Creating and mailing business post cards is a logical choice when your small business has a small advertising budget.

Here are five factors to consider:

1. Your data base list of customers might well be under 500 names.

• You can manage this list yourself on your computer and print out mailing labels. And since there are so few names, you won’t have to hire a mailing company to affix the labels, sort by zip code and take it to the post office for you.

2. Our advantage as small businesses is in cultivating a personal relationship with our customers. This holds true whether your business is entirely local or operates in a special business niche market on the national or international level.

• A post card is intimate. Emotionally, who can resist reading a colorful post card? Especially those with a nice glossy front side with a compelling message. It’s like a personal message from someone you know.

3. Postcards are a private communication between you and your client so your competition has no idea of what you are doing.

• There is no “waste” circulation since only those on your mailing list are included. This will produce better results for the post card, especially when compared to those you get from the “mass media” of newspapers, magazines, etc.

4. We are all receive flyers, circulars and advertising mail whose print runs are measured in the millions. By default, they set creative standards that we feel we should equal or exceed in our own efforts.

• Since you have so few names to spread across paying for high-level creative services and long-run printing, these services become prohibitive on a cost per address basis. But thanks to digital technology, the creative, printing and mailing costs have been reduced to where they are well within reach of almost anyone.

5. Postcards are a wonderfully fast and efficient way of getting specific messages delivered in a permanent format to your own mailing list and other specific mailing lists you have purchased.

• Your postcard can generate immediate response or can be easily set side as a reminder for future action.

These are just five of many factors you will want to consider as part of placing business post card mailings on your list of advertising tactics for your small business.

© 2006 Jon Sinish

This article may be reprinted and distributed as long as the resource information remains intact.

Jon Sinish is a 30-year champion of advertising for small businesses, whose clients range from international corporations to private professional practices.

For more on business post card advertising, go to http://www.advertising-for-small-businesses.com/post-card-advertising.html

Jon invites you to explore his web site http://www.advertising-for-small-businesses.com where you can discover over 25 more articles that reveal practical tips, tactics and strategies to help the small businessperson manage and improve their advertising and marketing programs.

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We all know that achieving better alignment, synergy and cooperation between company marketing and sales departments is vital, but oh so elusive. Despite all the talk and more talk in the media and at national business gatherings, nothing significant ever seems to happen.

The reason nothing happens is that there is only one person who can truly make it happen: The Company CEO. Unfortunately, CEOs don’t seem to be getting the message.

Why is the CEO the key?

In virtually every company, the president or CEO is responsible for setting the primary direction and goals for all parts of that company’s operations. Many CEOs practice a macro style of management, delegating many of their responsibilities to others, which is usually good. But delegating does not absolve them of using their influence over major changes in the company. The CEO is ultimately the weathervane for determining what does and doesn’t get done - especially major changes, like getting better marketing and sales collaboration.

What is happening?

Left to their own devices, sales managers and marketing managers will continue to work separately while feigning collaboration. Numerous software providers have given these managers an easy way to avoid having to seriously collaborate person-to-person. These providers champion the solution of having a Customer Relationship Management program in place. CRM has its merits and some have found it successful, but the jury stills seems to be out on how applicable it is to this problem. While we wait for more data, I don’t see significant change in selling/marketing habits or department cooperation. There is still no serious collaboration on permanent change.

Other vendors say the answer is to develop new customer-centered messaging. This will bring success, they say, with both departments centered on knowing what the customer wants, needs and feels about the company. From what I hear, this idea hasn’t found great success either. Perhaps it’s not successful because it is left to each department to interpret how it sees and uses this messaging information. Perhaps it is because message-centering isn’t a strong enough mandate for permanent change in both departments’ behavior.

I maintain that if an idea, technology, or policy suggests a significant change in the importance, behavior or role of either department, it probably won’t get priority attention.

We can paint a new target color on prospects, describe them in different detail, or agree on new messages, but what will motivate marketing and sales departments to tear down their silos? What motivates them to overcome their own lack of knowledge and fears about the other’s role and importance? What’s in it for them? After all, it took decades to build these departments, and we don’t easily eliminate territorial imperatives in corporate America.

