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Casual Articles - New Era Of Marketing - Emails
Start a Bookkeeping Business - How Do You Find the Perfect Business Name? · Choosing a professional business name for your bookkeeping business will be one of the most important decisions you make. You want to choose a name that projects the ideal image of how you want your business to be perceived. Easier said than done, right?To show you how important this process is, let me share a story that happened to me:A few years ago I made the mistake of choosing a really bad name for my first bookkeeping business. I called it “Esquire Business Services” which I thought was a great name because I thought the word “Esquire” gave the business a legal sounding name.I thought that this name would project the image of someone who was smart and knew what they were doing. Boy was I wrong!I found out later that people who called and got my answering machine were confused by my message and thought that they had reached an escort service! I finally realized I had a bad business name when a lawyer actually phoned my answering machine and he laughed so hard he couldn’t stop! Even a professional lawyer didn’t understand my “clever” name!Hopefully I haven’t scared you, but I just want to show you that do you have to be very careful when naming your business. The cost and the headache of having to change it or start all over can totally set your business back (if not completely destroy it!)It’ll take some serious consideration but once you come across some names that you like, put the whole thing aside for about a week. Let the names percolate in your brain during this time.When you come back to your list after the week is over and one of the names “grabs” you, then that’s the one you should choose. Please note, however, that you may have to submit three names as you may not get your first choice. So pick your first, second and third choices wisely to make sure that you’re equally enamored with them all.Remember you’ll have to live with your business name for years to come so make sure you really love it. Compared to other media investments such as direct mail or printed newsletters, it is less expensive. · Return on investment has proven to be high when done properly. · It is instant, as opposed to a mailed advertisement, an e-mail arrives in a few seconds or minutes. · It lets the advertiser "push" the message to its audience, as opposed to a website that waits for customers to come in. · It is easy to track. An advertiser can track users via web bugs, bounce messages, un-subscribes, read-receipts, click-throughs, etc. These can be used to measure open rates, positive or negative responses, corrolate sales with marketing. · Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in (consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them · When most people switch on their computer the first thing they do is check their e-mail. · Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered. With above benefits it comes with some bad effects too. Spam, the main danger of email marketing sometimes creates hindrance in taking benefits as part of email marketing. Mainly email marketing is used by companies to interact with their customers whereas spam can be d Mind Your Own Damn Business Sexcess INTRODUCTIONYou have certainly heard the expression “mind your own damn business” used in a multitude of contexts. The most typical being the don’t kiss and tell type statements, often uttered by responsibly private individuals about their love life.Then there are the polar opposite, blabbermouth, tell all people (you know who you are) that just can’t keep their preverbal trap shut.Many may believe that there are specific gender biases towards kissing and telling, yet this remains unproven scientifically.So what the heck does this have to do with business and let alone success?Consider what happens when you replace “the love life” portion of the kissing and telling story with “your or your employers business”!All of a sudden it hits you. Your success in business can be inextricably affected by what comes out of your or your employee’s mouths.Here’s a short, but true, story for you about a salesman that was furious about something while he was out to lunch, at a small caf?.This built up anger was taken out on a waitress, who was one of four high school kids working there for the summer. He was loud, rude, and flat out disrespectful to the girl, and his overreaction to the situation brought tears to the waitress’s eyes.The three other kids watched and intently listened to the entire incident.One of the two boys behind the counter said, “I know that guy. I’ve seen him in my father’s office.”Remarkably, each of the four high school kids had a parent who was a doctor. They found out from the boy’s father that the angry customer was a salesman for a pharmaceutical company.Then and there, each kid planned to tell their parents not to do business with that salesman.Everybody knows somebody, so remember being nice to someone might not get you a client, but being mean to someone could kill your business, even if it’s a kid.So kissing and telling, good, bad or indifferent, stories can obviously have a dramatic impact on your bottom line. In this new era of CAN-SPAM legislation, overflowing inboxes and ever-increasing customer expectations, many of the practices that worked for emailers in the past simply won’t work anymore.The companies that can boast the most effective email programs today have been successful because they’ve completely overhauled their way of thinking . They have changed their strategy from blasting to an unsuspecting audience, to communicating with a willing and increasingly loyal customer base. According to Darwin’s Theory those who are most fit will survive the competition. Recipient’s inbox is no different. To make an email program succeed and thrive , marketers need to constantly evolve their email programs to improve relevancy. Many of the lessons learned when email was in its infancy remain as valuable today. But a lot has changed. Email marketers are now operating in a radically different environment. Customers are far more sophisticated than they were a few years ago, and they have come to expect much more from the companies they interact with electronically. Without change of mindset or without understanding the new context, both brand and customer relationship are at a risk. To succeed in the new world of email marketing ,it is needed to move away from the old assumptions and adopt a new way of thinking. Rather then asking, “How big is my list?” ask , “How engaged are my recipient?”