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Smart Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Posted on by Devin Herz

Starting a business can be difficult. It is common for new and small business owners to find themselves in the marketing role and quickly becoming overwhelmed. But don’t worry, we’re here to help you! The basics concepts of marketing are important to every small business owner. These are not marketing costs, they are investments, and it is essential to know where to start. If you can do that, you area step ahead.

Why Marketing Is Worth the Expense

When it comes to understanding the importance of the marketing and the role it plays in the development of the business, it becomes clear why marketing should be viewed as a worthy investment. Marketing is essential to attract the attention of potential customers and clients, increase the demand for goods or services and target these potential customers. Marketing affects your sales, prices, advertising and advertising policies. When you understand the importance of marketing, you can use it to promote the ongoing transition of your services and products to the customers. This is important in making your small business successful.

Understanding Market Research

Through market research, you can determine how your product or service will adapt to different demographic characteristics. Using this information, you can determine which segment of customers is interested in a product and service, and ultimately who is likely to make a purchase from you. You can use market research to gain specific information from potential customers, such as age group, gender, location, and income level, which you should use to guide your marketing message. With the help of market research, you can create marketing plans for your small business that arenot only effective but also cost-efficient. Market research gives you the information you need in a marketing context. Market research purchases target behaviours and habits that you focus on in practice, and ultimately saves you money by avoiding costly marketing mistakes.

Creating a Marketing Budget

Determining how much of your resources you should allocate to marketing within your company can be one of the biggest challenges for businesses. It can also be a major factor that can make or break a business.

Learn From Others

Small business marketing can sometimes be a challenge. Especially in rough economic times. However, many companies are successfully using new technologies to market their small businesses. These strategies can include social media marketing, online marketing, traditional marketing and even direct mail.

Often, small business owners don’t trust their marketing plan. This happens for many reasons and can lead to frustration or giving up. Reach out to our team of marketing consultants today and learn how to grow your business and reach your ideal clients.

 

 

Empower Your Employees with Internal Marketing Systems

Posted on by Devin Herz

Understanding the Importance of Internal Marketing

Internal marketing is an essential and commonly overlooked part of effective marketing. The internal aspect refers to the marketing relationship a business has with its employees. While focusing on external marketing is vital for raising brand awareness and creating revenue, internal marketing seeks to meet and provide for the needs of employees.  Marketing to your internal “customers” is an important aspect of promoting effective growth within a company.

Regardless of an employee’s job title, they likely rely upon other employees, teams, as well as the company, for information and support. There are countless benefits to be seen from improving the communication among your workers! The importance of each employee understanding the company’s direction, values, and vision cannot be overstated. This level of connectivity breeds a positive company culture and feelings of inclusion while encouraging your employees to truly believe and live the brand’s culture. A cliché sentiment rings true in this instance- if your employees are not passionate about your brand, it will be apparent in their work.

Benefits of Integrating Internal Marketing Strategies

With an internal marketing strategy in place, employees are treated as “internal customers” who must be equally convinced of a company’s vision and worth with just as much importance as you would place on an external customer. The goal of internal marketing is to align every aspect of a company’s internal operation to make sure they are as capable as possible to provide high value to customers. If a company can operate in a coordinated and standardized way, that company can provide a more consistent experience to their customers and employees. A positive side effect is employees becoming more empowered to make decisions within company guidelines and feeling valued for their contributions. These aspects work together to create a positive and productive company culture where your workplace and business will benefit greatly.

A Simple Solution to Begin Improving Your Internal Marketing

There are many things you can do to improve your outreach in this area, beginning with your mindset! Set your mentality to regard your employees as an audience. Are you experiencing problems such as staff not reading your memos or forgetting the information given in emails? Begin crafting content for them as you would for your desired client. Engage them with a story – with your brand’s message and goals in mind. Reinforce a concept with customer testimonials and deliver important information over time through several channels. Add a human element by appealing to emotion and the daily happenings in your business. This might seem like a lot to propose, but you will immediately see improvements in your workplace. By keeping your employees up-to-date on changes and current campaigns, your workers will be well-informed and confidently speak on the unique selling points you offer.

E-mails and newsletters are great communication channels for improving your business’ internal marketing. If you are a corporate manager or CEO, consider beginning to author a transparent monthly update communicating goals that have been successfully met, what has been accomplished, and what to expect next. Speak in a conversational tone and end your piece with inviting questions to encourage an open conversation and employee feedback. Consistency is key in communicating with your employees, so be sure to make it a point to communicate in this way reliably and regularly!

