tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64076452117705859232024-02-01T23:52:00.545-07:00Dialogue MarketingAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-85410104364327330922010-02-15T14:55:00.001-07:002010-02-15T15:12:11.743-07:00Social Media: Why We Need To Engage, Even If We Think It Is All Bollocks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvSF6Lvfyt2kTMG9yHgA88ZyArdUzZcF8Fwwq8Zog2d5MCeRpOL0aKUYfOCIdKya5dKIwe35BnzY2G-Abv5GYSg9KAF8w1Dp_xF0cQpsqbZeu6xjSr4Rt1rcQwuoRgWojdlprB_a2l-Os/s1600-h/socialmedia.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvSF6Lvfyt2kTMG9yHgA88ZyArdUzZcF8Fwwq8Zog2d5MCeRpOL0aKUYfOCIdKya5dKIwe35BnzY2G-Abv5GYSg9KAF8w1Dp_xF0cQpsqbZeu6xjSr4Rt1rcQwuoRgWojdlprB_a2l-Os/s320/socialmedia.bmp" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Many of us simply don't stop to consider why it is that social media is important. The majority of what I read is regurgitated platitudes, where it is apparent that the author is drinking from the social media koolaid fountain, simply because it is social media. Just like the ridiculous IPO valuations of the late 90s, rationality will prevail, and the market will ruthlessly decide what flies and what dies.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Any decision, to incorporate social media into your marketing communication plan, has to make business sense. Don't do it simply because somebody says so. But there are some very sound reasons to consider social media. Some of the most valid reasons being exposure, credibility, market penetration, branding and news ways to communicate.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><em>Here is one market commentator's perspective, somewhat edited for the sake of brevity.</em></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you read blogs about marketing small companies, you're inundated with "social media" advice about why you need a blog and a Twitter account and everything else.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even my 90-year-old grandmother who doesn't own a computer and reads my wife's healthy cooking blog on print-outs asks "What's Twitter?" because she read about it in the New York Times.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Still, most people and most businesses don't think they need a blog.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the next five minutes, I'd like to convince you that you have to jump into the world of blogging and Twitter and Facebook.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Back in the late 1990s, there was a day (let's call it October 19th, 1997) when suddenly every company in the western world decided they needed a website.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not that anyone knew what a website was for. Was it a brochure? A storefront? A billboard? The geeks say "It's a new way of doing business." What the hell does that mean?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What pushed everyone over the edge was that on October 19th, if you didn't have a website you were invisible. Not just hard to contact, invisible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sure you had advertisement and PR; you could get a message in front of people. But then what? Would they go to your store? Call your 800 number and request more information? Not on October 19th; they want a URL, and if they don't get one they are finished with you.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mind you, most companies still had no idea what websites were for, but they realized they had no choice. "This is the next big form of media, and whoever figures it out will win," it was collectively decided.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">How do you "win" the Internet? No one knew, and even those geeks who indirectly convinced the world to live on the web didn't foresee its massive effect. The Internet was not, in fact, "just another form of media" — it created opportunities where Amazon is 34x bigger than Barnes & Noble, where NetFlix destroyed Blockbuster, and where Skype is worth $2.6B while telecom companies drop like flies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's not just a new media, it's a completely different world. Business models are changed forever.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Flash-forward to today, and the same pattern is emerging, just in a different guise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today, a new website is invisible on the Internet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So how do you become visible? I suppose with enough money anything can be noticed, but in practice it ain't gonna happen. Certainly not if I wanted to bootstrap a little company from it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The days of "have a website and advertise" are over. It's too expensive to be noticed on an Internet that's already full.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Social media is the only way a new website could get traction. Once it's visible, once you have things like incoming links and lots of regular traffic, then you have a shot at using traditional SEO techniques for staying visible. But social media is the only way to overcome static friction (short of spending crazy money).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Social media is already changing the rules of the marketplace, just like the web did a decade ago.<strong> It's still early of course and no one — not even the experts — knows where all this is going.</strong> But it's clear that times are changing again, and those that don't jump in will go the way of print media.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Will all these social networks and websites survive? No.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Do we understand how to use them most efficiently? No.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Will there be another new thing someday? Sure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But today and for the foreseeable future, this is the world. You have to jump in even if you don't yet understand it.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: <a href="http://blog.asmartbear.com/why-you-have-to-engage-in-social-media-even-if-you-dont-want-to.html">A Smart Bear</a><br />
<br />
Download <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm38">a printable copy of the article</a> here.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-69509663835844077462010-01-19T18:11:00.063-07:002010-01-19T20:54:54.389-07:00Social Media: Fact or Fantasy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBThQ5EgmRCYmtP1bfOBJqDyZPAbRVWfA3tExYxio7alZtDlNK2t8kRI_Fo0HRP7u0OEacKkk07CCunJU5hFC_04endn0PrUHGCxV5kPHwfQaF1AVBXGgT0wjMeWwGUyQskLcZRMWsKeQ/s1600-h/socialmedia.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBThQ5EgmRCYmtP1bfOBJqDyZPAbRVWfA3tExYxio7alZtDlNK2t8kRI_Fo0HRP7u0OEacKkk07CCunJU5hFC_04endn0PrUHGCxV5kPHwfQaF1AVBXGgT0wjMeWwGUyQskLcZRMWsKeQ/s320/socialmedia.bmp" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Consider this article in the context of <a href="http://dialmark.blogspot.com/2010/01/email-marketing-evolutionary-tale.html">the previous blog entry</a>, on the evolution of email marketing.<br />
<br />
There are those pundits that have been proclaiming email to be on the decline, with social media set to be the new black (a term I borrowed from an advertising campaign).<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yes, social media may be all the rage, but should we be wildly allocating resources, at the expense of email? <br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, that is a question we would all like a definitive answer to.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fortunately a company called <a href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/">Social Twist</a>, an embryonic business that has experienced a meteoric rise to fame in the social media sharing widget space (think <a href="http://www.addthis.com/">AddThis</a>), recently released the results of one of their surveys.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">They decided to analyse the social media sharing behaviour, of the most recent 10 million referral messages. The results are enlightening.<br />
<br />
Email and instant messaging constitute 84% of all content shared across the internet. Of the email providers, Yahoo constituted 44% followed by MSN at 25%, and then GMail at 19%. GMail came as a surprise to me.<br />
</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">Email constitutes 59% of all content shared across the internet<br />
</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">As for the much hyped social networking channels? In totality, these only constituted 14% of all content shared across the internet, with Facebook being the proverbial giant at 11%, which is more or less on a par with Yahoo Messenger, the instant messaging service. So Facebook has become a serious contender.<br />
</div><br />
But what about Twitter? Gasp.<br />
<blockquote><div align="center">Twitter constitutes a mere 0.70% of all content shared across the internet.<br />
</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Another one that is so small, as to be almost insignificant, is LinkedIN, at 0.14% of all content shared. The report, known as Social Media Sharing Trends 2009, provides a lot more detail, and is well worth a read. You can access it <a href="http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/sharing-trends-2009">online</a>, or <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm33">download a pdf version</a> which I created for convenience.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The take away, for me, is that it is always important to monitor the trends, before you go and throw the baby out with the bath water. Email remains the tool of choice. Twitter may well be an up and coming medium, but for now, it is probably best utilised to create hype and as a traffic generator, given how rapidly tweets are indexed by the major search engines. <br />
<br />
Whilst on the point of indexing, bear in mind that email and instant messaging fall outside the net, so to speak. They may constitute the largest media, as regards sharing across the internet is concerned, but this sharing is driven by the end user. There is not much of an active role for marketers to play. But if you look at the active mediums, which constitues the social networking mediums, then Facebook is by far the largest.<br />
<br />
So email remains as relevant today as it ever was.<br />
<br />
Download a <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm35">printable copy</a> of the blog article.<br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-6801826052761093092010-01-16T16:10:00.000-07:002010-01-16T20:57:29.870-07:00Email Marketing: An Evolutionary Tale<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-G3P_M8iaTRaVh94dY-azvkd5ZdGbD43L8aZjH6yvPGLhKjeeINxg2RS5carosxGLhBw_kTtOXvtzN1_SMzuDGWSTgoPFptDIn897g_hmtoJbYmhYpE0gZwNLKuZ6hV7LFK5i0xs5ZFI/s1600-h/Dialogue+Evo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-G3P_M8iaTRaVh94dY-azvkd5ZdGbD43L8aZjH6yvPGLhKjeeINxg2RS5carosxGLhBw_kTtOXvtzN1_SMzuDGWSTgoPFptDIn897g_hmtoJbYmhYpE0gZwNLKuZ6hV7LFK5i0xs5ZFI/s320/Dialogue+Evo.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I suspect 2010 will be all a twitter (pun intended) regarding social media, and how it purports to enhance your <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm4">relationships with your clients</a>. A lot of it is hype, but no doubt, the way we communicate with our clients, and the manner in which we promote ourselves has evolved enormously.</span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the beginning, well almost, we interacted with prospects face-to-face (an expensive, but active method), and obtained their contact information, which we then loaded into a database.</span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eventually we realised, hey, we can also obtain this information via our websites (an affordable, but passive method), and have it automatically load into our database too.</span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This was when <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm8">email newsletters exploded</a>, and the premise upon which most email service providers (ESPs) established their businesses.</span><br />