Do Marketing and/or Sales Vice Presidents see this problem?

Here are some interesting observations:

a. In a recent survey, 40% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) said they can’t/won’t measure the effectiveness of their own marketing programs.

b. In that same survey, 39% of these CMOs said their department doesn’t work well with their sales department.

c. Sales departments said 70% of their marketing materials end up in the trash. (If the marketing budget makes up 23% of the average company’s revenues, that’s a lot of money going down the drain.)

If Sales and Marketing Vice Presidents agree on this problem, why no action?

1. Nobody relishes accepting and addressing a major department behavioral change. This is hard, time-consuming and strange territory for most.

2. There is real career risk and fear in either person taking the initiative.

3. Most don’t have the depth of knowledge about how to make this type of change.

4. Day-to-day activities give good excuses for not focusing adequately on this.

Most importantly, why doesn’t the CEO get involved?

Several possibilities exist:

• Maybe the substantial dollar value of the results from this change isn’t clear enough.

• Maybe CEOs enjoy being “referee” for these two department squabbles.

• Maybe CEOs fear making a wrong decision.

• Maybe they believe some new technology will be the answer.

• Maybe CEOs don’t understand change in marketing and sales actions are essential in today’s marketplace.

What will work:

During my 25+ years of business development experience in 50 different industries, I’ve had a lot of first-hand experience with the “corporate silo issues” and bickering between marketing and sales departments. I’ve seen shocking, contradictory answers to the question of a company’s key competitive advantages as expressed by these two departments.

Buying new software or adopting some new pictures, slogans and buzz terms for prospect/customers is NOT the most important first step. The keys to solving this collaboration problem are simple and very doable:

1. The CEO must accept that bold change within these two departments is vital and that he or she must personally start this ball rolling.

2. The CEO must believe certain changes in behavior, attitude, knowledge base and work procedures are essential for any effort to be fruitful.

3. The CEO must initiate and set the expectations and measurements.

4. The CEO must expedite the hiring of an outside facilitator who can quickly establish credibility and leadership with both departments.

My approach is built on proven employee change techniques, tweaked to fit this current challenge. The key success components are:

- Getting both departments to see personal benefits in significantly changing their business behavior, activities and responsibilities

- Having department individuals build the plan for change together

- Moving both departments closer together physically

- Facilitating cross-training between departments

What’s in it for the CEO?

The CEO has a heavy stake in sales and marketing department collaboration. When these departments finally work together, the way they should:

1. ROI for both departments will improve and be much clearer.

2. Marketing and sales costs will be reduced.

3. Sales revenues will jump noticeably.

I believe most CEOs are tired of the mediocre sales growth that comes from departmental struggles and constant finger pointing. It is time they get the message: It doesn’t have to be this way.

###

Sidebar

What are the key considerations for successful implantation of this corporate change?

1. The outside facilitator must have balanced credibility in both the marketing and sales professions. Insiders can’t do it themselves (This has been tried but failed because one or the other department felt pressured to favor one department’s philosophy or the other).

2. The CEO must agree on what constitutes quantifiable measures of performance and return on investment. (A good facilitator will help here.)

3. The employees must design, agree and implement the new collaboration action plan. They must “own” and drive it, not management.

© Rick Wemmers 770-565-8727

Rick Wemmers
Rapid Business Development Expert

Rick brings 25 years of business development secrets, gathered from experience consulting companies in 50 different industries. Fortune 50 clients such as: Scott Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Seagram Distillers, Kimberly Clark, Coca-Cola, Georgia Pacific and Chap-stick, and a host of smaller, start-up technology companies.

He shows how to:
 find and use undiscovered competitive intelligence.
 focus energies/resources for more profitable selling.
 improve sales force productivity.
 create commanding sales presentations.
 leverage small budgets to achieve big results.

Rick is experienced with all types of sales channels: direct & rep sales force, wholesalers, distributors, direct sales, telemarketing, OEM, alliances, partnerships, retail, and Internet.
He is skilled in the use of all selling tools and tactics: all forms of paid advertising, public relations/publicity, direct mail, email, point-of-sale, contests, discounts, sales force incentives and one-on-one presentations.

