A Plan and Automation = Peace of Mind

We plan everything in life, or at least we should.  We plan the details of trips, we plan events, we plan our daily schedules; and in business, we plan budgets, avenues for growth and our marketing strategies.  Laying out plans is like making a roadmap for where we are going and what we will do.  It allows us to see the big picture at a glance.  If you have included email marketing as a part of your overall marketing strategy for the year, then you also need to lay out a plan for this avenue as well.

When laying out a plan for your email marketing, you first want to ask yourself a few basic questions:  How often will communications be sent out?  What will be the content of these emails?  Will they be in the form of newsletters, updates and specials or ecards?  Once you have answered these questions, you will be better equipped to make your plan.

I would suggest planning for either six months or a full year.  With a six-month plan, you can re-evaluate your current strategy, make changes to it and see if you get better results in the following six months.  You can evaluate based on whether or not you hit your goals for that six-month period.  These goals can range from reaching a desired number of opens, keeping your unsubscribe rate to a minimum or revenue that was generated from emails.

Companies like eTouch Marketing, create email marketing plans for their clients that range from ecards to enewsletters.  The plans that they create, include details as to what will be in each email that is sent out each month (ex. Valentine’s Promo in February).  If you have decided that you want to send out two email communications monthly (ex. an enewsletter & a monthly promotion), eTouch Marketing can provide you with a roadmap that shows you exactly what you will be sending out and when you will be sending that email out.  They also provide peace of mind in the form of automation.

What is automation, you may ask?  It is the ability to have your emails sent when they are planned to go out without you having to lift a finger.  Because you have a plan in place, you can trust a company like eTouch Marketing to send out your communications when they need to go out for you.  They will also monitor your click-throughs, open rates, and unsubscribe rates.  I call that peace of mind.  It is one less thing to have to add to the busy to-do list of running a business.

Is Your Most Important Business Asset Alive, Dead or Dying?

Now that I have your attention…Let’s talk about our mailing list whether is it used for mailing or emailing. I would like to reflect on who remains on your mailing list/database and how do you have your lists segmented? Do you have just one huge list or do you have your list in proper categories for targeting your message? And when was the last time you added people or even removed people?

 What I know is there are five groups or types of people in any business-raving fans (want more of those), customers, prospects, suspects and those we will just call the disinterested. The challenge always is to determine who fits in the disinterested group, so we do not spend our best energy, effort and marketing dollars on this group. They are never going to buy from us, donate to our cause or solicit our help, they are simply disinterested! The next question is  how are you educating and differentiating your services or products from others in the field to those that are “suspects and  prospects”. After all, we all want to move prospects and suspects to our customer list and then quickly to the raving fans group. What are you doing to let your customers know about your new projects, new services or products? Lastly do your raving fans know just how grateful you are for their kind words and efforts on your behalf?

Our database can help us to direct the type of marketing message we want to send  and even the format (newsletter, card, gift, survey, announcement, or event). But if our databases are not up to date, accurately segmented and always being fed by us…sadly our efforts will not be as effective. Your database is your most important business asset and it is either ALIVE or DEAD or Dying.

A business database needs constant food..it needs your ongoing attention and new entries. After this database work you can then have fun crafting different messages for each group on your list.

The Best Way to Succeed!

Napoleon Hill once said, “The best way to succeed in this world is to act on the advice you give others.”

Well the advice I give almost daily is you must be consistent in your efforts to be in front of your contacts. I am the one that monitors when the next eMail campaign needs to go out for a client or when the next postcard or newsletter gets mailed and so I take it very seriously to be on target, on time for all my clients. It is just FOR ME that I fall behind on my own marketing and my own communications. I can say I work diligently, work all the hours I can, juggle allot, my clients come first…etc, etc. In other words I can give the same excuses my clients can give to me when I ask for an item promised last week. The truth is we all put so much into every single hour of the day, we all multi-task, we all get overwhelmed from time to time and we all have the same number of hours in a day.

So why are some business owners more timely in getting their own marketing out in a timely fashion? I think some hire out the work to another marketer and I must say I have thought about going this route myself. But I am not there yet…I am going to mark my calendar two Fridays a month that is “work on my own business” days. I am going to treat the two days as out of the office so decline appointments. I will blog two days a month, I will work on systems and I will market thyself.

I will let you know how it goes. Please share with me your attempts to do the same!

There Are Only Two Ways to Expand Your Business

Have you heard the answer to this one…expand your business to existing clients or get new clients.

