Ten Tips for Using Newsletters as a Marketing Tool – Part 1

Newsletters can be a very effective method of communicating with prospects, customers, and opinion influencers. However, to be an effective marketing strategy, there are several factors you must consider. Before sitting down at your computer to type out an article or calendar of events, have firm answers to the following:

1.      Intent – What do you want your newsletter to do? Do you want it to educate, generate inquiries, build image, create positioning? List everything you want it to do.

2.      Frequency – How often will you publish it? A minimum of quarterly gives you repeat exposure without the perception of overwhelming intrusion, though many centers find  a monthly newsletter more effective for parents.

3.      Format – What will your newsletter look like? Think about the number of pages, page size, graphic design, ink colors, photos or drawings, location of regular columns. Will it be a self-mailer, inserted in an envelope, handed out at the center, or an e-letter?

4.      Title/Masthead – What will be the name of your newsletter? Make your masthead unique but consistent with the rest of your marketing materials. If you have regular columns, what will you call them that describes content and entices readers to linger there long enough to read it?

5.      Content – What will be included in the content of your newsletter. Keep it simple and valuable to the recipient. Most of us already have too much to read. If you regularly give your recipients information of value in your newsletter (versus primarily advertising for your center), you will create what’s called “ready readership,” meaning a target of readers waiting for each new issue. That’s what you want, because it creates a positioning for you as the helpful, knowledgeable expert.

Julie Wassom
“The Speaker Whose Message Means Business”
Marketing and Sales Speaker/Consultant/Author
Call me: 303-693-2306
Fax me: 303-617-6422
E-me: julie@juliewassom.com
See me: www.juliewassom.com

How to Market When You Barely Have Time To Breathe!

You know you need to create or update an image for your business, establish an effective web presence, get that brochure done, market your involvement in the next industry or community event, and do what it takes to get prospects coming your way. But WHEN can you get to it with everything else you have to do?

Effective marketing is an essential key to your business success. Yet, it’s so easy to back burner marketing when other parts of your business need your attention, staff issues take your time, you have family obligations, and oh, by the way, you have a “real life” separate from your business. Yet without the practice of good marketing and sales techniques, you cannot maximize the return on your investment your marketing efforts.

Here are some ways to help you make marketing and sales activities happen when time is of the essence:

1. Do a Marketing Action Plan. It’s your blueprint for marketing action, budget planning, and evaluation of results. Plan at least one marketing activity per quarter.

2. Make an appointment with yourself. Schedule your marketing activities, sales follow-up, and other promotional efforts just like you would an appointment with your doctor. Then keep your appointment. Though rescheduling is okay, cancellation is not an option.

3. Use a tickler system. Whether electronic or hardcopy, a tickler system will remind you of marketing and sales tasks needing your immediate attention. Calendars in Microsoft Outlook and other contact management systems are easy ways to make sure you are alerted as to deadlines, follow-up promises, and other commitments you have made to marketing toward reaching your revenue goals. If you do not have time to do follow-up, contact me to learn more about my Keep Me in Mind Marketing Service, which does it for you.

4. Get a marketing accountability partner. Enlist the help of a trusted friend or colleague to keep you accountable for the marketing activities you have listed in your Marketing Action Plan. It’s amazing how most of us will prioritize a task when we know we are accountable to someone for its completion.

If this is hard to do on your own, consider taking my one of my Marketing and Sales  TeleCourses. Before the first of the five classes, every participant is asked to find an accountability partner to help them stay on task with assigned marketing activities. It is always exciting to hear about all the marketing the participants really get accomplished during the course. I am convinced part of the reason they do is because they are held accountable. To learn more about this early education TeleCourse, visit http://www.juliewassom.com/teleclass.htm.

5. Just do it! Nike coined it, and I couldn’t say it better. Your commitment to creative, consistent, continual marketing will yield results that will help you achieve your goals for image recognition and give you the opportunity to convert more prospects into buyers. So take a deep breath and start marketing.

Julie Wassom
“The Speaker Whose Message Means Business”
Marketing and Sales Speaker/Consultant/Author
Call me: 303-693-2306
Fax me: 303-617-6422
E-me: julie@juliewassom.com
See me: www.juliewassom.com

Get Ready, Get Set, Start Marketing! (Part 1)

You’re relatively new in your business. You’re still building the foundation, not to mention learning everything you can about operations and management. You really don’t have anything to sell yet. No need to do any marketing yet, right? WRONG!