<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But the problem was that the process was one-way, and all communications were in the form of bulk messages. It was assumed that all prospects were at the same point in the sales cycle, and that they all had homogenous needs.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fortunately that has all changed; we have evolved.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><strong>STOP</strong></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We have?</span><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well okay, most of us are still stuck in 2005. I frequently hear that many people would like to migrate to a communication strategy that is social media aware, but they cannot figure out what is relevant, how to go about it or who to turn to. Let's discuss these important points.</span><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjikYXBW3mc569uFyvZWlKS5HZTeyd7l9rxc1zRjWySUoxdpENHJaGa_lDclQa-sDRoZ8u-eRfpxvT8zihRw2Yv071rBh9eoKhyOqkjELhVr9cl9fPtY1FASzbb6b4uDYMErXRWt0UooeU/s1600-h/Dialogue+Evo+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ps="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjikYXBW3mc569uFyvZWlKS5HZTeyd7l9rxc1zRjWySUoxdpENHJaGa_lDclQa-sDRoZ8u-eRfpxvT8zihRw2Yv071rBh9eoKhyOqkjELhVr9cl9fPtY1FASzbb6b4uDYMErXRWt0UooeU/s640/Dialogue+Evo+2.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Consider the above diagram, which was a tough task to keep simple, as the true form is more matrix like. There are many hundreds of social media sites, serving a myriad purposes; I have chosen a few of the more common ones, to demonstrate how an evolved communication strategy should be established.</span><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Online marketing serves the same purpose as traditional marketing, namely to perform as an effective component of your marketing mix. More specifically, to contribute to your promotion efforts (remember the 4 P's of marketing?) in a cost efficient way. Additionally, it serves to perpetually sustain top-of-the-mind brand awareness, so as to facilitate repeat business.</span><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So how do we create and/or maintain this awareness?</span><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well for starters, get you head around the fact that you HAVE TO <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm15">engage in dialogue</a>. You need to offer value-adding information in exchange for actionable data. This is done through a combination of social media sites and direct communication. There are two mediums, used effectively, to gather actionable data; email (through the use of surveys) and telephone (through the use of a live operator). I know you can use two-way sms, but it isn't a medium of choice, due to recipient billing sensitivity. All your efforts must ultimately lead to the collection of actionable data, through the heavy use of these feedback mediums and finally, a transaction.</span><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now, as regards your combination of the myriad social media sites. These must all play a supporting role, all in a somewhat different way. Their primary purpose is brand promotion and awareness, and although you can do all of these things on your website, you will never get the same kind of search engine exposure. So it's kinda like investment diversification; spread it around. One of the end results must be the capturing of prospect contact details, which will allow your nurturing campaign to kick in, ultimately progressing towards a transaction. </span><br />
</div><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Instead of a newsletter, which is effectively lost to the outside world, you use a blog (<a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Blogger</a>, <a href="http://wordpress.com/">Wordpress</a> or other). The search engines do a great job at indexing blog articles, so this already places you at an enhanced advantage. Let's not forget that a blog can also use a subscription form, to capture prospect contact details, which can be automatically loaded to your database.</span><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When you research for your blog, invariably it involves reading a lot of source material. Some of this would be of interest to your prospects. So use a reader (<a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=reader&passive=1209600&continue=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Freader&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Freader">Google Reader</a> or other), bundle your sources together and share these articles with your prospects. Your public page gets indexed by the search engines as well.</span><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then convert your blog articles to pdf, and host online (<a href="http://www.calameo.com/">Calameo</a>, <a href="http://www.scribd.com/">Scribd</a> or other). These articles also get indexed; yes, there is a duplication, but it will catch prospects that do not find you via your blog. Plus, it gives the added advantage of providing a downloadable version. Also, don't overlook providing powerpoint presentations or pdf documents that may be of use to a prospect; manuals, expert opinion, case studies, surveys etc.</span><br />
</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anything that you do, be it blogging, uploading documents, hosting an event, launching a new product, remember to post a one line notice to <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. Twitter is an enigma to many. It is simply a 140 (designed for mobile use) character way of sending brief messages. Unlike sms, your twitter messages get indexed by the search engines. So if clearly written, and using a url shortener (<a href="http://bit.ly/">Bit.ly</a> or other), prospects can click a link and be diverted to a site of interest.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The same can be said of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>; although you are usually more circumspect regarding the type of news that you upload to these sites. Facebook is usually better for interacting with prospects, and has the added advantages of being able to be an active medium (it can email fans), and it can capture prospect contact details, via a subscription form. LinkedIN has similar advantages, but is best used when targeting a business audience.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Then, of course, a picture tells a thousand words. It always enhances your communicaion if you can include a link to a video (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/">You Tube</a> or other), or to pictures and/or photos (<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/">Picasa</a> or other) of relevant material. With photos, it is usually a good idea to show pictures with clients interacting with your brand.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>Summary</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">You need to put it all together in a way that it simple enough for you to maintain. The glue is your email marketing. You use the social media sites to promote your company, and to drive prospects to provide you with information. This information, in turn, feeds your communication campaign, which perpetually encourages your prospects to engage with your brand. But do not restrict yourself to email only. Vary your contact media; use snail mail for birthdays for example. Don't allow your communication strategy to become predictable and mundane.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Finally, if it still remains overwhelming then contact <a href="http://bit.ly/dial1">Dialogue Marketing</a>. We will put it all together for you, show you what and how to maintain the strategy (or do it for you).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Find a <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm31">downloadable copy of the article here</a>.</span><br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-19479305762575309832010-01-04T21:41:00.000-07:002010-01-16T19:03:47.330-07:00Drip Marketing: What Is It?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN79B-Jqy_uiBSVr1Wq398exbZn_rDJJDdvbyZOC7-e94tRctotWJhhxVWPnpOAK0EmrQffX43eIPgUcU7jf6TYLdiuapwlNESfzZ_SMm7QVtVUmjk6OAT8J-87R4phl51Nfa-MI6K_dg/s1600-h/drip1.jpg" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423115310834114482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN79B-Jqy_uiBSVr1Wq398exbZn_rDJJDdvbyZOC7-e94tRctotWJhhxVWPnpOAK0EmrQffX43eIPgUcU7jf6TYLdiuapwlNESfzZ_SMm7QVtVUmjk6OAT8J-87R4phl51Nfa-MI6K_dg/s200/drip1.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Geez, it seems marketers like to busy themselves coining new phrases, as if they have discovered a new light bulb, when in reality all they have done is highlight the obvious.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Drip Marketing is another of those phrases; as is Closed-Loop Marketing, but we will discuss that one next time.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Quite simply Drip Marketing is the technique that is applied to prospects, to nurture them towards a state where they are ready to transact. You might recall we discussed <a href="http://dialmark.blogspot.com/2009/12/using-dialogue-to-nurture-your-leads.html">lead nurturing</a> previously.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Essentially, Drip Marketing is a planned series of timed messages, that are dispatched to a targeted set of prospects. These dispatched messages could be in any form; the most common being email, sms, postcards, snail mail and the like. The purpose is to communicate product information and/or helpful advice, in order to keep your brand top-of-the-mind, so that when the prospect is ready to transact, they will be more inclined to remember, and select you.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">That's it, short and sweet.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The good thing about Drip Marketing is that it forces you to actively create a system that caters for your prospects; which means actually thinking about the process.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Usually you would be best advised to use an automated service, due to the affordability thereof. It's also good to select a service provider who can help you establish you Drip Marketing strategy, and who will be able to customise your effort. Nobody likes to get messages that appear to have been designed for the masses. Make a little effort, and personalise them a tad.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Download a <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm28">printable version here</a>.</span><br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-67975317278456531882009-12-22T17:13:00.000-07:002009-12-22T20:52:28.867-07:00A Marketer's Review: Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act<div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqLYcVk9AN7tOcA-shqMqdmgJTRnuf8KKAKayXA3CUNPwsFmawfKWpCtAo-qhNzs5D-zlBD8H48tPiFwsIMaeIr2S83zzBKEQoPmv61Owbjv_XMwgY72zmp8AhChmvxc9mxxOtZNuZus/s1600-h/ECPA.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 333px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 323px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5418221248704955506" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqLYcVk9AN7tOcA-shqMqdmgJTRnuf8KKAKayXA3CUNPwsFmawfKWpCtAo-qhNzs5D-zlBD8H48tPiFwsIMaeIr2S83zzBKEQoPmv61Owbjv_XMwgY72zmp8AhChmvxc9mxxOtZNuZus/s400/ECPA.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">Sigh. Today I want to spend a little time housekeeping. Canada is about to pass its own anti-spam legislation, and it may have some implications for you Canadian marketers.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The new legislation will be known as <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm22">ECPA</a> (Electronic Commerce and Protection Act). No real surprises, given that anti-Spam legislation is nothing new around the globe. What is a surprise, though, is that Canada has chosen to go the opt-in route, unlike the USA <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm24">CAN-SPAM</a> legislation, which is opt-out. Although this could make the legislation more effective, it also makes me nervous, given Canada's proclivity to over-burden industry with onerous requirements, and in so doing, stifle entrepreneurship.