, keep on looking until you find an organization filled with people who inspire you.
Establishing your credentials and credibility through these four bullet points will help you to secure a business loan, will raise you in the esteem of other professionals with whom you might want to partner, and will make you as attractive to your target customers as honey is to the bees.
Work At Home Moms Rule #5: Know Your Limitations
There's a whole lot of legal and financial paperwork, rules, laws and regulations that you have to be on top of when you start a business. If you aren't a lawyer and an accountant, you need to have both working for you. Yes, this is an expense. But the money and mind-warping time it will save you will be more than worth the price.
While some pundits say you don't have to employ services from these professionals until your business is well under way, you should at the very least have one of each picked out in case you do need them. Make sure they know who you are and what you're doing, and keep their card on hand for when you do need them.
Both Joy Gendusa & Mac Bartine are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Joy Gendusa has sinced written about articles on various topics from Marketing, Sales and Negotiation and Marketing. Joy Gendusa founded PostcardMania (http://www.PostcardMania.com) in 1998, her only assets a computer and a phone. By 2005 the company did ov. Joy Gendusa's top article generates over 27100 views. Bookmark Joy Gendusa to your Favourites.
Mac Bartine has sinced written about articles on various topics from Marketing, Types of Cancer and University of. Mac Bartine is the owner and principle writer for KnoxvilleBusiness.com, where you'll find more resources related to this article, plus stories about Mom & Pop and. Mac Bartine's top article generates over 1600 views. Bookmark Mac Bartine to your Favourites.
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