How We Can Help

To take your initiative a step further, consider hiring a knowledgeable marketing firm. By huddling with industry leaders who understand common pitfalls and best practices, you can avoid unforeseen challenges and get right to improving your workplace communication. Marketing experts can aide with staying on top of vital aspects of your marketing, like newsletters, and promoting upcoming events or initiatives. Further, hiring out a business writer for these tasks can save you the time spent putting it all into words and keep your essential daily business tasks front and center.

Internal marketing systems offer everyone direction as well as something to be excited about and a part of! Contact us to learn the next steps to take to captivate and motivate your internal customers and take your marketing strategy to the next level.

How to Attract Potential Clients’ Attention – and Keep It!

Posted on by Devin Herz

How to Attract Potential Clients’ Attention – and Keep It!

Did you know, Americans are bombarded with an average of 4,000 advertisements a day? With all that competition for customers, how can your business even begin to stand out? By getting clear on the value your business provides, making the most of your social media presence and strategically using lead magnets, your business can effectively attract potential clients’ attention – and keep it!

Focusing on the Value Your Business Provides

A core principle in marketing is understanding your value. What motivates customers to convert and buy into your product or service? With this in mind, your marketing should focus on the problems you solve and how you’ll make your clients’ lives better. Your marketing campaigns should be aligned, from your business’s social media engagement to client email messages – all should have this concept as the central objective of your initiatives. Clearly stating your value proposition also enables your employees and management to have a clear understanding of your company’s vision and goals. Value brings in leads and turns those leads into customers! And a satisfied consumer will eagerly share things of value with their circle, helping you promote your business using the best method of all – word of mouth. By focusing on the value your business provides, you can effectively market your brand, attract potential client’s attention and place your company in front of the right people at the right time!

Take Advantage of Social Networks

While there will be some overlap between your followers, the people who follow you on Facebook likely aren’t the same people who have signed up for your company e-mails. Make the most of the content you create by looking to repurpose it and use your content across all of your social media channels. A blog post can be repurposed as an article in your newsletter; a Facebook post can be reimagined as a conversation-starting question on Twitter. By optimizing your marketing outreach across all your business’s social platforms, you are sure to engage and attract the attention of as many potential clients as possible.

Additionally, don’t underestimate the power of print advertising and direct marketing. While digital marketing has taken center stage as the most prominent form of marketing, print still packs a huge punch. Direct mail utilizes far less cognitive effort to process than digital media, which suggests it is easier to comprehend and most likely to be committed to memory. In a recent study, when asked to recall a company’s name in the advertisement they had just seen, the ability to remember was found to be 70% higher in participants who were shown a direct mail advertisement. That’s right – 75% of participants could recall the ad correctly when delivered through direct mail versus 44% for digital! So, if your business is primarily online, don’t neglect physical opportunities to attract client’s attention. From creating direct mail marketing campaigns to using eye-catching video brochures, there are countless ways to take a modern spin on print advertisement.

Consider Using Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are a fantastic way to get your customer’s attention by offering information of value in your field.  While you clearly want to avoid giving away too much of a product or service, you do want to provide something that has substantial enough value to intrigue your market. As an example, an attorney might provide a checklist to prepare for a court date with quick tips available in the form of a free PDF as an incentive for opting-in to their email list. You will then be able to continue providing your value proposition through quality content via e-mail – effectively attracting and keeping the attention of your potential clients. Other commonly used ways to increase a business’s e-mail list is by offering promo codes or discounts for electing to join.

Getting Noticed

By focusing on a few tried and true techniques, your business can stand apart and make a positive, impactful impression. Be sure to check out our other blogs for more ideas about how you can make the most of your marketing!

Wake Up Your Sleeping Clients with A Reactivation Campaign

Posted on by Devin Herz

You took the time, effort,and resources to obtain each of your clients. How many of them are currently sitting stagnant in your database? Using a reactivation campaign is a cost-effective way to “wake” your clients up who have been “hitting snooze” on your services or product offerings.

When it comes to reactivation campaigns, it’s important to keep in mind your target audience and your goals. Your campaign could be direct mail or via email. Both are effective and engaging, although here are DMC, we know from experience how direct mail truly leaves a lasting impression.