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Like all good things in life, they always have to be ruined by the spoilers; in this case the nasty spammers of the world. And I use the word nasty with intent. Hard core spam is like pornography, you know it when you see it. But many legitimate marketing emails can also be defined as spam, since spam is ultimately defined by the recipient; and it is these emails that concern me. There are those pious genuises that will claim that this issue is content and timing related. Perhaps, except that what works today doesn't always work tomorrow.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /><br /></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">A few years ago some of us had telemarketing Do Not Call Lists (DNCL) imposed upon us; and again, because of some spoilers. This has had the effect of reducing those annoying calls during dinner. It is hoped that anti-spam legislation will have the same effect. We'll see; and if it does, do you think the corporates and the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will lower their filters? I doubt it.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Legitimate and professional email marketing efforts incorporate many things; unsubscribe functionality, bounce management, blacklist monitoring, whitelisting, opt-in, opt-out, message design, personalised from addresses, privacy clauses, accurate subject lines, relevant content, metrics and more; all in an effort to get into an inbox. </span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">The majority of service providers already include most, if not all, of these functions. However, much of problem lies with the marketers; the users of the email platforms. Email marketing, traditionally, has always been seen as a cheap marketing tool. So some marketers may have been careless in its application. That being said, a lot of that has changed and let's not lose sight of the fact that the bulk of email traffic is illegitimate, hard core spam.</span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So what is my point?</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">My point is that good email practice has to become a given, and is increasingly moving in that direction. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Remember to focus on the real enemy, the hard core elusive culprits. In the same breath; it is high time that email marketing was taken seriously, and probably outsourced to those professionals that stay abreast of the industry best practices.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">To state my case; I applaud any efforts to minimise hard core spam BUT, and there always is a BUT. It is unlikely to reduce the levels of illegitimate spam, given that spammers can operate from anywhere on the planet, with many tools at their disposal, and seemingly with impunity. I hope it isn't the legitimate marketer, that is going to be brow beaten.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Legitimate marketers are going to carry a burden. Your ability to prospect targeted individuals will be severely curtailed, like with the DNCL, and this is potentially a business killer. Also, you will have difficulty implementing a win-back strategy too, if it falls outside a certain time period (Well, actually no difficulty. You simply can't do it). In all liklihood, I can see the day, in the not too distant future, where it is virtually impossible to prospect via email, fax or telephone. Who knows how a new business will be expected to generate awareness? Social media? I don't think so.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So it may end up being a case of wanting to pass legislation to protect consumers from the "<a href="http://bit.ly/dialm23">most dangerous and damaging forms of spam</a>", but which has an alternative, undesired effect. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Personally, I think we need to move in the direction of IP Reputation services.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Download <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm26">a printable copy</a> of this article.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-35672959428484341292009-12-20T11:51:00.000-07:002010-01-16T18:57:47.115-07:00Don't Discount - Learn How To Get Your Price<div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyBU06RNxOobIiT9UOMKBuaTbB28Hx-CfWB09v1CmMJ1SbpER5-jLCbJZC5-LPpmDaJYUQCJkhZcMeg3EBdmR3cigluz_LbUme5ch6BHKEUcgF6LiwPm6Wos2YxNqrsK1PL92y8hjHvkk/s1600-h/Gap.jpg"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img alt="" border="0" height="400" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417402983860755074" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyBU06RNxOobIiT9UOMKBuaTbB28Hx-CfWB09v1CmMJ1SbpER5-jLCbJZC5-LPpmDaJYUQCJkhZcMeg3EBdmR3cigluz_LbUme5ch6BHKEUcgF6LiwPm6Wos2YxNqrsK1PL92y8hjHvkk/s400/Gap.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" width="363" /></span></a><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This week I was pondering price objections, since we are all occasionally confronted with these; namely that our products or services are pricey in comparison to other competitors. Of course this necessitates painstakingly explaining the differences. So what is it that gets consumers to determine a "fair price"?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">It's quite straightforward. Consider yourself, when you go shopping. Small, insignificant purchases, don't require you to make a value judgement. But larger purchases usually have you more involved; and what tends to happen is that you place a subjective "price" on the product or service. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">If the price is below your "established price", you perceive the product to have value, and you need very little coaxing to purchase. Think of a new computer; you determine that a computer with the features you require is probably worth $500.00. If you walk into the store and find this at $350.00, you will feel that you found a "bargain", and vice versa.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">The difference between reality and perception leads to a <strong>performance gap</strong>. This is the principle upon which a blowout sale works; pricing is so ridiculously low that transactions take place regardless of whether the customer has a definitive need or not. In other words the item is so cheap that the consumer doesn't think about the purchase, because his risk has been reduced. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana;">A performance gap can be either <em>positive</em> or <em>negative</em>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">A pricing benchmark is usually derived by loosely using a larger market participant as a benchmark. The problem is that this participant may be a market maker, in other words they have influenced the market to see things their way. It is logical to want to influence the market to the extent that your product offering is considered the standard by which everything is measured. But this may not suit your customer's reality; they just don't know it. Remember this maxim:</span><br />
</div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<blockquote><div align="justify"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div align="center"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">VALUE = PERCEIVED BENEFIT - PERCEIVED COST</span><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<div align="justify"><br />
</div><br />
</blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the case of a pricing objection, this will mean probing the prospect for the objection, and overcoming that by demonstrating your product or service benefits. In other words, <em>comparing apples with apples</em>.</span><br />
<div align="justify"><br />
<span style="font-family: verdana;">In the earlier scenario this usually means focussing the prospects attention on his needs, and then highlighting the benefits of owning your product. This will usually get the prospect to stop measuring you relative to a competing product, and will justify your pricing.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Now, in a face-to-face sales environment, this is relatively easy to do, although seldom done properly. But what do you do when your prospect hasn't even displayed an interest in transacting yet?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">You will recall our chat on <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm13">Lead Nurturing</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm7">Closing A Sale</a>, where we emphasised that it will invariably take more than one contact to secure a sale, and that this requires you to nurture your leads.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">A large part of this nurturing process must focus on the benefits of using your product or service. Only through repeated emphasis, and guiding a prospect through a process of discovery designed to uncover needs, can you position yourself apart from your perceived competitors. And this positioning is achieved through the use of dialogue, in the form of closed probes, where you uncover a prospects needs and respond with appropriate satisfiers. All of this can be achieved automatically.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">An alternative, instead of using a dynamic, prospect driven process, is to anticipate what many of the objections may be, and to provide a static solution on your website or blog, in the form of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Your ultimate objective is to create a <strong>positive performance gap</strong>, where significant value is realised, by having the perceived benefits far exceed the price that you have determined. In order to do this requires you to present your offering in a way that allows you to differentiate yourself, by focussing on your strengths; those areas that give you a competitive advantage. There is no point competing with the large discount operators, on the basis of their price or their features.</span><br />
</div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-1084888401571090502009-12-13T14:48:00.000-07:002010-01-16T19:01:03.014-07:00Dialogue Marketing: Keeping Email Marketing Efforts Effective<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0dyjyaukCkWYmIKPw48j5BHBaijnXlzK4IktXKz3tQVO4QiySdHdLLquQ0DL_zz_baceQnuv-pyOQbTvgH_athnRuOqJVB19xC55oB_wqejLHH4OVQW-ZXRGhSqrzgCk-yAQaV6jztNc/s1600-h/Dialogue.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415906763067494322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0dyjyaukCkWYmIKPw48j5BHBaijnXlzK4IktXKz3tQVO4QiySdHdLLquQ0DL_zz_baceQnuv-pyOQbTvgH_athnRuOqJVB19xC55oB_wqejLHH4OVQW-ZXRGhSqrzgCk-yAQaV6jztNc/s400/Dialogue.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UQR6UARd_jo/SyVpjAcSoVI/AAAAAAAAAG0/8IAJXRRz2LI/s1600-h/Dialogue.jpg"></a><span style="font-family: verdana;">There are so many Email Service Providers (ESP), that the product has almost become a commodity, where only price is the issue.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At the same time, a lot of businesses </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">already have some form of email campaign or other. And in the midst of all of this we have <strong>email recipient fatigue</strong>, with declining read rates, reduced click throughs, increased unsubscribes, and all around reduced effectiveness.</span> <br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-family: verdana;">What now?</span></strong><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Well, for starters, it never was about the technology. The technology was, and is, only a facilitator. The technology is almost at the point where you can expect a certain minimum, like CAN-SPAM compliance, unsubscribe and bounce functionality, auto-responders, customised fields, and such like. So now it is up to you.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Email was never the panacea, or the silver bullet. Like everything else, it boils down to your strategy.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Strategy Centres Around Dialogue</span></strong><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You cannot rely on mass email alone, and expect to simply blast out message after message, expecting business to come flooding in. If you did expect that, then you clearly still believe in the Tooth Fairy too. Even segment, batch and blast has lost its shine.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You can only reverse the trend through dialogue. Yes, two-way communication. But you will surprised how many people don't get it, are too lazy to get it, too arrogant to listen or are just stupid. I have repeatedly explained the process to many businesses, only to have them email me their standard monthly newsletter, or their standard monthly specials. Sigh.