Check out the email I received earlier today (this is how it looked in my Gmail inbox): Not much to see, is it? The business that sent this email made a classic mistake. It created its email with images only. No text. Just a bunch of images mashed together. Many businesses like to do this [...]
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How to Build a Long- Lasting Relationship with First-Timers
In a previous post, I applauded online coupon vendors that deliver a flood of new customers to you. But after the first-time customer redeems the coupon, then what? Your challenge is to maximize the lifetime value of customer relationships. These goals apply whether you acquire the customer through couponing or some other tactic. Turn first-time [...]
Nonprofits Need to Separate Prospects from Suspects Before Pressing “Send”
My 18-year-old cousin received an email from a non-profit last month, promoting the organization’s new planned giving web site and inviting him to register for a free webinar about the topic. After opting-out from the non-profit’s mailing list, my cousin emailed me and asked, “Why would they send me this junk?” My reply, “Because you [...]
Online Coupons are Great, But Then What?
A confession: I’m a Hot Sauce junky. I’m not talking about the peppery extract you sprinkle on food. I’m talking the online coupon vendor that delivers daily deals from local businesses. Every morning, I dash to my computer and check my inbox for my daily fix – an offer to purchase products or services at [...]
Tom Ruwitch Featured on Tiny Business, Mighty Profits
Our friend Russ Henneberry has a great blog called Tiny Business, Mighty Profits. I was honored to have Russ invite me to be intereviewed on his internet radio show that he includes on the blog. In the 40-minute discussion, archived on the site, we discussed: Learn: The 3 reasons you shouldn’t be using Outlook, Gmail, [...]
Marketing to the Maybes – How Non-Profits Should Court Prospects
Imagine you’re single, looking for a new long-term relationship. You enter a room full of strangers and see someone whom you find attractive. You walk over, introduce yourself, and converse. You deliver some of your best material—funny anecdotes about yourself, details about your high-powered career, evidence of your passionate, yet sensitive side. The stranger is [...]
Is Your Domain Easy to Remember and Easy to Spell?
I heard a radio advertisement recently for the financial advisory firm Raymond James. The advertisement directed listeners to visit LifeWellPlanned.com. What a great domain name! Enter that address in your browser, and you’ll jump straight to RaymondJames.com. Why does the company bother with the second domain? Because the alternative domain trumpets key selling points (we’ll [...]
Find the Real Prospects in Your Database
Does your business have strategies and tactics to separate prospects from suspects? We all have databases full of people we call “leads” and “prospects.” But if we don’t plan to weed out the bad ones before we identify and cultivate the good ones, we waste time cultivating weeds that never blossom. Imagine you run a [...]
Navigating Your Way to A User-Friendly Web Site
Is your web site easy to navigate? If visitors can’t navigate your site quickly and easily, they’ll flee. When we build sites, we ask our clients to imagine their clients’ agendas. What are visitors expecting to do when on your site? The answers will vary for different audiences. For example, some visitors may be clients [...]
Hooray for Habitat for Humanity – Great Email Marketing
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 [...]