Whether it be someone who previously engaged, expressed interest,or purchased from you, it’s important to think about enticing offers and promotions that will incentivize them to follow through now. You know they’re interested in what your business provides since they opted in. Don’t just tell your clients what you can do for them, show them you understand their needs and tailor the messaging to that. In our experience, we’ve found it is most effective to test offers to see which gets your clients to convert.

Here are a few of our latest reactivation campaigns:

If you’re ready to re-engage your clients with a reactivation campaign, contact our team today. We’ll help you create a unique marketing sequence that will have your clients picking up the phone!

Dynamic Marketing 101: Digital Advertising

Posted on by Devin Herz

In part two of our blog series, we’re going to take a look at digital advertising. There’s no denying the fact that the world has been rapidly making the shift to digital. Between mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and more, people of all ages are consuming more digital content on a daily basis than ever before. From a business perspective, this means that marketing strategies need to adapt to this new way of life, and fast! Digital advertising is the marketing tool your company needs to be using no matter what service or product you offer.

Digital advertising is the new norm and if you’re not already practicing it, it’s absolutely time to start. It’s the fastest growing marketing channel and it’s not going to slow down any time soon. Before we look at the benefits of digital advertising, let’s take a moment to discuss the key forms of it at present:

  • websites and SEO content
  • blogs
  • internet banner ads
  • online video content
  • pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
  • email marketing
  • social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
  • mobile marketing (SMS, MMS, etc.)

There are endless opportunities when it comes to advertising your brand in the digital realm.

Digital advertising has a lot to offer to advertisers. For starters, it’s infinitely more affordable than traditional marketing methods. Digital advertising is targeted, meaning each ad you create will always only be seen by qualified prospects and targeted audience members. You can target by geographic location, demographics, interests, and more. One huge benefit of digital is the ease in which results can be tracked and monitored. Instead of conducting expensive customer research, you can now quickly and easily view your response rates and measure the success of your digital ad campaign in real-time.

The bottom line is that the digital age is here to stay, and the team at DMC is fully taking advantage of all the benefits it has to offer. We have years of experience in implementing successful digital advertising methods. If your business could use assistance in developing your digital advertising strategy to bring in more revenue and customers, don’t hesitate to contact us! And stay tuned, next month we’ll be diving into the discussion of direct mail in the current business climate.

5 Tactics to Boost Direct Mail Response Rates

Posted on by Devin Herz
Retention Marketing Strategies for business

While email marketing is a great strategy because of its low cost per acquisition, direct mail still has a far better response rate. As physical mail becomes less common, research has shown that 55% of people now look forward to getting the mail and over 65% of people feel that mail is far more personal than an email. At DMC, we want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth when spending on direct mail campaigns.

Here are five tactics to boost your direct mail response rates:

1. Clean Up Your Contact List

Similar to how we all “clean” our email lists, you’ll want to do this same cleaning with your mailing list too. Consider working with your mailing provider and have them run your list through the National Change of Address database. This will remove any known bad addresses and will also help you lower costs by making sure all addresses are complete, meet the postal requirements, and are pre-sorted.

2. Test Before Sending

If the goal of your direct mail campaign is to get a great response rate, make sure you’re sending it to your most engaged customers. The way to determine these customers is to do some test mailing that you track. Try a low-cost giveaway with purchase to see who responds. Additionally, you may want to test different offers on small groups to see which gets the best response rate before you launch to your entire database.

3. Personalization is Key

Personalizing your direct mail will ensure the best response rates. Not every business personalizes their postcard mailers, most times they’re generic to make it easy to mail to the masses. When you put together your mail piece, include as many personal details as possible, not just the name, but the product the consumer has previously purchased and a targeted offers based on that information.

4. Go Custom

The best way to resonate with your target audience is to have a mail piece that stands out and grabs the consumers’ attention; you want them to be excited to open your mail. Try a die-cut postcard, a stick-on item, or even an alluring envelope color. Consider including a small gift in the package too. If the consumer feels something inside the package, they’re more likely to open it.

5. Create an Integrated Campaign

While these strategies will help boost the response rates, don’t expect a one-off mail piece to do the trick entirely. Customers will be more likely to respond to your direct mail offers if you make them a part of a larger campaign. This means sending them a series of informative mailers and special offers. You can even integrate direct mail letters and postcards with emails, text messages, social media targeting, and phone calls.