We all know it takes  considerably more energy and more money to secure new customers and yet that is what the majority of people do. Why is that? Why is it perceived as easier to secure new business? There is so much being said now about Relationship Marketing,  Engage with the Customer, Start a Conversation and most make this reference about ONLINE relationships. I get it, my profession is helping my clients maintain online and  off-line relationships, but what concerns me is most people spin their wheels focused solely on getting the new client.

If you were to  stop and create a list of who you actually do know from previous work experiences, your church, your neighborhood, your book club, your community or service organizations, the gym, all the people you purchase services from, your family involvements in sports, school….if you put all this together most people will find out they know more people than you ever imagined. (Be sure to add all those people who have purchased from you EVER.) This is the group of individuals I encourage my clients to develop a relationship with both online and off-line. Find out how you can be of service to them, what are their life concerns, what are their joys, what are their challenges, what is of interest to them? Then begin to build a relationship.

Be sure when you are sharing information with people, that the information  is valuable in their eyes and not just yours. If you build a relationship with people you personally know, nurture it all along the way, stay consistent in your contact… there will be a harvest at some point. They will become a client, a repeat client or they will become your best referral source.

Spend your first marketing dollars and efforts here and you will expand your business with those you enjoy and know. We all crave being known, understood, appreciated and touched. Be that someone who touches people in a meaningful way. You will reap the sweetness of good business and good relationships.

Laundry Baskets Filled with Potential Income

For almost a year now I have been attempting to get a friend to allow me to organize all her previous clients and center of influence into a database so we might begin marketing her wonderful healing services. Today she delivered four laundry baskets ( I kid you not) of client files. We finally begin. It drives me slightly nuts when someone does not even have a client database of their past clients…this truly will make them a past customer. If you are not staying in front of them how are they to know about your new services, your specials, your new designations or more importantly how are they to remember you? So today we will begin the process of entering four laundry baskets of files into a simple excel spreadsheet so I might design a marketing plan for her. Why is it that we believe people will remember us when we don’t remember them? Why is it we complain our business is down when we have not even called a specific client since 2008? Why do we complain business is slow when we do not even have a database of phone numbers, mailing and email addresses?

Have you heard the term Conversation Marketing? It is creating a dialog with customers where you exchange useful information so you both benefit from the relationship that you are building. You cannot even have a conversation if you don’t have a reference list of who is considered a client. Okay I stop the rant…I feel better now.

Random Acts of Marketing

This week I attended GET DOWN TO BUSINESS: Cracking the Code on Social Media for Small Business, a great one day conference sponsored by Constant Contact as a celebration of National Small Business Week. A number of excellent speakers provided some great information, but my favorite hands down quote was :

“Random Acts of Kindness=Good, Random Acts of Marketing -Not a Great Idea!”  by speaker  Gloria Pobst with the Gwinnett Small Business Developement Center. (www.georgiasbdc.org)

I have probably had the conversation a gazillion times that inconsistent marketing can almost do more damage than good. People thrive on consistency and predictability even though we exist in a world that is neither most of the time. Change is the norm, but people still crave the consistency. If you are sending a message that you are here today but not next month,  you are saying “I am sometimes here and sometimes not. I don’t see the importance of developing a relationship with you via my marketing until I need you again.” That may sound harsh, but that is a message too many people get from us when we are inconsistent.

I suggest you decide what your message will be, you create a plan for sharing that message via traditional marketing and social media and you must make it a priority to deliver the message on a prescribed plan. If you can’t manage this on your own there are people who can help you -hire them.

How do you make sure your marketing message is consistent? I would love for you to share the ways you make sure it is not random marketing.

Working “ON” Your Business

I have looked forward to this week because it is a week rather free of appointments and I am current on my commitments for work this month. So it provides a space and time to actually work ON my own business rather than IN it which is what most of us do 99% of the time. I actually learned the distinction of working IN and working ON my business from my readings of Michael E. Gerber. One of my goals this year was to spend every Friday ON the business, but it is not practical nor has it happened. I always have an ongoing  list of areas I want to explore, develop or things to write about in this blog. I think it is like the analogy of bad plumbing existing in a plumber’s home– we tend to do for everyone else first and we make ourselves the last on our list. Well, I am putting forth an effort to change that for myself and as in all new habits it will take practice, intention and creating the space to do something new. I would love to hear how you make sure your own marketing and developing of your business is not last on your list of priorities. So share with me how you make sure every single week or month you put your business first!