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 [...]
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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.
Court The Maybes To Increase Sales
As I drove to my office this morning, I heard a radio advertisement for a local technology firm (let’s call it Acme Technologies) that sells a service I might need. At the end of the ad, the spokesman recited the firm’s toll-free telephone number and said, “Call today to get started.”
“I’m not ready to get started,” I thought. “I may be interested soon, but not today.”
I didn’t call. In a few weeks, if I’m more ready to buy, I may remember the ad and may call the firm. Meanwhile, Acme has no idea I exist and no way to court me further.
Thousands of people heard that ad. Most are like me. We are the maybes. Marketers frequently ignore us.
If you want to sell more, you must court the maybes.