If your last direct mail campaign felt like a one-way correspondence, DMC is here to help! These five tactics can go a long way in boosting your response rates, but coordinating all these elements is no small feat. If this sounds overwhelming to tackle, consider letting DMC take the lead on your next direct mail campaign. We’ll streamline and manage every aspect from data research, printing production, assembly, and delivery. If you want to make sure your next direct mail campaign hits all the right notes and achieves the maximum ROI, call DMC today!

Repeating Success – the key is easier than you think!

Posted on by Devin Herz

Repeat business, new customers, and referrals don’t happen on their own. It starts with a great experience that “wows” people and makes them want to tell their friends. But then, you need to build on that experience by staying in touch with existing customers while also reaching new people in the process. That’s where marketing comes in.

Customers have expectations for your business, and you work hard to fulfill those expectations daily. Just as consistency makes you stand out from your competitors, it’s also critical when it comes to planning your marketing efforts. It’s a consistency that builds trust, and trust is the foundation for brand loyalty and promotion. Successful marketers do something for their business every single day!

Your various marketing efforts should be consistent with each other. You should develop a “tone of voice” for your brand that flows consistently from the in-person experience consumers will get, to your website, social media presence, email marketing and direct mail campaigns. Each piece of this marketing puzzle is just as important as the next and it’s critical that all efforts are cohesively telling your brand’s story.

Remember, you can’t build a business in spurts; working for a period of time then neglecting marketing efforts for days or weeks. You must constantly stay active in marketing your business to keep your clientele engaged. We know firsthand, it’s not easy and can be overwhelming. Trust the team at DMC to manage your marketing efforts – we offer customized packages specifically tailored to your business needs. You WILL see the results of a consistent marketing strategy!

3 Compelling Reasons Why Direct Mail Should be in Your Marketing Mix

Posted on by Devin Herz

If you have been investigating where your marketing dollars are best spent you most likely have read that direct mail marketing is a low cost high return on investment option. This article will do a good job detailing out what all the fuss is about with direct mail.  Direct mail marketing not only allows you to target your most likely of customer with the precision of a sniper rifle but it also allows you to personalize the offer. With this and the fact that you can track your marketing dollars with direct mail makes it a popular marketing option both for the small biz and the largest of corporations.

The ability to focus in and target only the most likely of customers is a huge asset to direct mail marketing. Companies of all sorts can purchase or rent lists of people with the most favorable demographics that match the existing customer base.  Income, Hobbies, Mortgage data are all available and extremely useful when developing a direct mail campaign. This type of marketing is with a precision focus as opposed to a more shotgun approach such as TV or Radio advertisements.

Personalizing the direct mail piece has shown time and time again to deliver the greatest of response rates. Mail pieces built dynamically with the information mentioned above assist in delivering a compelling offer that will be received favorably. People do not like to receive junk mail but they love receiving mail that is personalized and is relevant to them. New technologies such as variable data printing and Personalized URL’s are taking personalization to a whole new level.  Personalizing each piece of mail even with mailings in the 10’s of thousands of pieces is now simple and cost effective.

Tracking the response rate of direct mail has now become even more accurate with the advent and use of Personalized URLS (PURLs).  Direct mail offers now can contain web site links that are unique to the individual receiving the mail. Again the more personal the offer the better the response and with these tools available with direct mail this has become a very unique and responsive way to market products and services.

Utilizing direct mail along with Variable Data Printing and PURLs in your next marketing effort is certainly worth a good look. The Direct Mail experts at The Print Concierge are happy to show how you how we can work together and implement these new techniques and watch your response rates soar!

Let our team of experienced professionals rock out on your next innovative video campaign. We also provide the services for Website Development, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation Marketing and other related projects. Get started now by scheduling a free consultation.

Do Results = Happiness? OR Does Happiness = Results?

Posted on by Devin Herz

Every company wants their people to do well and enjoy their work.

And we believe everyone should work hard in order to be happy, right?

But could we be thinking about things backwards?

Check out this fast-paced and very funny talk, where psychologist Shawn Achor argues that, actually, happiness inspires us to be more productive.

Shawn actually spent 12 years at Harvard studying happiness and it’s amazing how simple it is to impact your results in business and life in general, simply by being happy.

It’s only about 12 minutes long, but it really hits home and is a great reminder that we all have the ability to impact our results with our attitude. Watch this Video and explore your Marketing Ideas with Online Marketing experts.

Here’s to your success…and happiness!

Devin A. Herz

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