Month: February 2022

Automating Your Email-Marketing Campaigns

Often, new email marketers want to save cash, and thus opt for managing their email marketing campaigns by hand without the use of software. Now, although in the beginning this is possible, what inevitably happens is that their list grows. First to 100, then 300, then 1000 and before they have time to realize the mess they’ve gotten themselves in to, they’re unable to keep up with standard list management. In order to keep this from happening, it is important to automate many of the repetitive email marketing tasks from the very beginning with good email campaign software.

Email Marketing Software

Ultimately, what new marketers should really do is invest in email campaign software that helps automate the more repetitive tasks. Things like managing un-subscriptions, performance analysis, email design and email scheduling are just a few of the benefits of good email marketing software. Generally, prices range from $10/month all the way to a couple thousand if your list is very big, but chances are that you will be in the $10/month range for quite a while as you begin to grow your list. There are multiple software programs available and a simple Google search will bring up a handful of good ones, but ultimately the point of email marketing software is to help you focus on two things, and they are performance testing and writing great content.

Performance Testing

One of the most important tasks of any email marketer is performance testing. This involves segmenting your list and then simply trying various calls to action, designs, button placement and so-on. After making a few changes and sending a fresh newsletter, record the results and then make changes again. Over time you will notice that a certain combination of text, calls to action and layout consistently perform the best. This is one way professional email marketers get such good results, it’s because they test! Now, it’s not very easy to test your emails on your own, especially as your email list grows, but great email marketing software will help automate this aspect by literally tracking exactly which subscribers open and respond to your emails. This, in my opinion, is one of the greatest benefits of email marketing software.

Content

The other important benefit of email marketing software is that it lets you focus on content. Now, there are many different theories on what makes great content for an email marketing newsletter, but generally, it’s important to consider your audience first. I notice that many new email marketers focus their newsletters too much on their own business, which of course is important to you but boring for most everyone else. Because of this, it’s important to consider your audience and make your material unique and interesting. Simply including a poll, a few links to beneficial “how-to” articles or even interviewing someone in the field and providing a download to the audio file in the email will do wonders for your conversion rates and subscriber retention. Remember, nobody …

Discover How To Automate Your Marketing For Ultimate Leverage And Freedom

If you own a business you have probably contemplated how to automate your marketing for ultimate leverage and freedom. Many people go into business to do something they love to do. But then reality comes along.

In order to continue doing what they love and make enough money to stay open, they need to make money. Making money requires customers. Gaining customers requires sales and marketing. These become full-time jobs and soon there is not enough time left to do what they love doing. But they cannot just close down in many instances. Money has been invested and must be recovered. And so these owners feel trapped.

Perhaps this has happened to you and you are looking for a way out of this trap. Maybe you have not yet experienced this and are looking to avoid this situation. If so, then automating your marketing may be just what you are looking for.

This process takes most, if not all, of the work out of finding potential customers. Through various methods, both online and offline, people find out about the goods and services you offer. They respond, putting their name into an automated system. They are then given information in stages by the system until they are screened out or until they buy.

You, as the owner of the business, supply the information for the system. After all, who knows the business better than you do? This information is then organized and inserted into the proper sequence.

With diligent study, you can learn these steps and do them by yourself. But, if you are like many people, and you would rather not go through this effort, you can outsource. Many companies exist that focus solely on setting up such marketing processes.

Once the system is fully implemented, it attracts prospective buyers twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It never sleeps, nor goes on vacation. All for a price far less than you would pay one worker to help a few hours a day. Once it is up and running, you can almost forget about it. The system will need updated information from time to time, like if you add new products or services.

However, once the system is functioning, you no longer need to go find customers yourself. The automated process does it for you. You are then free to concentrate on doing what you went in business to do.

So, if you are tired of chasing after business, then you may be ready for this step. You may wish to learn more about how to automate your marketing for ultimate leverage and freedom. Make sure that you do your homework to find the best solution for your circumstances.…

Smart Marketing Strategies For Small Business – Part 5 – How to Develop Your Marketing Message

Smart marketing strategies are simply not an option for the small business owner. Today’s economic conditions are generating fierce competition for the same dollars spent on products and services. There is a trend toward social media marketing and many small business owners are not prepared. The challenges are many, and there has never been a better time to get down to business and discover how to be the smartest marketer in your field. It will payoff in spades, as they say!

In previous articles, we discussed understanding your major goals, understanding your target market, and understanding your customer. We even talked about determining your niche correctly and narrowly. Now, let’s talk about your actual marketing message.

