Successful Customer Follow Up

Email is back!

Despite repeated proclamations of its extinction, rumors of the death of email marketing have been greatly exaggerated — especially since email and social media are a powerful combination. You might not reach the average college freshman, but for slightly older types (you know, the ones with the money), email is still the way to go in many lucrative mainstream niches.
You must first, of course, get your emails read. And it all starts with the subject line.
Email subject lines are a form of headline. They perform the same function as a headline by attracting attention and getting your email content a chance to be read.
So, headline fundamentals still apply. But the context is different, with the email space having its own funky little quirks that need to be accounted for.
Here’s the good news — email also implies a special relationship with the reader; a relationship that will get more of your messages read, even with subject lines that wouldn’t work in other headline contexts. So, in the next few days, we’ll take a look back at headline fundamentals, the specifics that apply to subject lines, and the “secret sauce” that makes email your top conversion channel.

1. The Fundamentals: Using a checklist

2. The Specifics: Beyond headline fundamentals

3. The Secret Sauce: Getting someone to trust you with their email address is not easy

http://www.copyblogger.com/email-subject-lines/

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder and CEO of Copyblogger

Listening to the news will besiege you with Doom and Gloom about the economy. Yeah, times are tough for many, but they don’t have to be for you. That’s why I really want you to read this article from  my friend MaryEllen Tribby. She’s a working mom and has all the same challenges you and I face everyday (including the economy), yet she’s created 3 multi-million dollar businesses from scratch and building more! It goes without saying, she’s got some great insights we all can learn from. So, check this out, you can thank me later.

In Tough Economic Times: Market Smarter, Not Harder

By MaryEllen Tribby

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is a motto your more resilient and clever CEO’s and marketing professionals
adopt while their meek counter parts tend to bury their heads in the sand during these tough economic times.

Yes, times are still tough, and people are still scared regardless of their current income level.

And rightly so, many people who are in decision-making jobs feel a sense of responsibility to their employers, their
colleagues and their staff. Very often these folks have a knee-jerk reaction and cut marketing dollars before weighing the
consequences.

In reality, cutting your marketing budget in a bad economy is the last thing you should do. This is not the time to focus
less on marketing … rather the opposite. The beauty of marketing in the 21st century is that many of the marketing channels
available to you are cheap, easy and fast to execute.

The cost of entry has never been lower (and I am not just talking email marketing), there has never been more niche markets
available and it has never been easier with today’s technology to accurately measure the impact of your marketing efforts and
make educated decisions about going forward to plan cohesive multi-channeled marketing campaigns.

Smart companies that continue to grow and prosper during hard economic times understand the value of multi-channel
marketing:

* Create strong customer relationships.
Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of multi-channel marketing is that it provides great customer relationship-building
opportunities. Direct mail and email allow you to stay in front of your customers while letting the customer learn about your
product on their own schedule. Telemarketing allows you to provide additional information and answer questions
your customers may have.

Regardless of which channels you use you should never promise anything that you aren’t going to be able to deliver. In
fact, you should always be over delivering on the promises you make in your marketing
copy. Remember that integrity is the key.

* Choose efforts that help you pick the low hanging fruit.

Never forget to market most often and most strongly to those loyal customers who buy from you. Direct email
marketing, well written and based on a compelling offer, is critical. It is easy to implement and extremely cost effective -
allowing you to communicate with your customers as much as you (and they) want. It also gives you the ability to test, see
what’s working, and quickly react to generate more sales. It allows you to make your message as timely and relevant as
possible.

For the most part, direct e-marketing is a two-step process. The first process is to develop a list of people who will accept
your promotional messages. This list is built through the use of banner ads, insert ads and asking for your customers’ email
addresses. The second step is to send them your direct response promotions. These are usually longer sales letters, much like
direct mail.

* Some forms of marketing don’t cost you a dime.

