Everyday Marketing Ideas

Hank has an office supply business, and has been in business in the same place for sixteen years. Although the town around him has changed, and the economy has had its ups and downs, Hank has steadily grown his business throughout the years. If you asked him how he did it, he would say he understands the following about customers.

Hank understands that you market to bring in new customers and bring back old ones. In the beginning, Hank spent a huge chunk of his capital getting customers; now he spends less, but more creatively. At first, Hank needed to brand himself and distinguish himself from the others in town who provided office supplies. Now that his name is better known, Hank spends more on nurturing relationships and expressing appreciation. Each year during the holidays, a huge list of people are invited out to the store, where Hank himself is handing out barbecue sandwiches and hot cider. There are chocolate Santas for the kids, and a food donation bin for the local shelter. The event is always a big hit, gets a lot of press, and warms the hearts of customers old and new.

During the normal course of business, Hank understands the value of an upsell. When a customer is buying a printer, he is asked if he wishes to add copy paper and extra ink with the purchase. For convenience sake, many do. When a customer purchases a desk, many times he can be sold on the value of a desk set for pens and paper clips. Hank trains his salespeople to see the connection between items and help sell the connection to the customer.

Hank understands the lifetime worth of a customer. He does not view each purchase in a vacuum, but instead realizes that a customer who is buying a fax machne/printer will need ink cartridges and paper on an ongoing basis. Hank markets to get that customer back in his store for those ongoing purchases by staying in con Read the rest of this post »

The idea of shopping around is so that you can pick up the best possible price because you’ve seen what everyone in the area charges. This can be an effective practice when you first start up something, but at what point do you decide that you want to stay with the same place, and that shopping around won’t help you out as much anymore?

Consider when it comes to marketing campaigns where you get your catalog printing done at. For many smaller companies they only do a few major marketing pushes a year, so they might seek out a printer three or four times at most. Each time they need to do another marketing push they might go to a different printer, or shop around again to keep trying to get the best price.

This might help you out in the short term, and for different types of marketing you might be able to get better prices and different places. Maybe one printer will handle your postcards one time and another will handle brochures.

But consider the other bonuses you get when you start to stick with the same printer for all of your needs. Many printing companies are going to be able to handle a wide variety of printing duties, and with any type of company the more loyal you are to someplace the better the chance are of getting some special deals.

I’ve also seen companies who print catalogs going to someplace else for their marketing material. Or they go someplace different when getting printing done for internal things for their company rather than stick with one place for everything.

The best thing you can do when looking around for that printer for the first time is see everything they can do and what prices they offer. Consider also the quality of the final product that you’re getting. You might be able to print catalogs for cheaper with one company, but the quality isn’t quite as good, which is why the price is cheaper Read the rest of this post »

Your Marketing Will Be More Profitable When You Use These

31 Marketing Response-Triggers

Instantly Reach New Levels Of Sales & Profits In Your Direct Mail… Your Internet Marketing… And Your Space Ads.

These Powerful Response-Triggers Are Guaranteed- - Tested and Proven - - To Devastate Your Competition, Lock In Customer Loyalty, And Explode Your Wealth Even If The Whole Country Is Teetering On The Edge Of Recession.

These are the 31 powerful response-triggers I have used for some 25 years to create marketing packages for my clients. These response-triggers have generated hundreds of thousands new customers in as little as a year.

First, some history: The way ad agencies got their start was way back in the late 1800’s… a few guys pre-bought huge blocks of blank magazine and newspaper pages at steep discounts… Then they would go out and sell the pages to business owners at full price and keep the change. One thing led to another and before long they were creating the ads for the business owners, who then bought the page.

Then comes the juicy part… In about 1910 Albert Lasker put the word out on the street. He wanted to know the exact definition of advertising. Lasker was the head of the largest advertising agency in the world at that time.

Over the course of many years, certain marketers keep track of what worked in advertising and what did not. They did this mostly by coupon orders. If advertising “A” brought in more cash orders than advertising “B”… then they would take note. Many factors were considered. Price points. ($9.97 seemed to work better than $9.95, etc.) Offers. (Buy one, get one free- seemed to work better than 50% off) etc.

Before all of these elements were tracked and codified… A scientific approach was developed. Mr. Lasker was still puzzled as to a clear definition of adve Read the rest of this post »