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The magic’s in the medium and podcasting is hot - molten hot. It wasn’t long ago a simple search for podcasting in Google turned up about 600,000 results. Now, in less than a year’s time, the search boils over with 36,400,000!

And… the numbers are rapidly growing!

Wake up call. Podcasting is exploding. This is the Internet powerhouse to watch in 2006.

Exactly how is podcasting turning customer service into gold? Let’s take a look inside Merlin’s cave and see what going on with this phenomenon…

First of all, relatively speaking, podcasting provides a powerful bang for the buck. It’s your show, your way, to your audience… who is looking to you as their subject matter expert. They want to hear you and through the miracle of RSS, they simply subscribe once and automatically, each week you have their attention.

Unlike the splatter of radio ads, podcasting audiences want to hear what you have to say. And because the focus is on niche content tailored specifically to your audience, compared to radio advertising costs, podcasting stomps the competition in overall cost-effectiveness.

Studies have proven that we retain more of what we hear than what we see or read. You talk to your customers and they grow to know you. Tom K., a loyal listener of a popular podcast about digital camcorders had this to say, “With podcasting it’s personal. It’s one-on-one. I feel like I get to know the host and I grow to trust what they’re saying. You can tell if someone’s on the level when you spend time with them each week.”

Little wonder customers are feeling loyal to their podcast programs. This is beyond branding… this is alchemy turning the relationship into familiarity and trust.

What else is it but pure gold when you earn the loyalty of your customers? Earn… well yes, indeed… the old fashioned way… as the once popular commercial stated, “we earn it”.

The more you shine the light on the benefits to your customer, the more you gain position and value in your customer’s mind.

Here’s a few ideas:

• Technical Support: Make your support folks into customer superstars. Providing detailed technical support for your product ensures a positive customer experience and loyalty. Bring your support staff into your show and teach your customers how to use your product or service and most importantly, how to correct any problems that may arise. Plus, this saves you money in human capital and costs of customer support.
• Preview of New Features or Services: What better way to get market research than to ask your customers what they want and what they think about proposed new products. Podcasting opens the door to two-way communications as your customers post comments and send emails providing you valuable insights.
• Share Best Practices: How are your customers using your product or service? Have you heard of an innovative way to get additional value from your product? Many times you’ll hear from a customer how they have developed a new or more efficient way to use your product and podcasting gives you the forum to share these tips.

That’s just a few of the creative ways podcasting is opening new possibilities each day. The sky’s the limit so now is the time to bring your company into the podcasting revolution.

Get a MP3 player or simply listen from your computer and explore the myriad of podcasting shows out there. You’re going to be amazed, enthused, and eager to get involved.

Go for it! Turn your customer service into gold!

Mark Orion is Director of Marketing with http://www.epodogy.com, an Austin, TX company dedicated to serving clients with podcasting consulting, design & creation services.

Visit http://www.epodogy.com and get your company started podcasting to your customers.

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Success with your IT consulting business won’t happen overnight. In this article, you’ll learn when you can expect to start bringing in some good profits.

IT Marketing: It’s a Systematic Process

Ok, so you’ve joined the chamber, will be attending your first networking meeting this week, have participated in venture capital groups that are geared towards IT and have been handing out your business cards all over the place at regional trade shows. Unfortunately not much has come of this so far. What is the problem?

Time. It will take three to six months to begin to see the payoffs. You won’t see immediate results by joining an organization. If, however, you have been actively participating for 6 months and still nothing is coming of it, it’s probably not going to happen over the extended duration and you may want to bail and try another organization.

IT Marketing Requires Personal Relationships

Don’t expect that you’re going to go to one meeting or two meetings and automatically you’re going to land a $25,000 account. Yeah, every once in a while you can win the lottery, but most of the time people have to like, know and trust you.

I’m going to assume that most people that are reading this have a nice, warm personality and they’re friendly and charismatic people. You must be likeable and like working with people. It’s a people business, so if you’re a loner, you’re going to have problems.