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, email marketing is still the most effective marketing tool available, but it cannot operate in a vacuum. You have to combine it with other mediums and strategies, incorporating fax, voice, sms, web, blogs and snail mail.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You have to engage in conversations, and you have to <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm13">nurture your contacts to the next stage</a>, whatever that may be. All of this requires a well devised communications strategy that dictates when and how to deploy these instruments.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><strong>Establish Some Goals</strong></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The goals are obvious, establish how many phases there are to the sales cycle, and then design a communication strategy for each phase. Use a combination of communication mediums, and create opportunities to communicate with your contact within each phase. Use these opportunities to re-affirm your relationship, and to gather information. This gathered information should advance your awareness of the contact, and should, in turn, lead to new opportunities to communicate.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The collection of meaningful data, and the creation of relevant communication opportunities will greatly reduce unsubscribes, and all the other myriad problems, but at the same time produce revenue producing opportunities.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><strong>The Key Ingredient</strong></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The magic is you. You have to be completely dedicated to your strategy, and once you implement, you have to persevere. I have seen too many businesses with fantastic communication strategies, the best of technologies BUT no will to support the vision.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Too many commentators and ESPs go on about the details, like dealing with bounces, or the subject line, or the correct time to dispatch a message. These are important, but too many assume complete competency on the part of the business. Without you engaging in the process, there can be no dialogue. So go on, you be the champion.</span><br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-39354355158214123492009-12-06T13:02:00.000-07:002009-12-13T19:54:08.670-07:00Using Dialogue To Nurture Your Leads<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKaL8gM2YlOI37rQtnx4J1e0RnGAhJcQx_CL2DWvhMxqiQADaiZQ6aCL3ioypsLpTL-zerJVdarG3HLiIK1wFDXqsnMg944fTY3v91GhaENCp4s8FycLD3B_24KSqDKR-rCy1Xui3M3s/s1600-h/Lead+Nurturing.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 258px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412216172864179250" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKaL8gM2YlOI37rQtnx4J1e0RnGAhJcQx_CL2DWvhMxqiQADaiZQ6aCL3ioypsLpTL-zerJVdarG3HLiIK1wFDXqsnMg944fTY3v91GhaENCp4s8FycLD3B_24KSqDKR-rCy1Xui3M3s/s320/Lead+Nurturing.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Related Articles:</span><br /><a href="http://bit.ly/dialm7"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Do You Expect To Close On Your First Contact?</span></a><br /><a href="http://bit.ly/dialm10"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Alternatives To A Newsletter .... Demystifying The Mystified</span></a><br /><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This week I was helping a prospective client establish a communication strategy to acquire new business. The process sometimes seems confusing, so I have taken this opportunity to explain it in more detail.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">It is extraordinarily rare that a prospect is ready to purchase, when you happen to make contact. Assuming you have a market, of course; usually you will make contact with a prospect somewhere in the sales cycle, just not where you need them to be. This can be best described as harvesting green bananas; and may account for 95% of your leads.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">What this means is that if you do not nurture this prospect, until they are ready to transact, chances are they will be lost to a competitor. It is suggested that </span><a href="http://bit.ly/5LqOlr"><span style="font-family:verdana;">80% of marketing expenditure, on lead generation, goes to waste</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">, due to lack of discipline and commitment.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>So what to do?</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Well, that is the point of meaningful dialogue. You need to engage prospects consistently, and through value-added exchanges. I intentionally use the word dialogue, and exchange. There is no point simply blasting out newsletters, or emails. All this does is create work for you, and you end up operating in a vacuum. You never become better informed as to the state of the prospect; and you could well be hurting your brand.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So the objective is to share information with the right people, and in so doing </span><a href="http://bit.ly/dialm4"><span style="font-family:verdana;">establish a relationship</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">. Ultimately, the ongoing, timely sharing of information maintains a brand awareness, which leads (pun intended) to a transaction. Dialogue marketing is more than just having a salesperson call every so often, to find out if a prospect is "ready to buy yet." </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify">It has been demonstrated that <a href="http://bit.ly/5LqOlr">69% of buyers</a> are more inclined to transact, where a salesperson has assumed the role of advisor. This means that it is important for you to share knowledge, and educate your prospects. Forget the scripted sales pitches; the cheesy verses that interrupt my dinner. Become the trusted advisor that your prospect calls, when they are ready to transact.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><strong>But how to do it?</strong></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">Here we are going to refer to my diagram, above.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">You probably have a source of leads; this could be advertising, trade enquiries, seminars, trade shows, or any myriad of sources.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">Make sure you add your website and blog, to those sources. But ensure that your website and blog provide the ability to collect prospect information. This information, together with information sources from other areas, should be fed into a centralised database.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">Now, and this is where the confusion comes in, there is always a tendancy to want to blast off a message, telling the prospect everything you can do. This is wrong. If you tell them everything upfront, not only are you pressure selling, but you haven't shared any knowledge and you destroy your the opportunity to communicate in the future, without repeating yourself. </div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">You need to nurture them; gently. You send a message which discusses a topic relevant to their situation (call this Dialogue 1). Included therein could be a link to a related blog article, where you can lay the subject out in more detail. An important part of the dialogue, is to include an online (or email embedded) survey. If the survey questions (never more than 3) are answered, these give you an insight into the state of the prospect, and may provide a selling opportunity.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">So, if you have 5 key areas that could cause a prospect to transact, instead of mentioning all 5 upfront, you break them up into 5 or more seperate communications, which are dispatched at timed intervals. Each contact relates to one of the key areas, which is supported by a blog article and an online survey. Last week I discussed <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm12">Dialogue Marketing for Financial Services</a>; this was one example of a value-added exchange.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">Any response by a prospect, that produces a selling opportunity, takes the prospect to a different database, and a new series of messages.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">It is important to place yourself in your prospect's position, think through what is important to them, and then create a meaningful communication strategy.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"><strong>And The Results?</strong> </div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">Close ratios are higher, sales pipelines are stronger, brand awareness is stronger, customer retention is 50% higher, and nurtured prospects produce 250% more qualified sales leads, than unnurtured prospects.</div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify">Download a <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm14">printable version here</a>.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-55305148828289229932009-11-29T20:00:00.000-07:002009-12-13T19:49:41.171-07:00Dialogue Marketing for Financial Services<p align="center"></p><p align="center"></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This week I thought, "Enough with the theory and background explanations, lets share a real world example". So that is what we are going to do, work through how technology can assist somebody in, say, the financial services industry.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">We all know about the financial services industry; it is much like the pre-owned car industry for the most part. You are faced with high pressure sales people, who palm themselves off as financial advisors. Everytime you hear from one of these guys, it is usually over dinner, or when you least want to hear from them. What is more, they have one purpose in mind; to sell you another product, and then, poof, not to be heard from again.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I have rarely dealt with the same financial advisor twice.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So the relationship appears lopsided, or asymetric. Now I know I am generalising. There are some excellent advisors out there, but for the most part that is not what people experience.</span></p><p align="center"><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sBjqyK_B1ro&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sBjqyK_B1ro&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">As a professional advisor, you have the opposing problem. How do you manage to prospect successfully when the perception people have is a poor one? All you want to do is be given the opportunity to show what you are capable of, but you need to secure an appointment first. How do you do this?</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Surely there must be a way to finesse both sides of a strained relationship; where everybody gets what they want?</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The answer is a resounding yes.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Imagine not having an advisor breathing down your neck. Imagine being able to have your situation assessed in private, and yet at the same time being provided with information that is valuable to you; like how much you may need to save each month.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">But at the same time, imagine being the advisor, where you don't have to face telephonic rejection daily, yet are still able to engage in a dialogue; where you can still offer a valuable service, and at the same time be notified of potential opportunities.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This "win-win" situation can be accomplished with some imagination and the use of </span><a href="http://bit.ly/dial1"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Dialogue Marketing</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">. So without spoiling the fun, watch the video to see what is possible.</span></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-45734827374805138762009-11-20T23:32:00.000-07:002009-12-13T19:47:44.438-07:00Alternatives To A Newsletter .... Demystifying The Mystified<div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEbGDRswOnQ7i7Iv8tloYqS4mMCczK92rhfGwWpSMhLg7XRkA0bxh9xsvTvk4Zai9ryfaYiMu5QIN3-NP9gNl867ZBV1vZKaSBCFfGWUYsF3qa9BiPbxsXF_J-LtaFCRzO7SBlIU_1W7s/s1600/Logos.