Tag Archive for 'email marketing'

Not online yet? You’re losing money for sure

Published
by
Christian Bowman
on December 15, 2009
in General
. 1 Comment

The biggest marketing mistake I see businesses making today is that they don’t combine traditional marketing (media advertising, client calls, events, etc) and online marketing (emails, articles, video, social networking etc).

You may think the internet is irrelevant to your business but you couldn’t be more wrong. The right combination of traditional and online marketing can drastically reduce your overall marketing budget and increase the frequency of contact with both your prospects and your customers.

Online marketing can help you build very strong customer relationships by supporting your existing marketing activities. It can be a bigger sales force than you ever imagined.

The Revolution Has Started
There is a revolution going on right under our noses. The internet is rapidly becoming the place to be. In any given month:

Google has over 7.6 billion visitors
YouTube welcomes 2.6 billion visitors
each day more than 60 billion emails are sent.

Internet marketing is booming. And for good reasons, executed properly it works.

I can hear what you’re saying…
“Yes, but I’m sick of all those emails and so are my customers.”
“That’s OK for people selling widgets but I have a more selective customer base.”

Just stay with me and read the rest of this eZone.

Here’s what’s happening in traditional media…

According to AAP, weekday newspaper circulation in the United States fell by 10.6 per cent in the six months to September 2009, compared with a year ago.It was the largest decline in the past decade.

Also classified ad use is down 51% in 2 years.

Following the Trend
One thing is for sure - today’s 20-30 year olds may not be your current customers but they certainly will be in the future. Understanding how this demographic is accessing information is vital to the future of your business.

Did you know…
-    The majority of the group watch less than 1 hour of television a week
-    They prefer to text rather than have voice contact
-    They do not buy newspapers
-    Avoid untargeted ads (print media, TV, radio) like the plague. This fact alone will change the way companies promote their businesses.

Traditional ad agencies are going broke, newspaper sales are declining rapidly, and television ad revenue is plummeting. And the reason why…the internet is replacing these forms of advertising.

Your customers won’t find you if you don’t have a strong internet presence.

The proverbial stone has dropped into the pond and the waves of change are coming your way. The question is - Are you ready?


Here’s the really good news?
Internet marketing is cheaper, more flexible and totally measurable.


The biggest opportunity…
INSTANT ACCESS to your customers. Customers today are carrying networks with them at all times, on their mobile phone. As marketers we’ve never had this sort of access.

BUT

There is a right way and a wrong way to go about internet marketing. We are all getting bombarded by unwanted nuisance emails. Clearly, most businesses don’t know how to use the internet successfully.

So here’s the GOLDEN RULE to successful internet marketing

“GIVE BEFORE YOU GET”

This is the wrong way

Most businesses get an email and start harassing the prospect with all sorts of information about how great the company is and all the details about their products and services. And it is never ending. It’s just blah, blah, blah. People turn off.

These businesses never stop to find out what’s really works when it comes to internet marketing. All they manage to do is to annoy the hell out of their prospects. Bad move!

The Right Way

Help your customers be more successful by giving them free and useful information. One of the most common forms is to provide free reports packed full of great content.

Here are some examples:

For a business broker:

“How to avoid the 13 most costly mistakes when you buy a small business”

For an air conditioning business:

 ”The 7 steps you can take to reduce the cost of servicing your air conditioners by up to 23%.”

For a Google expert:

“The 6 key elements to get your business on the first page of Google in just 2 weeks.”

Don’t worry about giving away all your secrets. Information alone does not get the job done.

Do not promote your business in these reports. That’s a fatal flaw.

The idea is to set your company up as the expert trusted adviser. It’s your opportunity to show how much knowledge your company has and how you can help your prospects.

Most of my clients don’t have time to prepare these reports and other forms of free information. There is a simple solution. And it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. I’ll cover this topic in my first eZone for 2010.

CALL TO ACTION

Here’s how you get started.

Find out (talk to a few customers) the biggest problem your customers have when it comes to XXX. For example, servicing air conditioners, buying a business, Google ads, etc. Armed with this information you can then get a report written. Keep an eye out for my first eZone in 2010. I’ll explain how to do that.

All the best for the Christmas season, don’t drink too much on New Year’s eve and, most of all, relax.

How we made $14,663 with 4 emails in 4 days

Published
by
Christian Bowman
on November 24, 2009
in General
. 1 Comment

When email marketing is used effectively, the results can be astounding.  An example of a successful email marketing campaign was one we ran for a home budgeting system called Home Budget Buddy.  We sent 4 emails over 4 days and the result was $14,663 in sales.

We knew we needed a way to get people who were “on the fence” to cross over and finally make a decision to buy.  To encourage the fence sitters to purchase, we put a time limit in place. That created a sense of urgency to buy the product.

Additionally, we were able to increase sales even more by offering a second product, debt reduction software, at 50% off the purchase price.

Case Study: Home Budget Buddy

Not only will the following case study show you the power of effective email marketing through great results, but it also details a strategy that you can use in your business. (provided you’ve done your groundwork)

We executed a “4 Day Sale” with Home Budget Buddy, a client that sells budgeting and debt reduction software.

I got the idea for the “4 Day Sale” from another marketer by the name of Frank Kern. One of the reasons I like is one so much is that it can be adapted to a wide variety of industries and generates consistently good results.

Here’s how it works:
You offer a limited-time sale to your email list with a deep discount plus extra bonuses for taking action. (This is what I meant about groundwork - you have to have a list. You are building a list, aren’t you?)

In the case of Home Budget Buddy, we offered the $98 Home Budget Buddy software for half price ($48.50) for 4 days only to create a sense of urgency.

Every day for 4 days we sent an email that built on the offer and stressed that the sale would end at midnight on Day 4.

Here are the results:

Day 1: 38 orders

Day 2: 42 orders

Day 3: 69 orders

Day 4: 101 orders

Total: 250 orders

(Look at that spike on Day 4 - that’s the power of a deadline)

Total sales from the “main” offer were $12,125 - not bad for 4 days. But we also added an exponential twist to ratchet up the profit…

Post-purchase upsell
After the customer finished the initial purchase, we offered a one-time offer on the purchase “Thank You Page” to order the DebtBuster software, also for a 50% discount ($23.50 instead of $47).

108 out of the 250 purchasers (43%) said “yes” to the upsell,
adding another $2,538 to the 4 days’ takings.

 

Total sales: $14,663

You could argue that although a lot of cash was generated in a short period of time, on the downside a lot of margin was sacrificed via the discount.

However, these prospects had been marketed to over a 4 month period without buying. Also, the product was downloadable software with a near-zero production cost. And the development cost was recovered years ago.

Can you employ a similar technique for your business?

Before you say, “but I don’t sell software - this won’t work for me”, perhaps you can think about crafting a “killer offer” and combining it with a short deadline to produce more or less the same effect? (Let me know if you want help coming up with an offer that pulls…).

This case study also underlines the importance of building a list, sooner rather than later.

The fastest way to build a list is to offer a special report or email course that is irresistible to your target market - then place it on your website as prominently as possible.

You’ll not only generate immediate sales activity but you’ll also begin to build an asset in your list that you can “mine” for future profits.

CALL TO ACTION

  1. Here are the basic steps to starting a successful email marketing campaign.
  2. Come up with a killer offer for your list on a limited-time basis.
  3. Create 4 emails to send out over a period of 4 days that builds on the offer and emphasises the upcoming deadline.
  4. For everyone who purchases your offer, immediately offer another related product (upsell) to further increase your sales.