You can create online buzz about your product through social media. This can take on many forms: online forums, message
boards, blogs, video blogs, and social networks (such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc.). Use social media methods to
stimulate conversation about you, your business, and your products.  The key is to be genuine. To ensure the buzz is positive,
you have to promote yourself gradually and organically by developing real relationships with your desired audience on
targeted social media sites.

It is also imperative that you are involved in the conversation on your own site. To ignore your own customers (on your website
or others) is an unforgivable mistake in today’s interconnected world. You must always be answering their questions,
responding to their complaints, exploring opportunities, announcing new products, listing upcoming events, and reminding them
of deadlines. The list is endless.

* Want to drum up great PR? Get to know the media.

Of the many channels of marketing, public relations is one that every business should embrace. That’s because it is nearly
free. If you have a good writer on staff, your only cost will be the event you are publicizing and the small amount it takes
to mail or email out your own press release.  When it works, it really works, going from regional to national to
international faster than it takes to write up a conventional advertising campaign. The trick is creating successful, newsworthy
stories.

It’s very important to target your press releases to specific publications and media outlets whose customers you want to reach.
Rather than sending out 1,000 general press releases about a story that has general appeal, it’s much more effective to send
out a dozen or so targeted press releases containing stories that are exactly right for the intended audiences. It’s simply
quality vs. quantity.

* Don’t go it alone.

Many small businesses balk at the idea of joint ventures. They don’t like the idea of splitting revenues. They like selling their own products
because they keep 100% of the revenues. This is the kind of thinking that destroys a business. When a joint venture is executed properly,
it doesn’t subtract from the business it adds to the business. There are many ways to do joint ventures and the best ones are those that pair
up businesses with asymmetrical resources and skills.

To find your joint venture “soul mate” think about the major players in your marketplace. Consider the strengths and
weaknesses of each.  Ask yourself how you might benefit from working with them. Make a list of potential partners and develop a
strategy to approach them and show them how they could benefit from doing business with you. The idea is to develop joint venture
relationships that are easy to maintain, financially profitable, intellectually rewarding, and long lasting.

Regardless of how many channels you use and which ones they are, smart companies understand ROI (return on investment).

If you see a company, perhaps one of your competitors advertising often and in multiple channels — chances are it is a
healthy company. Study that company, is there something they are doing that you can implement.

If you are interested in expanding your company’s reach, try incorporating multi- channel marketing campaigns into your
business model. But to make sure you spend the appropriate amount of time on each channel (for the revenue generated) check
out my #1 Amazon.com best-seller, Changing the Channel: 12 Easy Ways to Make Millions for Your Business

Today we have a guest contributor that wrote on a topic that many small business owners need to know. I first saw Bob Bly at a seminar in Boca Raton, Florida that was sponsored by Rich Schefren. Bob Bly is someone I admire and respect. His insight into direct marketing is excellent.

Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber:
To determine how much they can afford to spend to get a new
customer, many marketers base that figure on the average size of
the first order.

Therefore, if the front-end product or service is $500, they
won’t spend anywhere near that to acquire the customer, for fear
of operating at break-even or even a loss. If they want to double
their money on the promotion, the most they’ll spend to make the
sale is $250.

But savvy marketers know that the amount of money you can spend
to acquire a new customer should be based on the customer’s
lifetime value, not just the revenue from the first order.

Lifetime value refers to how much money your customer is likely
to spend with you during the period he remains a customer of your
business.

For instance, if the average unit of sale is $500, the average
number of purchases per year is two, and the average customer
remains a customer for 5 years, the lifetime customer value is
$500 X 2 X 5 = $5,000.

Based on the average lifetime value, you can see where it would
in fact be well worth spending $500 to acquire a new customer.

The business owner who understands lifetime customer value as it
relates to customer acquisition has a tremendous advantage: He is
willing to spend more to acquire new business, because he knows
its true value.

Example: A company selling books to corporate librarians planned
a marketing campaign to get new corporate accounts to start
ordering books from them.

I asked the owner what he would be willing to spend to get a new
account. He said about $300.

Forget advertising, I advised. Just open up an account for every
company you want as a customer – and put $300 in it!

