In my last blog post, I emphasized the importance of following best practices in all your customer touchpoints if you want to maximize your sales without increasing your marketing budget. As I mentioned, the Secret Shopper Survey sponsored by the Mailorder Gardening Association earlier this year uncovered an astonishing number of opportunities for improvement in this regard. A new program at the next MGA conference is sure to provide even more ideas for low-cost improvements. (Click on the headline for more…)
Can You Increase Your Sales Without Increasing Your Budget?
These days, every company is looking for ways to get more out of their marketing budget. Experience suggests that an internal review of how you handle information requests and your ordering process is likely to uncover a wealth of opportunities. A couple shocking examples illustrate why I say that: (Click on the headline for more…)
Keep Your Subscribers Looking Forward to More
Here’s a tip for reinforcing the value of your newsletter and encouraging subscribers to open future issues:
(Click on the headline for more…)
Evaluating the Relative Strength of B-to-B Marketing Channels
Bob Bly, the renowned and prolific B-to-B copywriter, wrote an especially interesting column in this month’s Target Marketing. In it, he ranks 19 different marketing channels, classifies them as “inbound” or “outbound,” and rates them by lead quality and ROI. (Click on the headline for more…)
Cement Your Email Marketing Relationships Early
When people sign up for your email list, what happens next? Do they get a perfunctory “Thank you for subscribing” and then nothing until your next scheduled email – which might be a month away?
It’s important to get new subscribers used to hearing from you, and start sending them helpful information right from the get-go. Autoresponders, which allow you to send a preprogrammed series of emails to new subscribers at specified intervals, make it easy to cement email marketing relationships. Some of the ways you can use an autoresponder program include: (Click on the headline for more…)