. Instead of asking, “What does my subject line say?” ask “How am I building my brand over this series of campaigns?”. DETAIL IDEA Adding advertisements in e-mails sent by other companies to their customers. · You don't want to risk losing reputation or SPAM penalties. Persistence Before the internet, they used to say it takes around 7.3 impacts to make an impression with an ad. Today I would guess it to be over twice as high with the internet present. Make sure you are reaching out to your clients at least once a month in emails or other medium. Just because you emailed a list of people and had little or no response does not necessarily mean your audience isn't interested in your product. Experiment with different emails, get to know which email strategy works best, and keep using it to reach out to your audience. They Want Useful Information Emails should contain something that the customer wants. It shouldn't be just a summary of your company or your resume. Focus on giving more than just what you sell. Specific content, messages, and other targeted information that interests your customers are good to include. For example, if you were selling makeup, you may want to include advice on how to apply the makeup or any makeup in general. Make Sure Your Audience Reads Your Emails Graphics, Flash animations, logos are often blocked by email filters. Although they look impressive on an email, they will often lower your impression statistics. I recommend using flat text with hyperlinks to your site. Once they get to your site, you can show them as many graphics as you want. Although some businesses have both a plain and a rich text edition of their email, for starters, stick to the plain text. Advantages And Disadvantages: Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered. With above benefits it comes with some bad effects too. Spam, the main danger of email marketing sometimes creates hindrance in taking benefits as part of email marketing. Mainly email marketing is used by companies to interact with their customers whereas spam can be de Warm Weather Marketing Gifts sk , “How engaged are my recipient?”. Instead of asking, “What does my subject line say?” ask “How am I building my brand over this series of campaigns?”. Promoting your business with marketing gifts and promotional items is a year round effort, but the warm weather brings out so many new options for reminding your customers and target markets of your name and presence, that warm weather marketing gifts deserve a special mention. As you head into the spring and summer months, consider the type of marketing gifts that your customers might especially appreciate and target your campaigns around this.Baby, It’s Hot Outside! When the sun comes out and the heat kicks up, keeping cool is the number thing on everybodies mind. Take their minds off the heat and onto your business with marketing gifts designed to keep the heat at bay. Some ideas? How about a brightly colored portable travel fan with your company’s logo printed on it.There’s no better place to be in the heat than sitting next to something nice and cold – like a cooler bag or cooler rucksack packed full of icy cold beverages just waiting to be popped open. While you’re at it, might as well toss in a bottle opener so your customers can get to the goodies.Active Promotional Marketing Gifts Spring and summer bring lots of folks out into the sun to exercise and enjoy the weather. Cater to their thirst – because you know that they’re working one up – with a sports bottle printed with your logo, slogan or business name. Make it one that’s easy to carry along, and you’ll get the added benefit of extra exposure on the streets.Speaking of exposure, there’s a lot of that going on down on the beach and at the shore. Send your business along on holiday with your customers when you give them a great customized promotional beach bag to tote their stuff in. Your name is sure to get around – and that’s the whole purpose of the exercise, right?Warm Weather Gear Your customers will be stripping down to their shirtsleeves, so consider giving them something a bit cooler to wear. Lightweight promotional t-shirts, corporate polo shirts and tank tops will let them display th This article gives a focus on the new approaches to email marketing. THE PROBLEM Do you have a product or service to sell? Are you tired of promoting and getting nowhere? Are you interested in increasing your sales by 1000%? Are you sick of getting counter offers in your inbox? Are you looking for something with money back guarantee? Are you going from one safelist to another cutting and pasting your ads? If your answer is yes, then the solution has found you. What is the solution? Targeted email is the most direct and powerful method of marketing on the internet today. Targeted, Safe, and 100% Opt in. There are potentially millions of buyers waiting for your products and services... DETAIL IDEA Adding advertisements in e-mails sent by