One of the biggest mistakes I see young businesses make is to hold off on the marketing aspects of their business until they have something to sell. By the time you do, you can be up to two years behind on a marketing program,. Marketing sooner could have given them an industry presence and a unique niche that would ultimately make selling easier and more rewarding.

If marketing is uncomfortable or unfamiliar to you, think about it this way. Your marketing program should evolve and grow in much the same way your business does. You begin by taking small steps to insure the best decisions, you invest in the best quality you can find, you see the rewards of your efforts, and you build on those results to get to where you want to be.

Exploring the answers to these three questions about marketing will help you rev up this part of your business.

Question #1: Why should I market now?
Though “quick turnaround” is an expectation in today’s marketplace, prospects for your products and services may start investigating far before they are ready to commit to buying. When you finally have products or services to sell, the prospects you want to attract are those who already know about you and are now ready to buy. To try to cram all the marketing it takes to gain recognition into just a few months can be overwhelming.

You need time. Time to develop a unique business image, to determine which markets you intend to target, to develop a marketing action plan that you can realistically work, and to fund those marketing initiatives that will bring you the greatest returns. Now, while you are simultaneously building your business, is the time to begin.

Julie Wassom
“The Speaker Whose Message Means Business”
Marketing and Sales Speaker/Consultant/Author
Call me: 303-693-2306
Fax me: 303-617-6422
E-me: julie@juliewassom.com
See me: www.juliewassom.com

Mail-Mail-Call; The Fortune In The Follow-Up

M-M-C stands for Mail-Mail-Call, and refers to the periodic follow-up activity you schedule with each qualified prospect or customer of your business.

The “M-M-C” Follow-Up System
Step One: After an inquiry call or visit, mail a personal note and information of interest to your prospect immediately so he/she receives the mailing within 2-5 days after he/she spoke with you.

Step Two: Within the next 7-10 days, place a brief follow-up call to inquiries or visitors, offering your help in this decision-making process.

During this call, request permission to put prospect on your mailing list, with a question such as, “Would you like me to periodically send you information that will be of value to you as you consider purchasing (X Product/Service)?”

Step Three: Add all those who have given you permission to follow-up into your monthly contact file. Designate one day each month to follow-up.  (These prospects HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED the initial mailing and follow-up call – Steps One and Two. Follow-up for existing customers begins with Step Three of the M-M-C System.)

                         Call            Visit       Oct          November         December          January

Prospect A      10/27                                          Mail                   Mail                 Call

Prospect B       9/22                     Mail               Call                    Mail                 Mail

Prospect C      10/25     10/30                         Mail                   Mail                 Call

Each time you call, ask prospects or customers if they would like to remain on your mailing list. If they have not yet come to our farm or ranch for a visit, attempt to schedule one during this call unless their location or situation dictates otherwise.

Prospects and customers stay in your M-M-C Follow-Up System until they tell you to discontinue contact.

Julie Wassom
“The Speaker Whose Message Means Business”
Marketing and Sales Speaker/Consultant/Author
Call me: 303-693-2306
Fax me: 303-617-6422
E-me: julie@juliewassom.com
See me: www.juliewassom.com

Delivering Value to Prospects and Customers

Value is getting more than you expected when you least expected it. Value is something all buyers and existing customers are seeking, now more than ever. They want to know you view them as special, you will go the extra distance for them, and you value their business.

While recently staying overnight in a hotel, I requested a wake-up call. At the requested time the next morning, the phone rang. When I answered , I got the recorded messaged now standard in many hotels that deliver this service. However, ten minutes later, I received a call from a person at the hotel front desk, calling just to make sure I had received my call and was now awake. My first thought was, “Wow! That was nice – and so unexpected!”

Little things like this can mean a lot in distinguishing how you deliver customer service compared to how your competitors do.

Are you treating your potential and existing customers like you really appreciate them and what they mean to your business? Once a week, ask yourself, “What have I done lately to show my prospects and customers how much I value them?”

Often, it is little things that make a difference. It might be you initiating a phone call to see how they are doing, you inviting them to join you at your business location when you are providing something valuable for them to learn, or you providing them with good resources. The opportunities to create value are endless.

When you practice a series of little things to take your prospect and customer service beyond expected to exceptional, you create more than buyers. You create the kind of customer delight that makes them your marketing partners in generating more inquiries, sales and referrals than you could ever develop on your own.