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 206px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406450213592456306" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEbGDRswOnQ7i7Iv8tloYqS4mMCczK92rhfGwWpSMhLg7XRkA0bxh9xsvTvk4Zai9ryfaYiMu5QIN3-NP9gNl867ZBV1vZKaSBCFfGWUYsF3qa9BiPbxsXF_J-LtaFCRzO7SBlIU_1W7s/s320/Logos.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">My recent post on </span><a href="http://bit.ly/dialm9"><span style="font-family:verdana;">the newsletter being dead</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">, begs the question; "What is a better alternative?"</span></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Well the buzz, seemingly all over the place, is social media; and social implies a buddy buddy symbiosis, a relationship. But let's be frank here, you are running a business. It is all about marketing and profit maximisation. You don't want to get so caught up in being </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">your customer's best mate, that you forget your marketing. Everything needs to be viewed through the marketing lens. Anything else is disingenuous, so don't pretend. I urge you to read a recent article on </span><a href="http://bit.ly/dialm4"><span style="font-family:verdana;">"What Is Relationship Marketing?"</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> Let the gurus pontificate on about the wonders of social media, but until the business case is solid, and proven, don't panic.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Now that we've got that out of the way, let's seperate some of the wheat from the chaff.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Newsletters are becoming <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm8">redundant for a number of reasons</a>, but this doesn't mean that you shouldn't be communicating with your customers. Of course you should. But are newsletters relevant to existing customers? Perhaps in a slower repeat sales cycle business, they are, in order to keep your brand "top of the mind"; otherwise messages triggered by customer/company interactions, or the lack thereof, are much more relevant. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">As an acquisition tool, I don't know. To send a newsletter is to presume a relationship. That isn't a good idea. Smaller, value added articles are more relevant; and if written correctly, they give you a reason to engage a prospect repeatedly, thereby priming them to transact with you. Remember, we recently discussed <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm7">developing a communication strategy, to engage a prospect multiple times</a>. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">For the most part, newsletters are painstakingly planned, designed and delivered via email. This is usually in one of two ways, either a well designed and graphically intense html email, or as a well designed pdf document as an attachment to an email. But once they are delivered, that is it. Either the client reads or discards it. Unless you created an online archive of past newsletters, there is no way potential customers (or prospects) can view these. Also, because these communications take place outside of the internet, they aren't indexed by the major search engines, and therefore are lost. If you are one of the "enlightened" few that happen to have an online archive, unless you invest in a website content management package, you have to rely on outside help to maintain the website, a costly exercise and another hassle to think about.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>The Use of Blogs</strong></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">But now we have blogs, which are basically web pages where the content can be easily updated and maintained yourself. They are very easy to set up, and can be linked to your website. Today it makes sense to reduce your newsletter to a few bite sized articles, and to regularly post these to your blog. The benefits are that the content is very quickly indexed by the search engines, thus attracting interest outside of your normal mailing list. So instead of the painstaking effort to develop a regular newsletter, you simply build an archive of blog articles. This makes your emails more deliverable, as they aren't loaded with html graphics or attachments, and you simply provide a link to the relevant blog articles.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Also, newsletters tend to be blasted out to everybody on a mailing list. It is rare that businesses segment their mailing lists properly, so it is not unusual for email recipients to receive irrelevant mail at inappropriate points in the sales cycle, with potentially damaging effects. In other words, the content is not determined by the recipient. With an archive of blog articles, it is relatively easy to set up a <strong>Sequence™</strong> of email messages, each linked to a relevant blog article. So new contacts entering your mailing list, with disparate needs, will trigger the despatch of emails with links to relevant articles, as determined by the recipient. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So the use of a blog is definitely a great idea, and superior to the use of newsletters. What is more, you can update your blog postings to facebook, LinkedIN and Twitter (and probably a hundred others), but these aren't a huge imperative just yet. A good idea would be to include an <a href="http://www.addthis.com/">"Add This"</a> button to your blog, allowing any visitors to share your articles via a myriad social media outlets. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>Abandon Those Email Attachments</strong></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">As regards attachments (newsletters or other), don't do it unless it cannot be helped. Attachments tend to be virus red flags, and often result in your message being deleted; at best you affect your email deliverability. A better option is to use a third party file hosting company, like Calameo or Scribd. Then you insert a link in your email. This way, your email recipient can safely view your email, and then elect to download the documents if necessary. By way of an example, a client of ours, in collaboration with a wine distributor, recently hosted a wine tasting event. He wanted to send out a comprehensive program as an attachment, explaining, inter alia, how to buy tickets, what was on offer and where the event would be held. We hosted the attachment elsewhere, and placed a link in the despatched email. Not only did this ensure a higher deliverability rate, but we were also able to view how many people diverted to the attachment.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So, not only is it easier to use a blog, and place links to the relevant articles, but the public nature of a blog will expand your network of interested contacts. Of course, all of this needs to work in conjunction with a well thought out communication strategy, unless the foolhardy blasting of links to your blog articles is your thing. For assistance on establishing your blog and building a customised <strong>Sequence</strong>™ of messages, that will trigger messages based on recipient determined choices, contact <a href="http://bit.ly/dial1">Dialogue Marketing</a>.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Download <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm11">a printable version here</a>.</span></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-39620005011228893852009-11-18T22:03:00.000-07:002009-12-13T19:42:35.437-07:00The Newsletter Is Dead ..... Let It Go Already<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzeXQYEd1O4Mgf8SvsgTjCdleFLbjWOdw3rX_Ivy9BJltnhtYdChyphenhyphenyPMzHJVzKhHFXdgY8hJJg6UZJiMvn7CzDgeuhmjZYDWbh6NRbdowDubjzZZdDc68QZ5pKbij6EyZbgpL7lDYJWt0/s1600/Newsletter.gif"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 278px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405930750648387186" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzeXQYEd1O4Mgf8SvsgTjCdleFLbjWOdw3rX_Ivy9BJltnhtYdChyphenhyphenyPMzHJVzKhHFXdgY8hJJg6UZJiMvn7CzDgeuhmjZYDWbh6NRbdowDubjzZZdDc68QZ5pKbij6EyZbgpL7lDYJWt0/s320/Newsletter.gif" /></a><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Okay, maybe not dead, but it definitely has lost its shine. You wouldn't say so though. I can hardly go to a website these days without being invited to join their mailing list. Now building a database is a business imperative; don't get me wrong. But what is so compelling about wanting to read your verbose newsletter? </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">In the early days, say 1995, not many people were into newsletters. So it offered a differential advantage to the early adopters, and was a way of delivering company news, with some really neat graphics.</span> </div><div align="justify"><br /></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Problem is, the newsletter became ubiquitous. Every schmo has one; and that's okay, as long as it isn't your only or primary method of keeping in touch with your clients.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I spend a fair amount of time going to networking events, and they are all very similar. You usually meet the same <em>ever so accomplished, ever so successful, ever so on top of everything</em> kinda person. Cool. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Now, as soon as I explain how technology can enhance your efforts at relationship marketing, you can see the thought process, "Ah, email and newsletters".</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">What is even more enlightening, is what happens after these events. Invariably you get plugged into a standard email newsletter system, and you get bombarded with meaningless junk, not even remotely connected to your interests, until you unsubscribe. It's like, hello, there is a disconnect here.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Okay, I appreciate that people just don't know that there is a better way. The pathway isn't clear, and it seems so complex compared to a simple newsletter.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So what went wrong?</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>They Are Boring</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Newsletters aren't about the customer; they are about the company. They are generally self-promoting screeds, with mostly useless information. Aside from telling your clients that Susie or Johnny was promoted, or blabbing on about some amazing promotion, there is very rarely anything in it for the customer.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>They Treat All Customers As Equal</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">This is a noble cause in politics, but not in business. Today you can personalise a newsletter, by being clever and inserting a customers name and a few other personal details; but this isn't really identifying the customer as an individual. Essentially everbody gets the some monthly blast.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>They Don't Build Relationships</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Think about your relationships; there is a lot of give and take, or interpersonal exchanges. They aren't all one way traffic. How can a relationship be forged if you aren't getting to know your clients or prospects any better, where the only information dispensed is yours, and where you determine when to communicate?</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>They Are A Waste of Resources</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Have you ever tried to consistently publish a newsletter? Many have, and I get requests for them all the time. They are time consuming; customised newsletter templates are expensive to design; they are notoriously difficult to get delivered; and continually finding compelling content is a nightmare. My experience is that generally most newsletter efforts become dormant, only to be revived when a quick promotion needs to be conducted.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">You could be fooled into believing otherwise, though. There are lots of email service providers, all offering free generic templates and easy terms. The issue isn't them; it is you. You have been lulled into thinking that this is the silver bullet. It isn't. You need to have a clear communication strategy, and this needs to move away from message blasting, and towards timely, personalised and targeted communications, using many of the mediums available to you.