Referrals are a lifeline of a lot of businesses but like me be honest for a minute - majority of business are stupid when it comes to referrals.
You ask for a referral after you sell a product or complete a service and you never ask the client again. We are pounded with so many marketing messages everyday we forget the name/number of your business 5 minutes we walk out of your store. Here is a little tip to increase your referrals.
Create a buzz around your product. People will naturally spread the word about your product or service if it is “cool”. You will be able to create that buzz with our software PurlBlitz since everything is personalized. Your prospect will ask you “How did you do that?” when a personalized audio message automatically plays when they visit their personalized landing page. They will want to spread the word about your marketing message to their friends even if you don’t have a formalized referral program. As mentioned in other posts you need to personalize emails by having people fill out a survey and use that information in future emails. People are quick to forget that they filled out a survey and 60 days later when they receive an email from you that mentions something from that survey they will be very impressed you are able to remember so many things about the client. If you want to see what I am talking about go to this website
www.personalizemarketing.com/survey.html - notice how the information is personalized and I am “Smart” by instantly sending you a personalized email (I have people working night and day creating these emails….just kidding)
You should be doing marketing research for your business relatively frequently to stay updated on changes in your industry. For this particular post I am going to focus on marketing research relating to “marketing strategies to get new business”.
Small businesses are so focused on running their business they are not staying updated on the new trends in the marketplace. One of these trends is to create a connection with your clients and make them feel like they are desired and will be taken care of when they become a client. With the internet it is very easy to create distance between yourself and cilents because most of your clients never see your face or meet you in person. One way to create a sense of trust is to learn as much as you can about your clients by providing surveys. Once you collect that information use it in the future in all emails and marketing messages.
Here is an example. Let’s say I sell air conditioners and I am emailing a prospect about getting an AC installed before the summer and I am using an Autoresponder.
Traditional Format
Hey Bob,
I am sure you are enjoying your new house and hopefully the weather is allowing you time to get the things done around the house like you had hoped. As you know we are offering a special on Air Conditioner installs for newer houses. Visit www.myhvac.com to get more information.
Personal Email (this is easy to do - just ask me how)
Hey Bob,
I am sure you are enjoying your new house. Man has it really been 6 months since it was built? Hopefully you are finding time to complete your basement and landscape your backyard. As you know we are offering a 10% discount on AC installs so please visit myhvac.com/bob.smith.html
The bolded words are all personalized information you collected during the survey. Whic email do you think will have a better response?
If you want to increase your response rates on all of your marketing then do Market Research about what your prospects want and need
Most small businesses are looking for ways to get new customers and reactivate existing customers but are too busy to learn new marketing strategies.
1) Write a blog - most businesses should have a blog that is updated regularly so clients can keep updated on your business. People will bookmark or subscribe to your RSS feed and “by magic” stay updated on changes with your industry and business. If you don’t know how to install a blog comment below and I can help you out - it is VERY easy.
2) Pay Per Click - this is a very effective marketing strategy but if done incorrectly can cost you a lot of money with very little results. Search the internet and learn all that you can about PPC. Pick up the book “Adwords for Dummies” as it is an easy read with good tips and tricks.
3) Postcard Marketing the right way - it amazes me how I get the same postcard in the mail over and over from the same business. They don’t test different headlines, formats, colors, etc but expect good response rates. There is something to be said about branding but you can still brand your business but change up the postcards. We highly recommend to people to personalize each postcard to the client (not just a generic postcard for everyone). Variable Data Printers allow you to print personalized message on each postcard and the cost is not much more then sending out 1000 generic postcards. We recommend PrintsMadeEasy
Their customer service is excellend (I don’t say that about too many companies anymore), pricing is great and quality is superior.
Everyone is looking to improve their Pay Per Click Conversion rates once someone visits your URL. Google likes to see your keyword in the display/destination URL and displayed on your destination page.
Let’s say you have 20 main keywords that means ideally you should create 20 different landing pages specific to each of those keywords. That sounds like a very tedious task.
By using our PurlBlitz software you would just create one landing page template and display different text/images based on the keyword ad that was clicked on. Your landing pages would then be very specific to each keyword and improve your quality score with Google.
I will upload an example of these personalized ads and landing pages very soon as check back for my release information
Direct Mail Postcards are not dead. In fact I am seeing increased response rates if done correctly. People get so much email they tend to delete majority of it.
