Whenever the economy takes a hit, churn rates rise as companies seek ways of paring costs. It’s almost identical to what happens with mobile phone services, as subscribers seek out ever-better deals. The answer to churn, of course, is stickiness – and stickiness is built through customer service. Actually, it’s a little more than that: stickiness, or customer loyalty is built by serving your customers in ways that delight them. So, how much time do…
Talk to companies in the hosting industry and you’d have to say yes. I deal with hosting companies every day and I’ve heard from only a few that their businesses are in decline. In fact, I most often hear that their businesses keep growing – sometimes with record revenues and profits. One company I deal with has experienced 300% growth over the past year and expects to double the number of its employees over the…
Who is it really all about? For several years I’ve read a blog that provides in-depth investigative reports I can’t get in the daily newspapers. I won’t name the blog, because that’s not the issue. The issue is that they are running out of money. Their annual budget is $125,000, which provides a modest income for the blog owner, money to host and update the blog, plus a budget to pay freelance reporters.
Frankly, there are no secrets. Good marketing works in all kinds of economic circumstances. So, the non-secret to marketing in a recession is this: practice sound marketing, paying particular attention to the rules and techniques of direct response marketing: Start by understanding your market. Who are you already selling to and where can you find more like them? What do you know about them that will help you sell to them? What do they need…
You can admit it now: In your heart you always knew the housing/credit/market bubble was going to burst one day. So now what? I recently read an item by a marketer saying they were glad the bubble had burst, because now they could get back to real marketing. What did they mean by that? If I read it correctly, the writer – a marketer – was saying that while the various bubbles grew and grew,…
Direct mail is a subset of Direct Response Marketing. All forms of direct response, including direct mail give you results you can measure accurately. Image and awareness advertising – which you see so much of on TV – cannot do that. Because direct mail is so measurable, it puts an onus on the copywriter to get it right. Fortunately, expert direct mail writers have tools and techniques that get results. Over the next few posts,…
Now that you’re in the thick of your media campaign, don’t sit back and wait for the sales to come in. You still have plenty of work to do. You have to monitor your results. You need to see which pages on your site are receiving the most visitors. Which ones are like Astroturf in the Sahara – they stand out and are getting tons of attention? Which ones are standing in the corner of…
When you think of copywriting do you think of those direct mail pieces that arrive in your mail box? Or do you think of the text of a television ad? Or do the words in a radio spot come to mind? If so, you’d be right in all those instances. Yet you’d also have missed some. At its essence, copywriting is persuasive writing.
The article by Guy Masono I’ve referred to in the past describes the last two of the 4Ts as Transact and Track. I’m going to discuss in more detail what I believe these two mean for your marketing campaign. Transact, Masono writes, “refers to opening a two-way communication with customers and prospects based on the nature of an inquiry.” For example, your website has a lead-generating form that visitors may fill out in order to…
Do you really know your target market? Do you know what they think? Where they live? How old they are? What websites they frequent? What keywords do they use when they search for something online? If you don’t – if you don’t live and breath and think as your target market thinks – you must find out, because once you do, then you’ll know how to market to them. You also will want to drill down and…