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><strong>They Never Get Read</strong></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">We all have a problem with inbox clutter. As we sort through our daily emails, we scan for key identifiers, like names or subject lines. When we get a newsletter, it is sometimes a nice to have, but we usually save it, hoping to return later and read in leisure. But that rarely happens, because the next tsunami of emails has arrived. So your email package may be telling you that read rates are high, but hey, nobody is really reading.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So what now?</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">My next article will cover some really neat, easy and effective new ways of communicating, that can handsomely compliment a newsletter, or better yet, replace it all together.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Download a <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm9">printable version here</a>.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-43803109717470255472009-11-17T23:12:00.000-07:002009-12-13T19:37:29.824-07:00Do You Expect To Close On Your First Contact?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh12piSd5i56Gd_3c-aQ4dX-mUfTAMLX_S3iS8td7hZFqx3CWYZ1P-O1BAc0_P-b1p6YnsgXl9mf9aIeZRITcMwfY28-VbUv1VRS8aPvUHw5H3WGP9r2nUiafaDes9wN_SPmQne2XVM4eI/s1600/closing.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 255px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405594682187971218" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh12piSd5i56Gd_3c-aQ4dX-mUfTAMLX_S3iS8td7hZFqx3CWYZ1P-O1BAc0_P-b1p6YnsgXl9mf9aIeZRITcMwfY28-VbUv1VRS8aPvUHw5H3WGP9r2nUiafaDes9wN_SPmQne2XVM4eI/s320/closing.jpg" /></a><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Are you one of those business people that believes that every encounter with a prospect requires you to close a sale; regardless of whether you have uncovered a need?</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">No?</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> </span><br /><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Interesting, because I still encounter businesses everyday that use aggressive sales techniques to do business. I guess they don't bother with niceties, such as </span><a href="http://bit.ly/dialm6"><span style="font-family:verdana;">retention marketing</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">; nor do they have a long term business vision.</span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></div></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><div align="justify"></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Look, we would all like our prospects to transact with us, the first time they hear from us, but that ain't gonna happen. It is unrealistic to expect your prospects to all be primed, and ready to buy, unless you have one helluva "must have" product. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Consider these statistics for a moment.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect.</span></span></div></blockquote></span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">25% of sales people make a second contact, then stop.</span></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">12% of sales people only make three contacts, then stop.</span></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">10% of sales people make more than three contacts.</span></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">2% of sales are made on the first contact.</span></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">3% of sales are made on the second contact.</span></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">5% of sales are made on the third contact.</span></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">10% of sales are made on the fourth contact.</span></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.</span></span></div></blockquote></span></span><br /></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I don't know if these statistics are from a valid study, or whether they have been derived from experience. The point is that it usually takes much more than one contact to close a sale. Think about it, how often have you been contacted multiple times to secure a sale? Very rarely. Even more important, how often have you been contacted by a salesperson you have done business with in the past? Almost never. Prime examples are the auto industry and the financial services sector. Both are reknowned for their high customer churn.</span></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Yet if you analyse the top sales performers, you will notice a common thread, tenacity and perseverance. These stars know that it takes multiple contacts to secure a sale, and they have developed unique processes to cater for this.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">In marketing this is commonly referred to as <a href="http://bit.ly/6lUmY2">the "Law of 29"</a>, where it is anticipated that a prospect may have to view your marketing message 29 times before they transact. This may be excessive, however if we view the above statistics we see that 80 percent of sales are concluded after anywhere between 5 and 12 contacts. The number isn't important, except to grasp that you need to have a strategy to deal with multiple contacts.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So don't go splash some money on a one time advert. It is a waste. Rather develop an ongoing strategy, where you use a low cost, interactive technology to coax your prospect towards a sale. Why use technology you ask? Well it becomes an impossible task to manage a growing list of prospects, each with different communication requirements and needs. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">By the way, I say interactive because unless you are gathering information, and responding accordingly, you will never be able to determine when your prospect has a need.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">So, in a nutshell, expect to contact your prospects multiple times. Develop a series of messages, what I call a <strong>Sequence™</strong>, that are timed and triggered (more on this later). Use multiple mediums, instead of a repetitive and tedious one-way newsletter e.g. fax, sms, snail mail, cards, website and phone calls. But also know when enough is enough; I reckon if you haven't closed the sale after somewhere between 5 and 12 contacts, you probably aren't. So pick a cut-off, say 10 contacts, then call it a day with that prospect. </span></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-7898843825987420402009-11-17T16:25:00.000-07:002009-12-13T19:36:39.045-07:00Profit Generation Through Dialogue Marketing<div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyH9JyJmrIh7uIiRvIIzk6ioYpE3_9ixOX-EwuMZCLYkg48wsdH-EcDwNS6M1oHmaWy5zMl8-lMe8KE4uf4DY2QfDv5LsZ4AY66GvBp-0VRGdaL1Lpc9cGRIau2sm27A_otgQPsB4k8Qs/s1600/Combo.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 210px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405267799687352946" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyH9JyJmrIh7uIiRvIIzk6ioYpE3_9ixOX-EwuMZCLYkg48wsdH-EcDwNS6M1oHmaWy5zMl8-lMe8KE4uf4DY2QfDv5LsZ4AY66GvBp-0VRGdaL1Lpc9cGRIau2sm27A_otgQPsB4k8Qs/s320/Combo.jpg" /></a><br /><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">I know, my articles don't seem to follow a particular order. These are largely determined by events at work and/or reflect the workings of a disorganised mind. This article dovetails with a more detailed piece I wrote, which is </span></em><a href="http://bit.ly/dialm6"><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">available for download here</span></em></a><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">. </span></em></div><br /><div align="justify"><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">Using the power of new technology isn't just about mass email, which is essentially an unsophisticated acquisition tactic. It is far more involved, personalised and interactive; and can greatly improve your ability to develop strategies for both customer acquisition and retention; not to mention enhance your profitability prospects. This is a brief discussion to put retention and acquisition into perspective.</span></em></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Marketing continues to be the sum of all business activities involved in the transfer of goods and/or services, from the producer to the consumer.</span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><div align="justify"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Traditionally, marketing has been primarily outwardly focussed, namely on the <em>acquisition</em> of new consumers. So if you look at the diagram, that would mean that the efforts were mainly expended on acquiring grey dots.</span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">More recently marketing has evolved to emphasise an inward focus too, namely the <em>retention</em> of existing consumers; or to put it simply, expending an effort to keep your coloured dots. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">This has come about as a result of the cost advantages of retention versus acquisition. Moreover, in a fiercely competitive and increasingly fragmented market place, new "virgin" customers are not in abundance, with consumers </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">becoming increasingly savvy.</span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><div align="justify"></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">Fortunately with the advent of new technologies both the tasks of acquisition and<br />retention can be easily and affordably facilitated. In fact, the new technologies allow your marketing strategies to become an omnipresent, personalised, 24/7 tool to keep your brand “top of the mind”, instead of the mass marketing, traditional mediums of yesteryear. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Marketing Acquisition</strong><br /><br />Marketing continues to perform the function of acquiring new consumers. Aside from the usual mass marketing approaches, this usually involves progressing a lead from suspect, through prospect, to first time consumer. This “lead nurturing” is easily enhanced through the use of new technology. </span></div><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">For a more detailed discussion of how technology can assist your acquisition efforts, <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm6">click here</a>.</span></div><br /><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Marketing Retention</strong><br /><br />Without proper care, any first-time customer, repeat customer, client, or advocate can become inactive or lost, causing the company substantial losses in sales and profit. In fact, your customers are constantly in a state of flux. It is up to you to determine what your loss rate will be. Of course you could take the "who cares" attitude, and continue to concentrate on acquisition; but at what cost?<br /><br /><strong>Summary<br /></strong><br />There is no doubt that traditional marketing remains vital; what has happened is that the emphasis has shifted from the transaction to the relationship. In this context <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm4">relationship does not refer to a deep, meaningful, interpersonal connection</a>; rather it refers to a customer’s purchase history.<br /><br />Of course during the acquisition stage there is no history. Here the objective is to get a prospect to make the transition to customer, in other words you coax the grey dots towards the funnel. Even those dots that do not become customers, should be nurtured until they become ready, given that it usually takes multiple contacts before a prospect is ready to transact.<br /><br />During the retention stage you, and your customer, have a history. Hopefully it is a good one, and you can leverage off of it. Too few people do, and this is why so many customers defect to your competitors. You can implement some amazingly simple strategies that are effective at acknowledging the customer, creating a positive brand experience and reducing and post purchase cognitive dissonance. It is all about retaining your coloured dots; or at least slowing down the rate of attrition.