Julie Wassom
“The Speaker Whose Message Means Business”
Marketing and Sales Speaker/Consultant/Author
Call me: 303-693-2306
Fax me: 303-617-6422
E-me: julie@juliewassom.com
See me: www.juliewassom.com

Ask Julie

Question: When you advertise your business on your vehicle using painted-on information or magnetic signs, is your business liable in the chance you are involved in an accident?

Answer: I checked with our auto insurance agent from Allstate Insurance, who indicated that insurance follows ownership of the vehicle, meaning the name on the title and registration. He compared advertising on a personally- owned vehicle to putting a bumper sticker on it; saying it does not matter for insurance purposes.

I recommend you check with your own auto insurance agent. If the way is clear, remember that with well- done labeling, your vehicle can serve as a rolling billboard ad for your business!

Julie Wassom
“The Speaker Whose Message Means Business”
Marketing and Sales Speaker/Consultant/Author
Call me: 303-693-2306
Fax me: 303-617-6422
E-me: julie@juliewassom.com
See me: www.juliewassom.com

7 Simple Low-Cost Ways to Market

Are you looking for ways to market that take little time and less money, yet give you the kind of image and exposure that gives you a high return on your efforts? Good marketing messages that reach the right target audiences with the most frequency are going to be the ones that generate the most inquiries. Each qualified inquiry they generate gives you another opportunity to reach your sales goals. If you do not yet have a your business name, and  a unique image and message or tagline, that you are using in each of the following simple ways to market, I have one question for you. What are you waiting for?

Telephone voice mail message – Make sure yours included your business name and tagline, and that it redirects callers to your web address until you can get back to them.

Email signature – Include your name, business name, logo, tagline, and any unique feature or announcement of upcoming events

Vehicle – Does your business vehicle have signage on sides and back that shows your business name, logo, tagline (if it fits) your phone number and your web address? If not, you are missing an opportunity for incredible frequency of message delivery about your business. Your vehicle is a rolling billboard. Use it.

Sign – Call the highway department to find out the number of vehicles that pass your business on a daily basis. Then pull your jaw back up and make sure you have a spectacular business sign positioned so passersby can see it easily.

Website – Though this involves some initial investment, a well-designed website will give you terrific return on that investment in inquiries, visits, and customer satisfaction. Remember, your home page is the most important page on your site.

Local Media – Make the press your marketing partner by initiating contact with local editors and reporters with information about your business and events. Make sure the information is unique, timely, and of interest to their reader/viewer/listener profile. Deliver it to them in their preferred format. The third party endorsement good publicity gives you can be a priceless return for merely a bit of your time.

Your Community – Whomever said there are diamonds in your own backyard had obviously mined some. So should you. Seek out community events that draw your target audiences. Then participate in a way that is visible to attendees and profitable for you.

Your most effective marketing efforts are not always the big ticket items. Adding these simple ways to market to your overall marketing action plan can mean big returns for very little effort.

If you want more techniques on how to market wisely in a challenging economy, attend or host Julie’s seminar, How to Be Bullish on Marketing in a Challenging Economy. To book it, call 800-876-0260, or email julie@juliewassom.com.

Julie Wassom
“The Speaker Whose Message Means Business”
Marketing and Sales Speaker/Consultant/Author
Call me: 303-693-2306
Fax me: 303-617-6422
E-me: julie@juliewassom.com
See me: www.juliewassom.com

Ten Tips for Using Newsletters as a Marketing Tool – Part 1

Newsletters can be a very effective method of communicating with prospects, customers, and opinion influencers. However, to be an effective marketing strategy, there are several factors you must consider. Before sitting down at your computer to type out an article or calendar of events, have firm answers to the following:

1.      Intent – What do you want your newsletter to do? Do you want it to educate, generate inquiries, build image, create positioning? List everything you want it to do.

2.      Frequency – How often will you publish it? A minimum of quarterly gives you repeat exposure without the perception of overwhelming intrusion, though many centers find  a monthly newsletter more effective for parents.

3.      Format – What will your newsletter look like? Think about the number of pages, page size, graphic design, ink colors, photos or drawings, location of regular columns. Will it be a self-mailer, inserted in an envelope, handed out at the center, or an e-letter?

4.      Title/Masthead – What will be the name of your newsletter? Make your masthead unique but consistent with the rest of your marketing materials. If you have regular columns, what will you call them that describes content and entices readers to linger there long enough to read it?

