Archive for eMail List Building
Cross-Promoting With Other Business Email Lists To Generate Leads
Posted by: | CommentsA constant flow of new leads is the lifeblood of a growing business. For whatever reasons, your existing customers will trickle off over the course of time. If you do not have new leads that you can convert into buying customers, your business is on course for a slow death.
New leads are not always easy to come by and therefore we pay a good sum of money for customer acquisition whether it be through advertising, a sales force or telesales. There is, however, a no cost means of generating fresh leads. Through cross-promotion with another business you can tap into their database of existing customers.
To do this successfully, the business you team up with must market to the same demographics as you do. They typically are not in direct competition with you. You would be hard pressed to find a competitor willing to send their customers to you! You can, however find plenty of businesses that parallel your business.
For example, if you are in the construction business and your business is installing ceramic tiles, you might want to team up with a drywall/plaster company or an electrician or plumber. All of you market to the home renovation customers. Another example would be for the accountant. You might team up with a business coach, a printer or an advertising agency. All of you market to the small business owner.
The point being, there are a good number of other businesses to network with that are also looking for new leads themselves. Once you have found a business that is ready to do a cross-promotion with you, you can set up a campaign or an ongoing promotion. One of the easiest, and cost free, methods is using your email list.
You will create an email, write it as if you were the other business owner making a recommendation for your business. The other business will do the same for his business. You send his email to your list and he sends your email to his list. This is also known as an Ad Swap.
There is a way to take that Ad Swap one step further and turn it into an ongoing campaign on autopilot. Any business worth their salt will be using an autoresponder to manage their emailing list. This allows them to schedule in email follow ups to their list. If you aren’t then it is important that you start.
When cross-promoting with another business, you can then each include a follow up message or two within your network. This means that not only will your emails go out to your existing clients, but it will also go out to all new clients you each generate in the future. You can spend an hour setting up the followups to go out at regular intervals over the course of the year. Once it is set into motion, you no longer have to worry about it and can go on to finding another business to network with.
This is a very powerful way to generate leads on an ongoing basis. If you can find two or three more businesses to repeat the process with, it effectively gives your business free advertising as well as having the same credibility as word of mouth referrals or testimonials.
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Small Business Marketing – Is Email Marketing Still As Relevant As It Used To Be?
Posted by: | CommentsWith the explosion of social networking sites over the past few years, many discussions have been made about the relevance of email marketing in today’s socially connected world. The fact is, email will likely never go out of style; and here is why:
- 140 character blips will never get the full message across when it comes to business. It might spark ta customer’s interest enough to ask for more information, but you will never be able to totally conduct your business through Tweets or posts on a Facebook wall.
- The jury is still out on Google Wave. No one really seems to understand when or how to use it for business. It will never replace standard email.
- When your customer visits your website and wants more information about a product, do they run to Twitter to ask you questions? No, they may ask for feedback from Twitter users about your product or your business, but when it comes right down to getting more information, they turn to email.
The truth is that email always will be a major component of online marketing. Social marketing is like a broadcast system that is sent out to the masses. Email is still considered a direct one-on-one contact with a customer. It is private and personal. That is the reason many people are reluctant to give up their email addresses to businesses.
What can email marketing do for your business that Twitter and Facebook can’t?
- Provide customer service. Email is still the best way to follow up with an existing customer after the sale is completed.
- Up sell additional services. Email marketing is an excellent way to let your buyers know about other services your business may offer that they were not aware of. You can offer incentives to your buyers to add-on services to their existing purchase which will increase your revenue.
- Keep your buyers coming back for more. Delivering weekly or monthly flyers to your client email list to inform them of discounts and specials is a good way to encourage repeat business. If you sell a consumable product, a reminder to re-purchase before they run out is also possible through email marketing.
- Build trust with your customers. While social sites are great for delivering quick updates and headline news, delivering any content with substance is impossible. Through email marketing, you can establish a bond with your buyers and give them more value by sending useful information and product tips.
Customers may add friends willy-nilly to their social accounts, but they protect their email addresses because they are important to them and reserve them for the most important information that they do not want to get lost in the shuffle of activity in social sites. And that is why email marketing will never go out of style.
Small Business Marketing – Why An Email List Adds Resale Value To Your Small Business
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you are a small business owner, there is always the hope that one day you will either pass your business on to a family member or sell the business for a good sum of money for your retirement. Did you know that an email list is considered an asset and adds a great deal of value to your business worth?
Having an email list gives you the ability to generate revenue pretty much on demand. It is your client database and gives you the capabilities of generating repeat business with little effort on your part. If you provide good customer service and treat your email list with respect, they will reward you by being responsive to any emails you send to them.
As such, when it comes time to hand over the business to a new owner, you are not only selling them a business premises and product inventory, you are also handing them your clients and the ability to generate revenue from them from the very first day. A business with built in clientele will always sell for much more than a business without.
Because you have also taken the time to build your client mailing list and have capitalised on the opportunities to grow your repeat buyers list, you also will have a much higher yearly revenue than you would if you did not generate that repeat business. This also increases the resale value of your business as it will be a much more prosperous and profitable business.
It goes without saying, you will also benefit from your email list for many years yourself. Imagine being able to run a sale or offer a special to your mailing list once per month or to send out your weekly flyer to people who already know and trust you. It is easy to increase your sales when you maintain an active email list and stay in touch with your buying customers.