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">For a more detailed discussion, specifically how technology can help you (with examples), <a href="http://bit.ly/dialm6">please click here</a>.</p></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-18892129063872616672009-11-07T18:51:00.000-07:002009-12-13T19:26:09.125-07:00The Power of The First Paragraph<div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm7w9CTrdRLEw60IEbK9FZbFNBtNQH_JN3DQZRZL4Aypo3XZDBYNVf-UJg8nERMcUQmh5lcjwwG_WyGHeLL0aaK02ZCA_KYA__Zv5zBAClBNmPJ-GyBqVOOPXgo4TCOe4cwqsyP6opzyg/s1600-h/Trip.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 298px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401544321664575362" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm7w9CTrdRLEw60IEbK9FZbFNBtNQH_JN3DQZRZL4Aypo3XZDBYNVf-UJg8nERMcUQmh5lcjwwG_WyGHeLL0aaK02ZCA_KYA__Zv5zBAClBNmPJ-GyBqVOOPXgo4TCOe4cwqsyP6opzyg/s320/Trip.jpg" /></a><br /><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">Recently I was engaged in putting a client through the paces of learning how to effectively use email to enhance his efforts at prospecting. The efforts included using an automated </span><a href="http://bit.ly/dial1"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Dialogue Marketing</span></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> solution to contact and filter his many prospects. What emerges out of the bottom (akin to a filter) should be qualified leads.</span></em></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">There are many key areas that need to be emphasised, with a medium like email. One of these is the first paragraph.</span></em></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">Assuming you have managed to deliver the email into your prospect's inbox, and that the formatting has remained intact, it is hoped that your first paragraph does the trick to get the prospect to take action. If it doesn't, you have lost an opportunity.</span></em></div><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Source: </span><a href="http://bit.ly/6slSxO"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The Direct Marketing Center</span></a></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">How do you start your letter, your brochure, your website or, for that matter, any other direct response piece?<br /><br />Do you tell the prospect immediately what it is you’re trying to sell? Do you warm him up so he can understand why he needs your product or service? Do you get right into the sales pitch?<br /><br />The direction of the first paragraph of your direct response piece depends on the theme you’ve chosen. That theme will dictate whether your lead paragraph will follow a particular creative approach or focus on your offer.<br /><br />Once your lead paragraph is in harmony with your theme, the focus should shift to your warm-up. An ineffective warm-up will cripple a direct mail letter more than any other factor, resulting in a mediocre or losing letter.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#000000;">Let me give you some illustrations...</span></strong><br /><br />In the following, you must read two or three paragraphs before you really get to the heart of what the piece is all about. <span style="color:#000000;">These paragraphs cause tremendous drop-off in readership and</span> develop a feeling of not just boredom, but confusion as to what the writer is trying to sell.<br /><br />“As a homeowner, you know how maintenance costs are climbing every day. And in these days of tighter budgets, we don’t need to tell you that needed home maintenance is too often ignored in terms of priority dollars.”<br /><br />“Despite international treaties designed to stop the use of drift nets in commercial tuna fishing, which results in the slaughter of many hundreds of dolphins each year, violations are still taking place. For an independent organization like ours to monitor and deter the use of drift nets, operation costs can be staggering.”<br /><br />The three-paragraph rule in direct response states simply that with most sales pieces, you can cut off the first three paragraphs and start with the fourth.<br /><br />Though this rule is a bit arbitrary, it tends to prove true when reviewing drafts from the majority of copywriters. The copywriter will warm up to the subject and his key, but the critical lead paragraph is buried further down in the fourth or fifth paragraph.</span></p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><p align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;">A great sales piece will get to the point right away. Your objective is to generate immediate interest.</span></strong></span></p></blockquote><p align="justify"></span></strong></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">A great sales piece will get to the point right away. Your objective is to demand and attract the interest of the reader. It is not to set the </span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">groundwork for understanding the piece; it’s to generate immediate interest in the theme that you have chosen.<br /><br />Also, the beginning paragraph should be in the first person. A quick way to destroy a letter or other direct response piece is to talk in the third person or have a lot of “we’s” in the copy. To start a letter with “we” can cripple your response.<br /><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Here’s an example of a poorly constructed start:</span><br /><br />“We are living in very precarious times. Bankruptcies and foreclosures are at an all-time high. Businesses are being liquidated in record numbers. And homelessness is on the increase. As a nation, we must come together to reverse these dangerous trends, but we will need your backing if we are to succeed.”<br /><br />Conversely, beginning a letter with the word “you” immediately involves the prospect in the copy. A “you”-oriented letter speaks directly to the needs of the prospect.<br /><br /></span><strong><span style="color:#000099;"><span style="font-family:verdana;color:#000000;">Here in a nutshell are a few of the rules to follow in creating your first paragraph:<br /></p></span></span></strong><ol><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Make it dramatic, interesting and directed to the right target audience. The focus is on the reader’s self-interest.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Keep your paragraph short.</span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Keep your sentences short. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Keep your words short. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Use “you” to involve the reader. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Make your message come from one person, on a very personal basis, with the intent of building a one-on-one readership throughout the piece. </span></div></li><li><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">In evaluating any sales letter, one of the first things you should do is look at the lead paragraph. Does it match the style and flavor of the six points listed above?</span></div></li></ol><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><span style="color:#000099;"><span style="color:#000000;">Below are a few first paragraphs I have recently used for my clients</span><br /></span></strong><br />Take a look at them to see how we have applied the rules:<br /><br /></p></span><blockquote><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Imagine raking in 58.84% average returns over 3 years when the S&P 500 is pulling 18.01%. Subscribers to Motley Fool Stock Advisor have done exactly that.<br /></p></span></blockquote><blockquote><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Malpractice premiums are outrageous! But at least they protect you from today’s out-of-control lawsuits, right? Not necessarily.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The fact is, your cost of living in California is a staggering 30% higher than other western states due to some of the heaviest taxation and regulation in the country.</span></p></blockquote><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></p><blockquote><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Twenty-three years ago, I took a trip that I have regretted for life.</span></p></blockquote><p align="justify"><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">There is no dogmatic formula to a lead-in paragraph, but there is a similarity in style from the nation’s great copywriters. Your letters will produce better responses if you follow, rather than break, the rules.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Author: Craig Huey</span></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-38182127013627264262009-06-29T17:01:00.000-06:002009-12-13T17:19:10.343-07:00What Is Relationship Marketing?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0LHBvpoQY0vmucr9MFGRI4I8qw7CnQYMOxjKqban8SwxqiZQpD3KShNTtQ91BZUrxc0m_1_0et0JGyGfpq08popsmhunEdsn2xjpvw2A21rKTE14vyNkoFBxhCrIqMyFREVMyomURAio/s1600-h/rm1.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352891126366488946" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0LHBvpoQY0vmucr9MFGRI4I8qw7CnQYMOxjKqban8SwxqiZQpD3KShNTtQ91BZUrxc0m_1_0et0JGyGfpq08popsmhunEdsn2xjpvw2A21rKTE14vyNkoFBxhCrIqMyFREVMyomURAio/s320/rm1.jpg" /></a><br /><div align="justify"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UQR6UARd_jo/SklIGUT1mAI/AAAAAAAAABw/95fSVTrS2x0/s1600-h/rm.jpg"></a><em><span style="font-family:verdana;">I've always been uncomfortable with the concept of relationship marketing being about authentic connections, meaningful dialogue, hugs and kisses because it is quite simply nonesense. It is insincere, and your customers know this. Your primary concern is sales; and ultimately profitability. So it was refreshing to discover marketers that were starting to state the obvious.</span></em></div><div align="justify"><em><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><br /></span></em></div><em></em><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://bit.ly/5ecjQV">Source: CopyBlogger</a></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Raise your hand if you’ve heard of relationship marketing. Now keep it up if you know what it means.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Lots of hands still up, huh? OK. Fine. You, there. You with the iPhone and the I’m Kind of a Big Deal on Twitter t-shirt. What does relationship marketing mean?</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Mmm hmm?</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. I tuned out at “creating authentic connections” and “establishing many-to-many connections that foster meaningful dialogue.”</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">DING DING DING. You are WRONG, my tweep, my Facebook friend, my FriendFeed flunkie.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Let’s talk about what “relationship marketing” really is, shall we?</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />According to Wikipedia, and Len Barry who coined the term, <strong>“relationship marketing is a form of marketing which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on point-of-sale transactions.”</strong></span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong></strong><div align="justify"><br /><strong>1. Relationship marketing is not about relationships. It’s about marketing.</strong></div><div align="justify"><br />As a relationship marketer, I focus on making sure you not only buy my stuff today, but you keep buying it over and over and over. <strong>“Relationship” refers to the customer’s purchase history, not some deep interpersonal connection.</strong></div><div align="justify"><br />We do not take moonlit walks on the beach. We are not friends. We are not acquaintances. As a matter of fact, we couldn’t pick each other out of a police lineup.</div><div align="justify"><br />As a business, I’ve simply agreed to listen to you — or, more likely, people demographically similar to you — for long enough to know what you might buy. Then I make it and sell it to you.</div><div align="justify"><br />If this is our relationship, we both need therapy.</div><div align="justify"><br /><strong>2. Relationship marketing is not about authenticity.</strong></div><div align="justify"><strong><br /></strong>I could tell you I’m just an ordinary person who happens to be exactly like you. I could tell you I’m the reincarnation of Cleopatra’s pool boy. I could tell you I’m a one-eared lumberjack.</div><div align="justify"><br />It doesn’t matter a whit. If I get you signed up for my advance discount list and give you a good enough deal, we both win.