other companies to their customers. · You don't want to risk losing reputation or SPAM penalties. Persistence Before the internet, they used to say it takes around 7.3 impacts to make an impression with an ad. Today I would guess it to be over twice as high with the internet present. Make sure you are reaching out to your clients at least once a month in emails or other medium. Just because you emailed a list of people and had little or no response does not necessarily mean your audience isn't interested in your product. Experiment with different emails, get to know which email strategy works best, and keep using it to reach out to your audience. They Want Useful Information Emails should contain something that the customer wants. It shouldn't be just a summary of your company or your resume. Focus on giving more than just what you sell. Specific content, messages, and other targeted information that interests your customers are good to include. For example, if you were selling makeup, you may want to include advice on how to apply the makeup or any makeup in general. Make Sure Your Audience Reads Your Emails Graphics, Flash animations, logos are often blocked by email filters. Although they look impressive on an email, they will often lower your impression statistics. I recommend using flat text with hyperlinks to your site. Once they get to your site, you can show them as many graphics as you want. Although some businesses have both a plain and a rich text edition of their email, for starters, stick to the plain text. Advantages And Disadvantages: Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered. With above benefits it comes with some bad effects too. Spam, the main danger of email marketing sometimes creates hindrance in taking benefits as part of email marketing. Mainly email marketing is used by companies to interact with their customers whereas spam can be d Outsourcing; China Wants to Modernize and Manufacture Cleaner Type Industries ers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business. · China wants to modernize its factories and get into the making of items, which do not produce a lot of pollution. They are looking for cleaner type industries such as electronics and high-tech industry sub-sectors. What does this mean for the United States of America? Well, it means the exporting of more jobs and more outsourcing.It means that American companies will be able to utilize China's new manufacturing capabilities to make more high tech products and they will be able to save lots of money because they will not bear the burden of over regulation, incessant lawsuits and hard to deal with unions in the United States of America. Is it right for American corporations to outsource these manufacturing capabilities to China?Really if the United States wants to compete in the global market it will have to lower the prices of the products it produces to compete with other countries. So, American corporations have a choice they can go and business or they can use China's manufacturing capabilities to compete and stay in business and still make a profit.I ask a simple question for those who are upset with outsourcing. If you were out to you and it was your company what would you do? Would you throw everything you had worked for away and go out of business? Or would you migrate the manufacturing of your product to China to make it for 30% of what it cost you to make it in America today?Let's face it 60% of all manufacturing costs are incurred due to over regulation, high labor costs and excessive lawsuits. What if you can cut all that out all at once? Make sense to me from a business standpoint and there you have it. Consider all this in 2006. Sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something immediately. · Adding advertisements in e-mails sent by other companies to their customers. · You don't want to risk losing reputation or SPAM penalties. Persistence Before the internet, they used to say it takes around 7.3 impacts to make an impression with an ad. Today I would guess it to be over twice as high with the internet present. Make sure you are reaching out to your clients at least once a month in emails or other medium. Just because you emailed a list of people and had little or no response does not necessarily mean your audience isn't interested in your product. Experiment with different emails, get to know which email strategy works best, and keep using it to reach out to your audience. They Want Useful Information Emails should contain something that the customer wants. It shouldn't be just a summary of your company or your resume. Focus on giving more than just what you sell. Specific content, messages, and other targeted information that interests your customers are good to include. For example, if you were selling makeup, you may want to include advice on how to apply the makeup or any makeup in general. Make Sure Your Audience Reads Your Emails Graphics, Flash animations, logos are often blocked by email filters. Although they look impressive on an email, they will often lower your impression statistics. I recommend using flat text with hyperlinks to your site. Once they get to your site, you can show them as many graphics as you want. Although some businesses have both a plain and a rich text edition of their email, for starters, stick to the plain text. Advantages And Disadvantages: Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered. With above benefits it comes with some bad effects too. Spam, the main danger of email marketing sometimes creates hindrance in taking benefits as part of email marketing. Mainly email marketing is used by companies to interact with their customers whereas spam can be d 7 Unusual Careers ients at least once a month in emails or other medium. Just because you emailed a