Sometimes you need a little break to realize you were missed

Summer Days are gone too soon, and fall is approaching rapidly. This is the time of year for backpacks, candy corn, homework assignments, and pumpkin spice lattes, but did you know it is also a good time to reach out to your most favorite customers? Did you know that a good contact schedule can keep you visible, favorable, and even missed by your customers? Many of us take some vacation time in the summer. Did you ever think that it might be a good idea to give them space?
Like any relationship, you need to learn how to honor the way your customers want to be reached. Fall is a good season to begin to reconnect with your relationships, both business and personal. Setting a good reach strategy could be the difference between your success and failure in business.  Here is the rule of 4: When touching your contacts, use these initiatives and track them:

• Have I emailed them?
• Do I show up in their Social Media Feeds?
• Have I showed up at the end of their dial tone?
• Have I sent them a card?

In the fall, I always start with a card! Something along the lines of, "Hope you had an awesome summer and I am looking forward to connecting with you soon" Use your #CRM to manage the ways they have been touched, how frequently, and keep it consistent. Come up with a variety of ways to stand out, be different, and create meaningful impressions. Spice it up! Analyze your Big Data and create Loyal Relationships with your customers and your prospects. Take breaks, and then meet back up again. This is a real relationship, so let it look like one. Build your relationships like an ant farm, one small treasure at a time that creates a great big long lasting history that means more to each of you than any thing else. This is the way to success and it takes time. That's your greatest investment.

Email is Personal... Be Polite! 5 Do's and Don'ts when sending email

I hate marking messages as junk, I really do. As an email marketer there is nothing more brutal than to tell someone their messages are the worst. It's like missing the spectacular vision behind the raindrops on your window pain. Sometimes we are so blinded by our message we miss the opportunity to give someone what they want! I call this self focus.
But what happens when you get on a list from someone who constantly sends you advertisements on viagra, or they market to you in another language? What do you do when you are suddenly receiving messages from someone you don't know, about something you don't care about, so much so you can hardly keep your inbox clear?  YOU take NOTE! That's what you do.  Here are five do's and don'ts when engaging in email marketing!

1. ALWAYS use a SUBSCRIBED LIST!  Under the federal CAN SPAM laws, you can be fined if you email someone with out the explicit permission. Make sure you get the A-OK to proceed.
2. Segment your list ~ Here are some really good questions to ask yourself: Who is this? How do I know them? What do they want from me? What do they do? How can I help them? How do they desire to be helped? What is the purpose of my relationship with them? How can we help each other?
3. Be creative: Don't send the same email to everyone, it's not appropriate.  Get those creative juices flowing and design an email campaign that is target toward the segmented lists you just created.
4. Don't over email! People want to see you, but not everyday! Use your click through rates to determine how often they want to see you.  Send them good info, but don't just send them any info.
5. ALWAYS reply to RESPONSES! Engagement, just like in Social Media, is key. They want to hear back from you. If you can't do this in a timely fashion, set up auto-responders. But make those responders targeted, too.  This creates a comfortable situation for your audience.

Email is personal. People want to feel like each message they receive is specifically for them, and that it addresses their needs and interests. They don't want you to waste their time. They don't want you to waste yours.
If your opt out rates are high, it's time to design a new campaign.  You are more likely to win by counting your losses and revamping your efforts! There's no sure fire way that works, just get in the game. I pays to be personal, and personality pays...

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Tried & True...

We've all heard it said that if something's not broke, don't fix it.  This works fine, I suppose, if you are a repairman. If you are the creative type, you realize that this could be quite boring and ritualistic to your marketing, and before long you will get lost in monotony.  So what's the solution?  A little bit of new and a little bit of familiar married together!  By this, I am referring to Card Marketing!

Who doesn't love to get a card! WE all enjoy this from time to time. We send cards for occasions to the people we care most about.  Why not incorporate this into your marketing blueprint!  Reach out and touch someone!  By integrating commonly accepted and classic marketing methods that work into new media marketing and Social Media Marketing, you have a well diversified marketing plan, and you certainly won't saturate your audience with the same old thing...

Hyrum W. Smith, a world class public speaker talks about four basics needs that feed all of our activities in life. They are to love or be loved, to live, to feel important, and last but not least: Variety!  Variety, being a need and all, should be a motivator for a balanced approach to reaching your audience! Let them be touched in a familiar way... Incorporate something old, something new, something borrowed, and something tried and true to make your marketing consistent, effective, and steadfast for years to come...