5.      Content – What will be included in the content of your newsletter. Keep it simple and valuable to the recipient. Most of us already have too much to read. If you regularly give your recipients information of value in your newsletter (versus primarily advertising for your center), you will create what’s called “ready readership,” meaning a target of readers waiting for each new issue. That’s what you want, because it creates a positioning for you as the helpful, knowledgeable expert.

Best wishes and happy marketing,

-Julie Wassom
http://JulieWassom.com

How to Market When You Barely Have Time To Breathe!

You know you need to create or update an image for your business, establish an effective web presence, get that brochure done, market your involvement in the next industry or community event, and do what it takes to get prospects coming your way. But WHEN can you get to it with everything else you have to do?

Effective marketing is an essential key to your business success. Yet, it’s so easy to back burner marketing when other parts of your business need your attention, staff issues take your time, you have family obligations, and oh, by the way, you have a “real life” separate from your business. Yet without the practice of good marketing and sales techniques, you cannot maximize the return on your investment your marketing efforts.

Here are some ways to help you make marketing and sales activities happen when time is of the essence:

1. Do a Marketing Action Plan. It’s your blueprint for marketing action, budget planning, and evaluation of results. Plan at least one marketing activity per quarter.

2. Make an appointment with yourself. Schedule your marketing activities, sales follow-up, and other promotional efforts just like you would an appointment with your doctor. Then keep your appointment. Though rescheduling is okay, cancellation is not an option.

3. Use a tickler system. Whether electronic or hardcopy, a tickler system will remind you of marketing and sales tasks needing your immediate attention. Calendars in Microsoft Outlook and other contact management systems are easy ways to make sure you are alerted as to deadlines, follow-up promises, and other commitments you have made to marketing toward reaching your revenue goals. If you do not have time to do follow-up, contact me to learn more about my Keep Me in Mind Marketing Service, which does it for you.

4. Get a marketing accountability partner. Enlist the help of a trusted friend or colleague to keep you accountable for the marketing activities you have listed in your Marketing Action Plan. It’s amazing how most of us will prioritize a task when we know we are accountable to someone for its completion.

If this is hard to do on your own, consider taking my one of my Marketing and Sales  TeleCourses. Before the first of the five classes, every participant is asked to find an accountability partner to help them stay on task with assigned marketing activities. It is always exciting to hear about all the marketing the participants really get accomplished during the course. I am convinced part of the reason they do is because they are held accountable. To learn more about this early education TeleCourse, visit http://www.juliewassom.com/teleclass.htm.

5. Just do it! Nike coined it, and I couldn’t say it better. Your commitment to creative, consistent, continual marketing will yield results that will help you achieve your goals for image recognition and give you the opportunity to convert more prospects into buyers. So take a deep breath and start marketing.

–Julie Wassom
Julie@JulieWassom.com
http://JulieWassom.com

Get Ready, Get Set, Start Marketing! (Part 1)

You’re relatively new in your business. You’re still building the foundation, not to mention learning everything you can about operations and management. You really don’t have anything to sell yet. No need to do any marketing yet, right? WRONG!

One of the biggest mistakes I see young businesses make is to hold off on the marketing aspects of their business until they have something to sell. By the time you do, you can be up to two years behind on a marketing program,. Marketing sooner could have given them an industry presence and a unique niche that would ultimately make selling easier and more rewarding.

If marketing is uncomfortable or unfamiliar to you, think about it this way. Your marketing program should evolve and grow in much the same way your business does. You begin by taking small steps to insure the best decisions, you invest in the best quality you can find, you see the rewards of your efforts, and you build on those results to get to where you want to be.

Exploring the answers to these three questions about marketing will help you rev up this part of your business.

Question #1: Why should I market now?
Though “quick turnaround” is an expectation in today’s marketplace, prospects for your products and services may start investigating far before they are ready to commit to buying. When you finally have products or services to sell, the prospects you want to attract are those who already know about you and are now ready to buy. To try to cram all the marketing it takes to gain recognition into just a few months can be overwhelming.

You need time. Time to develop a unique business image, to determine which markets you intend to target, to develop a marketing action plan that you can realistically work, and to fund those marketing initiatives that will bring you the greatest returns. Now, while you are simultaneously building your business, is the time to begin.

 –Julie Wassom
http://JulieWassom.com