It’s Called an “Elevator Speech”

I went to a marketing conference in Las Vegas earlier this year and we got together in small groups for about an hour to figure out our “elevator speech.” It was time well spent, and it wasn’t as easy as you might think. The idea is to be prepared to answer the question, “What do you do?” if you get into an elevator with someone and they ask the question, and you just have enough time to go up or down a few floors and answer the question. In other words, it has to be short and snappy, and get the point across. I’ve actually developed two of these “elevator speeches” – one is very short – about 10 seconds long, and the other is about twice as long – no more than 30 seconds.

When you work on this, do it with someone who knows what you do, and will be honest with you. Also, pick the brightest and most creative person you can to partner with you on this. You want someone who’s good with words. Have a notebook handy and write it down. You’ll end up scratching out a few of them, but keep at it and soon you’ll have it down. Then memorize it and test it on some people. You may even want to revise it after some use and testing.

Note: You’ll want to refine this short marketing message into your bio on Twitter.

Your Complete Marketing Message

This is the information that you will include in all your marketing materials – business cards, flyers, post cards, Facebook Business Pages. Remember, this marketing message needs to accomplish two things: 1) It will tell what you do, and 2) It will give information to persuade people to become your customer or client.

Here are some thoughts about what to include in your complete marketing message:

Define your prospect’s problem

Give proof that this problem is urgent enough it should be solved immediately

Tell why you have the perfect answer to the problem

Give benefits your clients will receive

Provide testimonials

Explain pricing and payment options

Always include an unconditional guarantee (decide on a time line – 30, 60, …

4 Steps For Building a Small Business

Setting up a productive and successful small business is very difficult endeavor. It’s actually dependent on numerous external variables, such as competitors, timing and demand from customers, that you’ve got hardly any control over at first. If every one of these external variables are to your advantage, developing a good business strategy may lead to having a profitable small business. Listed below are 5 steps to take into account when you are setting up your small business from the ground-up:

1. Decide on your small business. What exactly are you selling?

Tricky question, for sure. For instance, Nike is within the sportswear business, but the fact is any time you purchase a set of Nike sneakers along with a t-shirt in the shopping mall you are purchasing much more than sportswear – you are purchasing a perception, a sensation. You’re purchasing the Nike brand. Don’t forget, there is much more to a product than, well, the product. Your brand name is the thing that sets your product apart from your competition.

2. Choose your market. Who will be your targeted customer?

This step is not hard as the first, although it is just as important. Who will be your customer? What do you know about that particular person? Knowing your customer is usually a way to success. What exactly are they are doing? The place do they really hang around? Precisely what do they watch on tv? These are just some of the questions which you must be able to answer regarding your customer. Figuring out the answers to these questions can answer a great deal of your concerns in terms of creating an advertising and marketing approach. This power to comprehend your consumer’s need could only be a consequence of knowing them just like your neighbors.

3. Develop your advertising and marketing approach. How would you speak with these persons?

It is a final comprehension of your brand and your customer. As said before in number 2, comprehension of your customer can answer a great deal of questions with regards to your advertising and marketing approach: Where must you advertise? What’s the style of your respective brand? What sort of pricing is affordable for this market? So that you can interact with your customer, a.k.a. sell your merchandise directly to them, you must understand exactly where your ads are going to be seen, how to talk to them, and exactly how much they should be able to spend, among the other things. Seriously, this step ought to have been combined with previous simply because who your market is determines your advertising and marketing approach completely.

4. Find similar circumstances. Seek the advice of people who have done it.

There are numerous training books published by experts who have previously began their very own small business and also have succeeded in them.

Keep in mind, setting up a profitable small business isn’t just about the money. Nearly as important is your brand as …

The Power of Multimedia Vignettes

So, how do you harness the power of your organization and put it in the hands of your salespeople? How do you cut through all the internet clutter, the barrage of messages and information, so your business stands out from your competition? The answer comes from using the internet in a different way from everyone else.

Enter the world of multimedia vignettes – small nuggets of knowledge – points of view – insights – presented to your customers in dynamic and efficient ways. Knowledge driven by PowerPoint builds, e-mails, audio or even video footage taken from a device as simple as a Flip camera.

Imagine being able to take your latest survey data and translate the raw information into a high-quality vignette, including screen shots and a voice-over, that your sales force would be happy to use. Imagine being able to send this vignette out, like breaking news, a couple of hours after receiving your data.

Vignettes can be the crucial difference in demand generation. A recent survey of one company’s sales people showed a 71% improvement in response rate when an e-mail was sent with a link to a vignette. Potential customers watched the vignettes instead of just ignoring an e-mail or sales call. The customer responded to the sales person because of the value generated by the message vignette. So a short, tight, simple vignette with the promise of an exciting interaction can dramatically enhance the response to your sales program.

