Interactive Marketing Tips, News and Other Useful Information

Join MarketVolt’s  Tom Ruwitch at the St. Louis Business Expo on March 18 at 11:30 a.m. for “How to Move Prospects from ‘Maybe’ to ‘Yes!’ Using Interactive Marketing.” You can put more leads into the sales funnel and convert more to customers if you understand how to market to the maybes. Tom will reveal proven strategies and tactics to connect with those who are not ready buyers but who are willing to raise their hand and ask for more information. And he will reveal how to turn those maybes into customers — with [...] Continue Reading…

John Reese, one of the world’s top internet marketers, quit twitter yesterday.  He left behind 25,000 followers! In a note to his email list, Reese said, “About a year ago, I really loved Twitter.  It was a lot of fun and it was great for communicating with people and for getting into all sorts of discussions. But as Twitter has grown, it’s become full of NOISE. Even, though, my follower count has risen, the response to my tweets has been on a steady decline.”

In his final Twitter posts on March 1, Reese said the response rate to his tweets [...] Continue Reading…

While Snickers, Doritos, Go Daddy, Budweiser and the other usual suspects get props for their entertaining Super Bowl ads, I award my top prize to an ad that few are discussing: Honda’s “Everybody Knows Somebody…”

In case you missed it:  The spot opened with a still shot of a couple leaning against a Honda vehicle, parked beside a lake. A women’s voice says, “My boyfriend has one.” As the image slides to the left, a man’s voice (presumably the “boyfriend”) says, “My older sister has one.” A new image slides into the screen with a young woman (the “older sister” [...] Continue Reading…

The following is an excerpt from 7 Proven Ways to Make Your Marketing Messages More Persuasive, available for download at www.marketvolt.com/persuasion…

We’ve all heard the phrase, “You owe me one.” That’s a powerful concept that you can use to your benefit when marketing. If you offer something to prospects, they will be more inclined to say “yes” when you ultimately make your sales pitch. They wish to reciprocate. When they used to solicit in airports, Hare Krishnas would hand small flowers to people before asking for a donation. The Krishnas noticed that many people would refuse the request and toss [...] Continue Reading…

Have you seen the cool video on my web site about internet marketing? If not, you can watch it at www.marketvolt.com/video.

Many people who read that opening paragraph will follow my suggestion and watch the video. In fact, some who read this column at a computer may have jumped to the video before even reading this far.

How do I know? Because video works. The promise of video drives people to web sites, and the presence of video converts prospects to customers. If you want to drive traffic and convert prospects (what business doesn’t?), it’s time for you to join the [...] Continue Reading…

Clients ask me all the time how they can improve the performance of their email marketing campaigns. Nine times out of 10, their writing needs to improve. If you fill your emails with boring, unpersuasive copy, you will have bored, un-persuaded readers.  It doesn’t matter what you offer or how good the deal. If your copy suffers, your sales will lag. So here are a three tips to strengthen your copy and improve your sales.

No. 1: Use the “Why Should I Care? Filter to Distill Core Benefits from Your Copy. I met last month with a client who wanted [...] Continue Reading…

Raise your hand if your company has an email newsletter that is more boring than the St. Louis Rams’ offense?  Raise your hand if your company’s email newsletter seems like an aimless collection of information snippets and meaningless factoids.

Raise your hand if you’d rather eat liver and onions (no condiments allowed), with a side of Brussels sprouts, than read another boring, aimless newsletter.

OK…Put your hands down (Wow! That was a lot of hands in the air).  Grab a pencil.  It’s time for a little homework assignment.  Make a list of at least five specific goals or milestones you have [...] Continue Reading…

Yogi Berra once said, “If people don’t want to come to the ballpark, how are you gonna stop them?”

I love that quote, and I think about it often as I work with clients on their marketing campaigns. In his charming, convoluted way, Yogi presented a very basic but essential marketing principle: It’s far easier to tap someone’s desire than to create desire in someone who doesn’t have it. If you want to fill the ballpark, identify and market to the baseball fans rather than trying to “stop” nonfans from choosing another option.

Email marketers often forget this [...] Continue Reading…

A friend of mine recently was on the verge of selling his small business, but the deal collapsed. The business was profitable and growing, and the prospective buyer liked the numbers. But the deal tanked when the prospect asked to see the customer list. When my friend replied that he had not been collecting emails and other contact information from most of his customers and prospects, the prospective buyer bolted.

The prospect knew that a business is only as good as its list. Sure, your business may be making money and even growing. But you limit your potential to grow your business if you do not have a good, clean, homegrown list of prospects, customers, and former customers. [...] Continue Reading…

The following article appeared in the May 2009 issue of St. Louis Small Business Monthly

By Tom Ruwitch

Last month, I wrote about Domino’s and how it cornered the pizza delivery business with its outstanding unique selling proposition (if you missed it, you can find the column by searching for “pizza” on www.sbmon.com. Here are more lessons from the pizza parlor, but in this case we’re learning from the Domino’s mistakes.

Domino’s was in the news a few weeks ago. If you believe the PR mantra “all news is good news,” you didn’t see the YouTube video in which a Domino’s employee [...] Continue Reading…