Here are my TOP 3 favorite tools that let you use card marketing in a new media environment...
1. My first and favorite is: Send Out Cards!  This program even let's you record your own signature and handwriting font! You can upload pictures, create QR codes, and they stamp and mail it for you! You can even send gift cards and home baked goods like brownies! Amazing and Personal
2. Bluebird Cards - Very similar to Send Out Cards, but less features! Same idea as above, but the personalized touches are limited.  The real draw here is the pricing is very reasonable compared to other options.
3. Snapfish - If you don't mind mailing and stamping, Snapfish is a great way to send a personalized greeting card.  A little bit goes a long way!

Cards can be a powerful tool in your marketing.  Don't neglect the power they have to increase revenue and favorability.  This can be the difference between being a cut above your competition!

Why Having an Expert Makes the Difference

 

Recently, a new client called me into their business to clean-up remnants of a database implementation gone wrong.  I might mention that they shopped me first, determined I cost to much, and hired a general IT firm.  Now, I am not saying anything negative about IT firms, I need them as much as they need me in a perfect network LAN setup situation, but what I am saying is: Don’t let a general doctor perform your heart surgery! That’s just asking for trouble!

After peeking into the situation, and seeing all 30+ databases that were created during the troubleshooting process, it reminded me of why I specialize in particular areas of expertise.  Here are three things that I need to remind my clients and prospects of when price is a factor:

1. What I can do in 3 hours as a product expert, others probably will have to multiply by 5. In the end, how much money did you save?  Not only did you spend your time, but they spent theirs trying to solve problems they didn’t really have a complete and total understanding, grasp, and full scenario of possibilities.  A product expert that knows the ins and outs of the product will be able to leverage different aspects of the software that most other professionals miss, or fail to completely develop thesis on.  Sometimes their solutions create the need for other solutions. Sometimes their solutions create other problems to be solved as well.

2. What happens when they cannot fix a problem is: You are paying for me anyway.  That has to really hurt.  When you shop someone, go with the lowest price, and then you have to pay the firm you hired for their time, and the person you could have hired from the beginning to fix the mess.  Can you imagine all the time and money saved had you just done what needed to be done in the first place. Moral is: Go with Experience! It is the only truth that can be trusted.

3. Trust your IT firm to provide you references for professionals/experts they have worked with. Your IT firm is your trusted advisor, your intermediary.  A good IT firm will refer you to who you can work with when they realize and understand the extent of their own expertise.  They will steer you in the right direction and save you money by bringing in partners or experts in what you are trying to do.  If they don’t, find a new firm.  You are no one’s Guinea pig. Don’t allow yourself to be treated that way.

Having and expert makes a difference because it saves you time, energy, and money.  They all combined equate to success…

Drip Marketing... The Power of Perpetual Touch

I think that in most areas of life, we underestimate the power of touch.  With Valentine's Day on the horizon, it has never been more on the forefront of my mind.  Little things we do; physical, spiritual, intellectual. Our initiation makes a mark; it leaves and impression.  How much of an impression, we never know.  But we do know, don't we.

Drip Marketing is applying this principal to business. It is allowing the importance of touch, wanted and sometimes unwanted, to leave an impression.  Your strategy can be the difference in the impression you make.  It can make you or break you.  Some people say that it doesn't matter what people remember, as long as they remember.  I don't believe this to be true.  I think silence is golden, if the noise you make turns someone away.  This is where cultivating a strategy will serve you well. 

What is a Drip Marketing Strategy you ask?  It is simple.  It is the process of touching your audience by different methods for the purpose of building a solid and favorable impression.  It is the planning and organizing of the ways and means by which you touch them.  It is the understanding and recognition of their desired methods of touch, by means of studying and learning your pursuant.  It is the method by which you consistently seek relationship, friendship, engagement. 

Just like in all relationships, faithfulness, loyalty and perseverance is valued and savored in real authentic friendship.  Business is the cultivation of friendship for the benefit of commerce.  Apply principals of friendship to business and you will manifest loyalty every time.
Drip Marketing is a requirement for success.  If you are not doing it, you are surviving by luck.  Luck will only take you so far.  Strategic Relationship Cultivation will take you the rest of the way... Trust it...