The vignette allows your sales staff to cut through the clutter, bringing power to their approach for all aspects of the sale, including call preparation, appointment setting and post-meeting follow up.

Affordability is one of the many benefits of the vignette. Costly, time-consuming production methods are a thing of the past. And quality doesn’t have to suffer because the vignette is less expensive than the old multimedia production methods. You only have to look at YouTube to experience the kind of slick, eye-catching messages that people around the globe produce quickly and inexpensively.

The vignette is perfect for simplifying a complex idea or making an abstract idea easier to understand. When you factor in convenience and the power of information technology, the stellar importance of the vignette comes shining through.

In today’s world, outstanding, relevant messages must be delivered rapidly to your customer. Businesses don’t have the luxury of waiting three months to create and deliver content. The multimedia vignette gives your message ultimate flexibility and on-demand precision. Marketing automation, a sales tool that tracks data and allows your marketers to hold meaningful “conversations” with your customers, can help you manage your entire sales process, including vignette creation.…

B2B Marketing – White Papers and Marketing Automation

Online marketing offers B2B marketers the opportunity to reach millions of potential clients around the globe, but the early phases of your online efforts can feel a bit lonely.

Working online will often make you feel like you’re standing in the middle of an empty field yelling about your amazing service. Everything you say is both true and potentially compelling, but no one is around to hear, and more importantly, act on what you’re saying.

B2B marketers often feel this way upon the completion of a great new white paper. They’ve developed clear and helpful content and their deliverable is expertly designed, and the executives are excited about the potential results.

So what now? Obviously, online is the only realistic distribution method for white papers and other thought leadership pieces, but simply offering the paper on your website fails to leverage the capabilities of online marketing.

The value of marketing automation

In the online space, user attention spans are incredibly short. Even if someone goes through the trouble of providing the necessary information to download your content, it’s probable that you’ll never hear from them again. Marketing automation, however, allows your company to maintain top-of-mind awareness among these lukewarm leads while allowing your sales organization to focus on following-up only on the hot leads.

So, for example, let’s say you require a bit of contain information in exchange for your new paper or report. When the contact downloads the paper, their information is sent to the marketing automation platform. The best systems will then score the lead based on the data the entered. If the lead’s profile is rated highly, the lead’s info is passed to sales; anyone who falls below the preset benchmark is sent into a nurturing, or drip, campaign.

The nurturing campaign then sends the lead information from your company weekly or a few times a month. This content usually consists of other white papers, case studies, reports, and other helpful and interesting information. Ideally, your content both helps them do their job better while positioning your company as a thought leader in your space.

This scenario is a very high-level view of how white papers and marketing automation work together. Without a strong white paper distribution strategy, however, your b2b marketing plan will fail to leverage the invsetment you’ve already made in creating your white paper.…

Cleaning Business Dilemma – Subcontractors Or Employees?

As a small business owner of a cleaning company, one of the challenges you faces on how to run a cleaning business is the cost-effectiveness of your decisions. Since the house cleaning business is a business that involves the selling of services rather than products, it is quite difficult to decide as to whether you should hire employees or simply work with subcontractors.

Employees

Having employees and personnel in your company does have its own benefits too. For one, you can have some people that you can rely on, especially on how to run a cleaning business – during the times when you are not around. Plus, these are people whom you have trained, thus can do the job as you expect it to be done. The only thing about having employees is that aside from paying them their salaries, which by the way, must not be below the minimum wage set by the government, you also have to provide them with their other employee benefits such as sick leave, vacation leave with pay, and other allowances. In other words, aside from their salaries, you are obliged to provide them with their employee compensations as required

by the government.

However, if you are a good employer, most of your employees will definitely stay with you and you will have skilled and experienced staff in your company, which is a plus point on your cleaning business’ marketing. So basically, it’s a give and take situation – you pay them, provide them their compensations, and in return, you get reliable, skilled, and experienced staff that can make your company.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are independent contractors that you hire only for a certain job. They are not employed by you. So you simply pay them their fee, and that’s about it. However, having subcontractors means having the same company to work for you, but the people they send are not the same. The only focus is to get the job that you hired them for, done. If you are just starting out, you can hire subcontractors to help you accommodate your cleaning jobs. However, when you are fully operational with a steady pool of clients, you might be better off with employees – it is financially more practical too.

On the other hand, hiring subcontractors to accommodate the extra services that you offer is also a good idea, since these services are not asked for often. Plus, your subcontractors can also be one of your cleaning business’ marketing tools – they can tell their other clients about you too.

It’s your house cleaning business and you call the shots. Just see what is practical and cost-effective for you and go for it.…