Keys to Successful Marketing - Should You Buying direct mail leads from the internet for marketing?

Keys to Successful Marketing
March 31st, 2007

RE: Buying direct mail leads from the internet for marketing.  

In general, leads rom list companies can be used for very broad mailings, but keep in mind that we are usually looking for very small niche situations in our business. You will also need the right mailing pieces, timing, and consistency to make such broad direct mailings work.  Don’t expect much in the first 2-3 mailings to the same client. 

The factors to successful broad based marketing are: 

• 1. Use a great looking and well written marketing piece.  Post cards are my favorites as the first 1 to 2 mailings.  They always get opened…get it? 
• 2. Use full color and go larger dimensions if in doubt.   It will get more attention. Search for a great printer, mine is probably the cheapest and full service in the country. I get full color printing for a fraction of the price. Shop around. 
• 3. Make the piece about the client, not YOU.   Nobody cares about your company!  They care about what you can do for them in the message. 
• 4. Repeat, repeat, repeat.   With small changes in copy. On average in marketing, it takes 3 impression to be seen. This work in television, radio, direct mail, or most any other marketing. The viewer must "see" you ad 3 ties, not just receive it 3 times. 
• 5. Ask for action.  Call the reader or listener to action.  For example, ask them to call for a free recorded message, or get a free "thing" form you web site. And always capture the responders phone number or email before they get your "thing". Never give is up without getting the contact information first. 
• 6. Follow up with your leads multiple times.   Of course if you don’t know who is responding, you can’t follow up. (see item#5).
• Most of my deals comes after the second through fourth follow up contact. So if I never make a second to fourth contact, I would never get a deal. This is essential. Drive the nail all the way through once you get a lead. 

Good luck…

TJ Marrs

 

Hand-written notes still a powerful marketing tool

Posted January 03, 2007 17:56 by Mike Kaselnak.
About Mike Kaselnak
Mike Michael Kaselnak’s affinity for investing and financial matters began more than 20 years ago when he began investing in the stock market through a class in high school.  Now, in 2006, he is being looked to for his innovation in altering the efficiency in which financial professionals communicate with clients.

Direct mail on a large scale will inevitably appear impersonal, but smaller lists can be reached with campaigns that achieve response rates of as much as 50%, according to Michael Kaselnak of direct marketing firm Hoard.

According to Hoard, customers can potentially be faced with up to 3,000 marketing or advertising messages - some big, some small - every day. And it's this that makes a high response rate from any direct mail campaign such a hard thing to achieve. So what can a business do to break through the noise and have its message read by the target audience?

Well, it starts with a technology that's over 2,000 years old: hand-writing. When shouting louder, saturating the media, and sales gimmicks and special offers are all failing, not many people - whether at home or at work - can throw away a genuinely hand-written note. mkaselnak This article is copyright 2006 TheWiseMarketer.com).

High returns
Kaselnak highlights three examples of clients that have used hand-written notes to produce a surprisingly high ROI on their marketing costs:

    * A Midwestern USA restaurant owner sent out a series of hand-written notes to his customers and got a 20% response rate.
      
    * A financial planner in the Northeast USA sent out only 80 hand-written notes to touch base with prospects, and had 6 people call him and 2 of them set appointments immediately as a result.
      
    * A non-profit organisation was able to get 51 donations by simply sending a hand-written note to 'warm' list of 100 people.

 

The logic is simple: Handwritten notes are special. People can't throw them away without at least reading them. Kaselnak gave The Wise Marketer another example of the effectiveness of a simple note: "Recently I received a hand-written postcard from the hair studio I had abandoned 6 months earlier for one closer to my home. I knew it was probably just them asking me to come back as a client, but did I read it even though I knew it was a prospecting piece? Yes. Would I have read a prospecting form letter or an advertisement from the same studio? No."

Intelligent selection
But Kaselnak is not suggesting a mass hand-written mailing to the entire customer or prospect database. The idea is to decide on the aim of your campaign, and then segment your database to identify the best prospects. If you feel like writing (or having your production team write) a few hundred notes, then filter the top 300 prospects for that campaign.

For example, a hand-written win-back campaign could help you recover customers that have already defected to competitors. Perhaps a short note explaining that things have been changed, and that a warm and personal welcome awaits them in their local store.

Tips for a warm letter
Kaselnak offers the following guidelines for writing notes that gain high response rates:

   1. Each piece should begin with your client or prospect's name, not a generic greeting.
      
   2. Don't do rubber-stamp hand-writing or signatures. Even computer fonts are too obviously mass-produced. It has to be genuine writing.
      
   3. Give your client or prospect a reason to get in touch with you or to come and visit the store
      
   4. Put the note on a card that will get their attention (anything cute, unusual, beautiful, historic, featuring children, animals, and so on). Use a picture that catches their eye.
      
   5. Hand-write their address instead of using labels or over-printing. Labels and over-printing simply tells them - before they even see your hand-written masterpiece - that you sent the same card to hundreds of other people. You have to keep it personal, even if you are sending it to hundreds of people.