list of people and had little or no response does not necessarily mean your audience isn't interested in your product. Experiment with different emails, get to know which email strategy works best, and keep using it to reach out to your audience.Everyone has their choice of what career they want to pursue. Why on earth would anybody object; after all, it is your passion. Especially when the ‘unusual career’ of your choice has a potential to pay more than many common jobs, you are more inclined to pursue it. Here I will list a few unusual jobs that are respectable and pay reasonably well.List Of Unusual CareersBartending: Well, this is not just about mixing drinks. As a bartender, you will have to put in long and unusual hours, going very late to bed and getting up when it most people are already at work. There is lot of money to be made in this profession in the form of tips, especially if you deal with wealthy customers. Of course, well-known bars and restaurants hire bartenders who have a broad range of skills. A short training course and experience will help you break into this profession. It doesn’t hurt to have some well-placed networking contacts, either.DJing: Disk Jockeying can catapult you into stardom, if you are very good. You can have your own way of playing music; you can play with sound and virtually anything that sounds good. You can look at music with a new vision and feed it to your audience while you get paid for just enjoying your music. There are not much responsibilities and instant results from your ‘customers.’ Keep in mind though, that you will need to spend a good deal of time promoting yourself; it doesn’t hurt to have others do the same.Jewelry designing: Jewelry designing and gemology are very well paying jobs. As they say, the sky is the limit for a revolutionary jewelry designer. The demand for this profession can be understood by the near tripling of the gold price in the last decade. There will always be high demand for unusual and unique jewelry pieces.Magazine Editor: The popularity of magazines has taken a beating from a flurry of ezines, TV shows, etc. for the last decade or so. Those which survived did so on the strength of the features covered and their design and layo They Want Useful Information Emails should contain something that the customer wants. It shouldn't be just a summary of your company or your resume. Focus on giving more than just what you sell. Specific content, messages, and other targeted information that interests your customers are good to include. For example, if you were selling makeup, you may want to include advice on how to apply the makeup or any makeup in general. Make Sure Your Audience Reads Your Emails Graphics, Flash animations, logos are often blocked by email filters. Although they look impressive on an email, they will often lower your impression statistics. I recommend using flat text with hyperlinks to your site. Once they get to your site, you can show them as many graphics as you want. Although some businesses have both a plain and a rich text edition of their email, for starters, stick to the plain text. Advantages And Disadvantages: Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered. With above benefits it comes with some bad effects too. Spam, the main danger of email marketing sometimes creates hindrance in taking benefits as part of email marketing. Mainly email marketing is used by companies to interact with their customers whereas spam can be d What Makes A Qualified Prospect Qualified · Have you ever asked yourself, what are the specific characteristics of a qualified prospect? What are the minimum pieces of information I need to know to determine if the potential for a sale exists? What pieces of information are required before you consider a prospect qualified?Am I using a consistent sales system or process to successfully obtain the information needed? Here are 17 areas with questions you may want to ask yourself so you can create a qualified prospect profile also known as an Account Sales Profile(tm).Basic DemographicsAsk yourself "Which type of organization do I make the most money when I make a sale?" Is it a company with 10 employees or 100 employees? Does the company have over $10 million in gross sales or over $100 million in gross sales?Are most of my customers in the Retail Industry or the Financial Industry? What types of organizations will provide the highest payoff in return for your limited amount of selling time?In summary, what are the demographics of your most profitable accounts in terms of...> Industry Verticals (such as Software, Printing, Frozen Foods, etc.)> Total Gross Sales> Total Number of Employees> Products, Services or SolutionsBusiness PracticesHow does the account currently conduct business?Where is Mr. Prospect now?How did the Mrs. Prospect conduct business in the past?What is the Mr. Prospect's future strategic direction?Where does Mrs. Prospect want to be?How does the Mr. Prospect plan to get there?Needs, Problems, Challenges, Critical Business Issues, Pains or DriversIs there a perceived or unperceived need for your solution?What are the needs, challenges or problems Mrs. Prospect facing?What is keeping them up at night?What is required to solve the problem and does your solution fit the bill?Is Mr. Prospect actively searching for a solution, which you can provide?Does Mrs. Prospect have any cu Compared to other media investments such as direct mail or printed newsletters, it is less expensive. · Return on investment has proven to be high when done properly. · It is instant, as opposed to a mailed advertisement, an e-mail arrives in a few seconds or minutes. · It lets the advertiser "push" the message to its audience, as opposed to a website that waits for customers to come in. · It is easy to track. An advertiser