I just plowed through my inbox after an afternoon of meetings and came across the monthly email newsletter from Habitat for Humanity St. Louis, one of our long-time clients. I had to put aside what I was doing to write this shout-out for Habitat. Aside from the fact that it’s a great cause, Habitat produces [...]
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Read this only if you want to be a better marketer
The following is a special invitation from my friend Skip Bryan. Skip and his partner Bill Hebert are two of the best marketers I know. They run St. Louis Marketing Experts (GKIC – St. Louis). They’ve invited me to speak at the “Results Based Marketing Seminar” — a great event on Tuesday, August 10, 2-4 [...]
Marketing Lessons from the Jackson 5
Remember the Jackson 5 hit “I Want You Back?” Michael and his brothers sing, “Oh baby give me one more chance (show you that I love you). Won’t you please let me (back in your heart)?” You should add this song to your marketing playlist. Reach out to your former customers and tell them you [...]
Three Tips to Make Your Copy Less Boring and More Persuasive
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 [...]
The Wisdom of Yogi: Segment to Sell
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 [...]
Focus On List-Building To Strengthen Your Greatest Asset
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.
Email Signatures Can Generate Leads
Do you have an email signature? If you’re like most people, you may have one that lists your name and basic contact information, but you most likely don’t see it as a marketing opportunity.
You should think of your email signature as an opportunity to promote your business and capture leads.
Here’s the signature I use for people who are not already MarketVolt clients:
p.s. Get Free E-Mail Marketing Tips:
“10 Secrets to Write Email Subject Lines that Sell”
http://www.marketvolt.com/SubjectlineTips
p.p.s. Please check out my twitter feed — http://twitter.com/marketvolt.
Daily interactive marketing tips and other ideas and observations to help you grow your business.
(My contact info follows the p.s. and p.p.s)
The Hidden Risk of Hosting Your Email Broadcasts
I recently got a call from a former prospect who is president of a company here in St. Louis. To save money, he chose not to work with MarketVolt, and instead installed a free email marketing application on his company’s servers. After a few months of sending email newsletters to a list of people who all had opted in, he began to notice a problem:
A certain internet service provider — a big one that serves many of the people on his list — was blocking delivery of the email newsletter. But worse yet, that internet service provider was blocking all emails sent from the company’s network.
Not only were the newsletters being blocked, but emails from the company president to individuals who host their email boxes with that internet service provider.
“What can I do?” he asked me.