Kaselnak concluded: "You will be surprised at the huge response rate you can get. Do this, and it will be the last time you'll want to waste money on generic form letters and invitations."

Source: www.thewisemarketer.com

Don't Be Dumb - Don't let the IRS audit you and have NO Minutes Written for your REI LLC

Looks like the days of the kinder, gentler IRS are definitely gone.

Mark Everson has been the commissioner for almost 4 years now. One of the things he promised when he took the job was that he was going to get tough.

And, boy, he has. I did a search on "tougher IRS audits" and was astounded by all the press releases that listed all the places that the IRS demonstrated that they were getting tough:

• car dealers,
• manufacturers,
• real estate professionals,
• anyone with international transactions,
• anyone reporting on a cash basis
• - the list goes on and on.

It's likely that the call for more IRS audit staff (so they can audit even more people) is going to be successful as well. That's because the IRS has proven that their aggressive tactics at collecting money is working.

Now, here's the big question for you:

Are you ready for that IRS audit
that may be coming your way?

Get Permission! (email marketing)

Get Permission!

Just like in the online world, you only want to collect the email addresses
of people who want to receive your emails.

With so many situations that you can encounter offline, it's easy to think
that it's OK to add a given person to your list, when in fact they haven't
given you permission to email them.

To help guide you, we've published a set of situations, and whether or not
it's OK to subscribe someone's email address, on our Knowledge Base:

Knowledge Base: Can I Use This List?
http://www.aweber.com/faq/questions/263/#html

You can also read some commentary we've made about this on our blog:

Blog: Do's and Don'ts for Collecting Subscribers Offline
http://www.aweber.com/blog/email-marketing/collect-subscribers-offline-dos-d
onts.htm#html

www.Aweber.com

Collect Subscribers Offline

There are many opportunities to get a new subscriber when you're offline, in the "real world:"

People calling you by phone to ask questions

• You can take subscribers by phone. Come up with a short pitch/explanation of what you're offering via email (just like you would on your website) and ask for their email address.
• Put them in a spreadsheet and import the new addresses daily or every couple of days.

Visitors to your physical store-place of business

• Restaurants, bars, doctor's offices... if you have people coming in person to see you, ask if they're already getting your specials/newsletter/other information.
• If they're not already subscribed, have a signup sheet that they can fill out, or give them a card with the URL of your site/opt-in form so they can sign up there.

Conferences, Trade Shows, etc.

• If you have a booth at a trade show, or are going to a conference, you're bound to get a lot of business cards.
• Just like on the phone, come up with an "elevator pitch" for your list.
• When you're talking to someone and they hand you their business card, make your pitch. If they accept, write "Subscribe" or "Yes" on the card.
• When you get back from the event, import the addresses of the people who accepted.

www.Aweber.com

The Truth About CEO Compensation

By Alyce Lomax - MotleyFool.com
April 2, 2007

Protection from the press?

A special minimum wage just for CEOs?

No repercussions for CEOs related to options backdating or shady accounting practices?

Are you kidding us?

In case it hasn't hit you yet, our proposal of mock legislation that advocates having CEOs make mad money and enjoy unheard-of protections is, in fact, our annual April Fool's Day prank. Some of you may have figured out our joke, especially if you looked at the date on your calendar yesterday.

Others might have wondered what had happened to The Motley Fool they have known for years -- it was never Foolish to accept blatant abuse of shareholder money for the aggrandizement and personal enrichment of CEOs.

Your reactions
We got both reactions -- as well as some seemingly genuine support for our fake bill -- in our email inbox for the prank. (We asked Fools to email us at CEORights@fool.com.)

One particularly agitated and outraged reader replied to a question we posed:

"What have we left out of the CEO Bill of Rights?"

• "How about
• respect for your readership??
• Common sense??
• Integrity?? ...

Rather than waste any more time with The Motley Fool, I will concentrate my efforts on making others aware of this nonsense and work actively against it. I have forwarded the link to this legislation on to friends and colleagues -- many of whom are 'activist ninnies' and like-minded media outlets."

Another very unhappy reader replied:

"Since when does the 'underappreciated 100 times the average worker' CEO need your help? Are you serious? Now I know where your loyalties lie, Mr. Gardners."

Others told us that they were disappointed in us, ashamed of us, and angry with us; that we'd "sold out" and "truly lost (our) minds."

Some Fools, though, got the joke and wrote us with suggestions for additions to the bill, including the requirement that CEOs "be addressed, while kneeling, by the title 'Most Exalted and Omnipotent Oracle of Capitalism.'"

Another Fool told us he was with us all the way and lamented, "How can Bob Nardelli exist on his meager severance?"

A Fool from Switzerland wasn't fooled and applauded the true intent behind the joke:

"You stand for fairness and investors' rights, not for greedy (criminal at times) underperforming executives. Our role model is Warren Buffett, NOT Joseph Nacchio or Frank Quattrone! That's the main reason why I am a proud member."