</div><div align="justify"><br /><strong>3. Relationship marketing is not about transparency.</strong></div><div align="justify"><br />Transparency is nice, and sometimes necessary, but it’s not what this is about.</div><div align="justify"><br />It’s fascinating when Rand Fishkin tells me how much money he made last year, but it doesn’t affect whether or not I keep my SEOMoz </span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;">membership.</span><br /><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><strong>4. Relationship marketing is not about connection.</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><br /></strong>Just because Steve Jobs doesn’t know your kid’s name doesn’t mean you’re going to buy a Dell next time.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><strong>5. Relationship marketing is not about being social.</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Social is Sunday morning brunch with your buddies. It’s not Twitter, a</span><span style="font-family:verdana;">nd frankly, you’ll have a tough time selling anything in either place.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><strong>6. Relationship marketing is not about equality.</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><br /></strong>The only thing that’s equal about you being my “fan” and me begging you for money is that we’re equally codependent.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><strong>7. Relationship marketing is not even about communication.</strong></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><br /></strong>I buy apples every week and the things don’t even have a label, let alone a communication strategy.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />You joining my Facebook fan page is not a relationship.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />You following me on Twitter is not a relationship.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />You commenting on my blog is not a relationship.</span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Let’s face it, if your boyfriend treated you as badly as I do, your mother would tell you to break up with him.</span></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"><br /><strong>Relationship marketing is about marketing.</strong></div><div align="justify"><strong><br /></strong></div><div align="justify"></span></div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></div></span><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The touchy feely, Summer of Love, gosh-aren’t-we-great-friends stuff is nice. Sometimes it’s even necessary. But it’s not what relationship marketing is actually about.</span></div><div align="justify"><br /></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><blockquote><div align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Relationship marketing is about getting the customer to stick around long enough to keep shopping. And it’s about making sure that customer comes back next time to buy more stuff.</strong></span></div></blockquote></strong></span><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Don’t fall so in love with the relationship that you forget about the marketing. Like talking about benefits </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">and not just features. Like having a halfway decent market position</span><span style="font-family:verdana;">. Like a real call to action</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">. Like, you know, selling stuff.</span></span> </div><div align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></div></span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div align="justify"><br />All the authentically transparent connections in the world won’t fix those if they’re broken. But stick a Wheaties coupon on the back of every box of Wheaties and you’ve got it nailed.</span></span></div><p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Author: Naomi Dunford</span></span></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-55701064605944696052009-02-10T16:49:00.010-07:002009-12-13T19:19:20.245-07:00How To Stay Close To Your Customers In Difficult Economic Times<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UQR6UARd_jo/SZIS8TJhxfI/AAAAAAAAAAo/-4_75Hj026U/s1600-h/stock_market_crash.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 280px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301320538510181874" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UQR6UARd_jo/SZIS8TJhxfI/AAAAAAAAAAo/-4_75Hj026U/s320/stock_market_crash.jpg" /></a><br /><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Ouch. Watching your sales revenue plunge, but your operating costs remain stubbornly high, is causing you immense stress. Your margins have evaporated and you need to do something fast or go bankrupt. The natural tendency is to slash anything that you feel is not important, like that marketing budget. But you know that your brand will simply disappear, as your competitors continue to shout their brands from the rooftops. The alternative, if you keep spending on marketing that does not definitively lead to sales, you will be sunk. Does this sound like your dilemma? If it doesn't then you are clearly in a recession proof industry.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Of course you cannot slash your marketing. The key is to concentrate on marketing that builds repeat business, and <span style="font-family:verdana;">do it fast.</span></span></p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong><blockquote><p align="center"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><strong>Most businesses concentrate on attracting new clients and do very little to look after their existing clients after the transaction is complete.</strong></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p></blockquote><p align="justify"></strong></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I mean as a consumer </span></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">yourself, when last were you "Thanked" for your business, or even better, when last were you contacted by a vendor that hadn't seen you for awhile, worrying that you may have defected? I will guess probably never. </span><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Marketing is not directly correlated to sales, unless you are holding a blowout sale, where you are basically discounting your product to make the revenue. A lot of good that is going to do when your margins are already waffer thin. So the key is to keep your brand top-of-the-mind, and achieve this without the traditional marketing expense. <strong>The first place to begin is with your existing clients.</strong> It is much easier, and cheaper, to keep your existing clients than to pour loads of money into trying to attract new clients. Besides in a recession, the quickest way to land up in the poorhouse is to blindly pursue your mass marketing strategy.</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So how do you set about keeping your existing clients? Well for starters you need to ask yourself whether you know who your clients are. Do you have a database of your past clients, or do you simply complete the transaction and let them walk out the door, perhaps never to be seen again? If you don't, then stop wasting time and implement a system that will allow you to gather your clients contact information at your various touchpoints. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">So now the data is starting to come in, now what? Once you have started collecting this data you then need to communicate with your clients, and this should start immediately with a simple Thank You. Here communication means developing a meaningful relationship instead of mass emailing that simply erodes your brand value and shoves an endless supply of product down your clients throats. By meaningful relationship I mean use a give-and-take system. Provide value-add information in exchange for information. Everytime you communicate you have a branding opportunity, and if done correctly you slowly build loyalty. Imagine being able to track your individual client's so closely that you will be able to identify who your top spenders are, or being able to identify potential defectors before they go to your competitors. Oh great, I hear you saying cynically. You are not IT literate, you don't have the funds to develop a system and you don't know where to start. What now?</span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Well this is where <strong><a href="http://bit.ly/dial1">Dialogue Marketing</a></strong> fills a niche. <strong><a href="http://bit.ly/dial1">Dialogue Marketing</a></strong> provides an affordable system that will start creating your database instantly, and will help you design customised communications that will automatically, and periodically communicate with your clients across multiple mediums like email, text, fax, voice or snail mail. These communications can be fully interactive, gathering more client information for you, which in turn may trigger further communications to the client or internal notifications to personnel. The communications can also incorporate a points system, where points will be communicated via the medium of your choice and can track transactions, highlighting key information. All of this is designed to keep your brand top-of-the-mind and to encourage a repeat sales cycle. </span></p><p align="justify"><span style="font-family:Verdana;">In future postings, I will break the features down and explain them in more details, and what it will accomplish for your business.</span></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-69489927818640064752008-01-23T15:12:00.002-07:002010-01-23T17:10:32.093-07:00About Us<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table style="text-align: center; width: auto;"><tbody>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HuM2Gz9QjPLXxreCbIGmiQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCIa9_pev6c3mNw&feat=embedwebsite" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8e_x1X9b47FRqA5qM6kz9lAvap-VhHZa2P19nh63PDqtCLzH4g_qYp1IMg1tLP4UpkZwrSEbb5MSorGkmiqDkHfckvCka0_ju9AV7FFnnY0rGHN62LU8yHQeiTC-NIMXJ5Jv8qR01Fo/s400/Dialmark%20Logo.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.dialoguemarketing.ca/">Dialogue Marketing</a> is a niche marketing communications company, that has a proprietary in-house communication platform. The business was founded in 2006 by <a href="http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/mark-pawley-mba-ph-d/4/958/351">Mark Pawley</a>.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The initial product development took place in South Africa, in an environment that has a large and active mobile phone user demographic. This resulted in the application integrating cell phone text communication, on the GSM network, together with email.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2008 Dialogue Marketing opened in Calgary, Canada, which required an adjustment, to integrate alternative cellular technologies, and to incorporate fax communications. Current developments include incorporating Twitter, and other social media platforms.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dialogue Marketing specialises in providing customised turnkey solutions to customer communication problems. These include establishing your social media presence, developing your website and blog, linking it to your communications and providing ongoing maintenance.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dialogue Marketing is best suited to the business market that seeks to communicate with its clients/prospects on a 1-to-1 basis, using multiple mediums. Solutions start from as low as $50.00 per month.<br />
</div></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6407645211770585923.post-40563998848500748232008-01-18T21:57:00.001-07:002010-01-18T22:30:20.109-07:00<div align="center"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HuM2Gz9QjPLXxreCbIGmiQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCIa9_pev6c3mNw&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8e_x1X9b47FRqA5qM6kz9lAvap-VhHZa2P19nh63PDqtCLzH4g_qYp1IMg1tLP4UpkZwrSEbb5MSorGkmiqDkHfckvCka0_ju9AV7FFnnY0rGHN62LU8yHQeiTC-NIMXJ5Jv8qR01Fo/s288/Dialmark%20Logo.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Thank you for your submission.</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Please look out for our email. </span><br />
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00754018190913354397noreply@blogger.com