Here are 3 ways to Increase your Direct Mail Response rates:
1) Design/Test/Design/Test your Headline. This is the most important aspect of the postcard. I would either include the name of the recipient or name of the company you are sending to in the Headline. Your headline should be interesting and spark some type of interest for the recipient. You need to use a Variable Data Printer to personalize each postcard. The best one I have found is PrintsMadeEasy.com
2) Buy a good mailing lists. There are thousands of companies that claim to have a good list. The more you know about your list the better you can personalize each message to the recipient. For example if you included age as one of the data fields you could design postcards that are targeted to that age group.
3) Target your message to one product or service. You may have many different products or service to sell but send a targeted marketing message so you can keep the recipient focused on what you are trying to sell. Too many times companies send out generic postcards and expect a high response rates. You can always drive people to a PURL landing page and mention your other products.
Our PurlBlitz software that will be released very soon will help your direct mail response rates especially direct mail postcards. Create thousands of personalized landing pages instantly.
On average you should expect 1-2% response rates on your direct marketing piece. So why do 98% of people throw the postcard away?
It is because they have no connection to the marketing piece and are bombarded with 5000+ marketing messages everyday.
To stand out and get your message read you need to create a connection. Talked directly to the person by personalizing the marketing message.
You can personalize each postcard you send to include their name, different photos/message if male/female and direct them to different websites.
Here is a headline I received on a postcard recently.
We will solve all of your Heating and Air Conditioning Needs…call 555-555-5555 to get more information.
If we personalized that postcard it could read:
Clint, we will solve all of your heating and air conditioning needs.. visit www.xxxxxx.com/clint.steiner.html to receive a special offer.
You have created a connection with the recipient and they are more likely to visit that URL to find out about the special offer. When they go to that page it will be personalized to them and it can even have different offers depending on the person.
You will instantly receive a notification when they visit the page so you could call the person while they are still reading the offer - that creates CONNECTION. Go one step further and send that recipient a Thank you card automatically just for visiting your website.
Using these techniques you can increase your direct response rates from 1-2% to 10-30%.
Add our blog to your RSS feeds and stay updated on the release of the PurlBlitz Software - it will dramatically change your direct mail and email marketing response rates.
What do we mean by “Personalize Landing Page”
Here are 5 ideas of how to personalize a landing page.
1) Print the customers name on the landing page. “Hey Jim, thanks for visiting your personal page…”
2) Included Personal Audio for each visitor. I know you are probably thinking “How in the world can I record personal audio messages for each visitor..” - we have a way!
3) Display different pictures depending on if the visitor is a male or female. If you are marketing a 2nd home community on a lake you might display fishing/golfing pictures for males and spa/beach for women.
4) Create survey and auto fill some of the fields if you already have the information (ie name, address, phone)
5) Display different pictures based on the age of the visitor. If the visitor is a younger customer then display pictures that appeal to them.
Keep checking back for more information on how to personalize your landing pages. We are putting the final touches on a software tool that will help you increase your customer base.
Using personalizing marketing can increase your response rates dramatically. On a typical postcard mailing you might see 1-2% response rate. So out of 1000 postcards that are mailed you might have 10-20 people respond. Let’s say 5-10 of these people buy a $100 product. That one mailing generated you $500-$1000.
With personalized marketing you might see 5-10% response rate which is 50-100 response. If 25-50 people purchase $100 product that is $2500-$5000 in revenue from the same mailing.
If you are going use direct mail you need to use all the techniques to maximize your return.
I wanted to show you an example PURL Campaign. The person’s name and school name will change on each postcard.
When you visit the personalized URL you can see how the page is personalized including personal audio. This page will developed in a couple of minutes so it does not include all of the advanced features of the tool including displaying different images for each page.
Purl Website Campaign
You probaly already have a list of all of your customers. You can create a direct mail marketing campaign that is personalized for each customer.
Let’s say you sell cars. You could create a PURL postcard for customers with a special offer to get them to trade in their current car. When they visit the personalized URL it would have a picture of their current car as well as a personalized audio message “Hey Jim, I wanted to offer you the opportunity to trade in your current car as we need used cars.”
Our software has the ability to create 1000’s of personalized landing pages for all of your customers. We will be releasing our Product in April so bookmark this site to stay updated on the current news.