And, yes, we did get more emails than you might think actually supporting the bill. We won't embarrass those folks by posting excerpts from their emails here, but we will certainly implore them to read on and learn why our joke was just that.

Compensation in the crosshairs
CEO compensation is one heck of a major news item this year, and it gives us a great opportunity to educate, amuse, and enrich individual investors regarding an important topic . So how could we not address it for our annual prank this time around?

CEO compensation is currently in our collective crosshairs, with government officials joining the cacophony of outrage that many investors feel when it comes to how much some corporate leaders are paid. Government has responded, with the SEC enforcing new accounting and disclosure rules, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank introducing H.R. 1257, The Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act, also known as the "say on pay" bill. That bill -- which has been passed by a House of Representatives committee and sent on to the full House -- seeks to give shareholders nonbinding advisory votes on executive compensation policies at their companies, as well as an additional nonbinding advisory vote on golden parachutes being negotiated when their companies are in the midst of mergers and acquisitions.

It's clear that many shareholders, including both individual investors and big organizations such as TIAA-CREF, have just about had it with some of the ways their money is used, and without any say in the matter. The trend of offering massive severance packages to outgoing CEOs seems to have been the final straw for many people.

Home Depot's (NYSE: HD) Bob Nardelli may have left his top post steeped in shareholder ire, but still he was rewarded handsomely with a $200 million severance package. And Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE) Hank McKinnel walked away with close to $200 million himself, following a six-year stint as CEO that saw the company's shares drop about 30%. It gives a new meaning to the saying "You'll never work in this town again!" Hey, you might not have to work again.

Furthermore, for CEOs who aren't on the outs, linking pay to performance is certainly a good idea. Most of us operate on the idea that how well we perform our jobs is commensurate with our compensation. Is it really so crazy to think that CEOs should be any different? While most of us wouldn't argue over the salary of a CEO who has produced great shareholder returns during his or her tenure, it's a whole other matter when a chief executive is paid copious amounts of money, but generates little in the way of return.

Those $1 pay packages you sometimes hear about may be nice gestures (not to mention positive PR), but people often forget that many supposedly "low-paid" CEOs get exorbitant stock packages. (New accounting and disclosure rules from the SEC should help investors more easily sort out exactly who's getting what when it comes to stock and perks.) For example, Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Steve Jobs is one of those CEOs who gets paid a buck a year, but let's not forget his millions of dollars' worth of restricted stock.

(Whole Foods Market's (Nasdaq: WFMI) John Mackey is a notable exception. Not only was he historically very modestly paid by most standards of CEO salaries, but he has now decided to take $1 per year in salary and has decided to donate future stock options to the company's charity.)

Of course, when it comes to stealthier compensation, let's not forget shenanigans like stock-option backdating.

Huge, ongoing retirement packages have drawn considerable shareholder attention, too. General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Jack Welch may be one of the best-known corporate managers around, but the company got itself into hot water for not disclosing some of his post-retirement benefits. Did it really make sense to grant him a corporate apartment and lifetime personal use of the company jet? Welch did agree to give up the controversial extras after they came to light, but there's something a bit "dynastic" about this idea that former CEOs should enjoy certain corporate perks for life.

Well-known investing minds such as Vanguard founder Jack Bogle and Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK-A) Warren Buffett have been critical of runaway executive compensation. Compounding the problem, it's easy for cronyism to develop as the board members charged with looking out for shareholder interests instead approve massive pay increases for CEOs. All too often, since many of the board members are CEOs at other companies, upping the ante on CEO pay ends up benefitting them as well.

People who argue that the free market takes care of all things, including justifying exorbitant pay for chief executives, forget one important point. For free markets to work properly, information must flow freely, so that consumers -- and shareholders -- know what they are buying and selling. Furthermore, when people act without responsibility or ethics, they tarnish and endanger capitalism. Runaway compensation is an abuse of power. It invites shareholders to cry foul, which can ultimately result in calls for stringent regulation.

While CEOs fulfill very important roles, they should remember that they are employees, too. They must answer to shareholders, instead of their own greed and hubris.

If you read some of the following Foolish articles from the past year, you'll see why our April Fool's prank was such a good joke:

    * "Wall Street Pays for Performance," by Matt Koppenheffer
    * "Is CEO Pay Out of Whack?," by Rich Duprey
    * "Insane CEO Pay," by Alyce Lomax
    * "Stupid CEO Tricks," by Rich Smith
    * "Your Stocks' Secrets," by Alyce Lomax
    * "Bogle Battles for Our Souls," by Selena Maranjian
    * "An All-American Compensation Plan," by Tim Beyers

Thank you to all of the Fools who wrote, designed, edited, and published this year's April Fool's joke. You know who you are!

Home Depot, Pfizer, and Berkshire Hathaway are all Motley Fool Inside Value recommendations. Whole Foods is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. Check out either service free for 30 days.

Alyce Lomax owns shares of Whole Foods Market, but holds no financial position in any of the other companies mentioned. The Fool's disclosure policy insists that it supports rights for bears but not CEOs.

Welcome to REISkills!

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