Send each prospect a personal letter telling them they already
have an account with you — and that it contains $300 they can
use at any time this year.

Instead of a sales or marketing campaign, my client gave the
money he would have spent to generate leads and makes sales calls
directly to his key prospects, so they could try the service at
no cost. It worked like a charm!

Today online trading services use the same tactic. They send you
a letter telling you they have opened an account for you with $75
or so in it. You get the money when you do your first trade.

Need to stimulate business? Calculate lifetime customer value,
decide what percentage of that amount you want to spend on
acquiring new customers (10% is a common figure), and invest that
amount of money to acquire new customers.

It will likely be more than your competitors think they can
spend, giving you a huge edge in winning new business.

Sincerely,
Bob Bly
Copywriter / Consultant
590 Delcina Drive
River Vale, NJ 07675
Phone 201-505-9451
Fax 201-573-4094
www.bly.com

Help! My Business Sucks is the brainchild of Andrew Lock. here is an sample of his one hundredth show.

When it comes to developing continuous relationships with customers, but also continuously marketing to them, putting together an email marketing strategy and plan is crucial for many companies to do. Email marketing campaigns are inexpensive compared to other marketing techniques like television and billboard advertising, while being useful and targeting your market. Using email-marketing software helps to carry out marketing promotions and campaigns to existing customers and to leads that can become customers to your company.

The strategy of email marketing software is raising conversion rates with your marketing efforts. The higher your conversion rate, the better sales you will have and more profit you will in turn make. However, the dilemma here is that a marketing strategy is needed to turn potential clients into paying customers, or inactive clients into paying ones, through a follow up purchase.

Developing a Customer Service Relationship

The first thing to consider when using the email marketing strategy is that you should be able to develop relationships with clients prior to throwing advertisements or promotions at them. Often times it will take about seven email messages to be sent before someone will buy a product or service from you. Once this number is reached, the chances for purchases from other individuals on your list increases exponentially.

The strategy now relies on what you should do and say in the first seven or so emails you send out with the automated email marketing software. You can use this time as a sort of trial honeymoon period for the relationship between your business and new leads. Regardless of how it seems, the first few emails are undoubtedly a trial to your new subscribers.

During this trial period, you need to offer useful information. Consider sending messages through your Email Marketing Software that include “top ten” lists of important things your contacts should know. Make your Email Marketing messages seem like staying enrolled in your mailing list is worth pure gold to them by giving solid information about solutions to your subscribers’ problems.

In this time, it is important to offer helpful tips and useful information. Consider messages to send that include top ten lists of valuable facts your contacts should know when you are using the email marketing software. Make the automated messages seem fresh and have clients want to stay enrolled on your list. Make them feel as though this information is a solution to their problems, or potentially good advice for the future.

It is the Time to Begin Marketing

After a relationship is established with customers and leads through your email marketing software, advertisements and marketing promotions can begin to be solicited. Sending out emails of product endorsements, affiliate marketing links, as well as new product or service announcements are great examples.

However, be aware that you do not flood your client contact list with messages that are too frequent. Using the email marketing software, you can time emails to be sent appropriately spaced out: bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly or just about any other interval time period. Even after beginning to send promotions, continue to nurture your clients with valuable tips and important information to keep clients consistent in checking your email.

The whole email marketing process used with the email marketing software can help to create, manage, and send successful campaigns from beginning to end. There are all kinds of programs today that easily help create email marketing campaigns and databases. This allows business owners and marketers to focus more on marketing techniques and less on the technicalities.

Of course, you probably will not become an email-marketing guru over night. But, the sooner you start, the sooner you can begin building this new skill, which with today’s intuitive software will happen rapidly. One you really get good, you’ll be amazed at the ROI that email marketing can produce.

Despite any advice you take, you will not become a successful email marketer instantaneously. Though, the sooner you start, the sooner you can begin to expand on new found technique and skill in marketing, which will rapidly increase your success. When you are quite talented at utilizing email marketing you will see the improvement in sales that it can make.