First impressions count for a lot. Dress neatly, build a rapport with the people you meet, hitting it off with them, and having good chemistry counts for a lot. Don’t forget to send business their way if you run into someone needing their services. Don’t stay hidden. Regularly get yourself circulating in the general public and give it time.

The Bottom Line about IT Marketing

IT marketing requires you to be patient and build personal relationships to start making a good profit. It won’t happen overnight, but if you invest some time in meeting people and building rapport, you will start getting referrals to help your IT marketing.

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Joshua Feinberg has helped thousands of small business computer consulting firms get more steady, high-paying clients. Now you can too. Sign-up now for your free access a one-hour audio training program featuring field-tested, proven Small Business Computer Consulting Secrets.

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It’s a great concept, - and it has a ‘cool factor’ of 300%!

Many people will pop these into their drive just because
of image appeal alone. What’s really neat is when one is
so well done, so informative, so interactive, that everybody
wants one.

This type of viral marketing can be very effective and create
residual traffic to your business. The point I would like to
make here is, don’t undertake these projects without specific
goals in mind. Yes, they are cool, yes, they (themselves)
are not that expensive, but without a well done message, or
purpose, they lose the ‘cool’ effect very quickly. The point
is to keep interest, no matter what your selling, or
announcing, or rolling-out.

Anyone can get online and find a dozen CD replicating firms
pretty quickly. What you really want to find is a pro-
fessional consultant that can assist you in putting it
all together, making it all work, and keeping it interesting.

This presentation is what will make the CD card become a
success (sizzle!). The CD cards are not your real expense (under $1 each), it’s the chosen platform and presentation you care to deliver and how.

Let’s look at some ideas…

One of the first things you should consider is that the
presentation have live links to it’s major content. In
this way, we can constantly keep our site pages updated and
the CD remains usable (not outdated). When loading, you can
choose to have a permission based icon burned onto the user’s
Desktop that links directly to your website (and even ask permission).

You can make special offers that can be retrieved at your
website. You can use them for your next huge Tradeshow,
Product Announcement and Roll-out. How about your Corporate
Year End Results?

These cards can hold different capacities (MB’s), and come
in many shapes. You can create a custom shape, but that
adds heavily to the investment (there are plenty of shapes available).

You can fit audio, video, and most content within this form factor. The popular interface is currently Flash™ or other Macromedia™ applications. They are fast, allow complete creativity, and interface well on both PC and MAC platforms. If you have a Flash™ specialist in-house, then you can save money in the creation process.

Now you should take the major goals of the CD and layout a
Storyboard that accomplishes those goals. We have a lot of
flexibility here, we have audio, sounds, voices, music, and
we have animation, video, and links to more information.

This should be your interactive TV commercial. Besides,
the CD ROM’s, we keep a copy of the commercial on our
website for the benefit of the people who didn’t receive
a CD card. They can view our webfomercial from online too!

Use your logo prominently through-out your presentation (branding). Keep your messages and information focused, always restating the benefits. Know your audience! especially if this CD Project is directed at a specific market segment. Create the environment with that audience in mind, not what desk executives like.

The image on the cover of the CD is completely flexible as well.
You can use a photograph, a screenshot, or a combination. The
image resolution has improved dramatically in the past 3 years. Use or create some of your “best stuff” for these CD projects, it is worth it.

You can also pay for plastic sleeves that each CD has been inserted in-to (you want these). It makes them very easy to mail.

Consider that image, you receive one in the mail with your
Christmas card from the company. Maybe you ship one out with
every order for a month..? It really depends on what you want
to accomplish. Spend the time to come up with the concepts necessary in having a successful campaign.

Written by and Copyright © Scott Sedwick

Scott is the Founder and Sr. Internet Marketing Specialist for
Hyperformance Media, Inc. a website marketing firm located
just outside of Chicago, IL. since 1996. Specifically, he
has over 24 years of sales and marketing experience and
accomplishment in the computer industry.

Written by and Copyright © Scott Sedwick
http://www.hyperformancemedia.com

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