can track users via web bugs, bounce messages, un-subscribes, read-receipts, click-throughs, etc. These can be used to measure open rates, positive or negative responses, corrolate sales with marketing. · Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail subscribers who have opted in (consented) to receive e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them · When most people switch on their computer the first thing they do is check their e-mail. · Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger other messages to be automatically delivered. With above benefits it comes with some bad effects too. Spam, the main danger of email marketing sometimes creates hindrance in taking benefits as part of email marketing. Mainly email marketing is used by companies to interact with their customers whereas spam can be defined as a set of unsolicited mails that fills customer's inbox and make it out of use. It is frequently difficult to distinguish between legitimate email marketing and spams. At first spammers attempt to represent themselves as legitimate users rendering the real issue. To avoid these spammers a lot of spam filters are now introduced in the field that helps blocking only spams and not the legitimate emails. Even though email marketing has the above specified risk, it can overcome easily by the introduction of spam filters and provide people the full benefits of email marketing. Open Source Email Marketing Software 1. DadaMail - Dada Mail has been around for awhile. Its written in Perl and can be set to use a flat file or a database like MySQL or PostgreSQL. The installation can be a bit daunting, but worth the effort. Once installed you can use it to generate your subscription form and cut and paste that into your website easily. Read our Dada Mail review here. 2. PhpList - The description on their website reads: "PHPlist is a double opt-in newsletter manager. It is written in PHP and uses an SQL database for storing the information. PHPlist is software that runs on a server." The install is also quite simple but I found the interface less friendly than Dada Mail's. However it has some nice prebuilt features like Open and Click Tracking, plus a nice ability to pickup from the last email in case the sending fails midway. 3. Infinite Responder - Unlike the 2 above, this is an Sequential Autoresponder developed with PHP that allows you to time your messages. It has an opt-in feature plus allows for Unlimited Autoresponders. A nice piece of software with an active forum to ask for help when you need it. CONCLUSION The golden question: is email marketing still effective? Are droves of prospective customers (both opt-in and solicited) reading your emails at a high rate and at high speeds? Well, this depends on what type of email you send. First, take a look at where email marketing is headed. It is a billion dollar a year industry, with about 65% companies of all types using 5-10% of their budget on email campaigns. Marketing with email is expected to yield more than 7 billion dollars this year. Companies are looking into buying ad space on widely circulated newsletters with tons of subscribers and email list vendors are earning big business. Lets look at the response rate of Marketing with email - the ultimate way to judge effectiveness! Sadly enough, tons of unsolicited spam emails go unread. Through statistics, we've discovered that 5 to 15 percent of all e-mails are answered. Like the click through rates of banner advertisements at popular websites, spam emails are discarded like yesterday's trash. A quick browse at the subject line ?Free Viagra? and people are quick to press the delete button. Advertising is a very tricky medium - if your email campaign is not specifically targeted or if it does not employ creative and original strategies that lure customers, there will be a dead-end. That said, unsolicited email (generic and commercial in nature) is usually not received by anyone. The likelihood of a person clicking on unsolicited mail is extremely low. In addition to the fact customers might not be interested in your offers in the first place, the margin for success is small! If you have a relationship with the customer beforehand, email marketing can exceed boundaries. In order for email campaigns to work effectively, it must be solicited in the form of opt-in lists and permission. Adding a checkbox to your online store that says something along the lines of ?send me periodic updates about your incoming shipments? for a customer to tick off fares better off in the marketing with email game. If you have customer permission to send them updates and newsletters with additional information, it will be well received! Marketing with email is most effective with two-way communication. Unsolicited spam mail is considered a one-way message because it is chock full of advertisements that ask customers to visit websites and purchase products. It takes up their time without receiving any sort of compensation. Email marketing campaigns through opt-in lists are different - they are tailored towards the customer's interest and garner higher response rates. Your email list is paramount as well. Back up your campaign by purchasing a list from a list vendor who offers email addresses that are willing to receive your advertisement. Each email address usually costs between 20 and 40 cents. Newsletters and promotions combined together make for explosive campaigns. A well written, HTML formatted newsletter can boost traffic and generate sales. Promotions can initiate customers to buy a product that they are interested in. You see, the secret to an effective promotion is the interaction between the customer and the business. Notice the trend: unsolicited email appearing out of no
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