As an Internet Marketer, I feel it is my duty to inform micro to small business owners about the benefits of email marketing as part of your marketing strategy. But, before I get into some benefits, lets talk about a few things you should be aware of.

First of all, be familiar with CAN-SPAM. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them. For more information visit www.ftc.gov. In a nutshell, this means, do not send emails to individuals/groups advertising or promoting your products and services unless you have permission to do so.

If you attend a tradeshow and collect several business cards from a drawing, make sure you also have a sign up sheet for those who want to receive your newsletter, coupons, ads, etc. Just because they left you their business card does not mean they want SPAM from your company. Get to know the terms opt-in/out. Opt in means that someone has signed up on your website or sign in sheet giving you permission to email them information about your services. Opt-out means they previously opted in, but no longer want to receive information from you.

Secondly, invest in a email newsletter service so that you can have professional looking HTML or Text-based email messages sent to your opt-in list. Most do-it-yourself services are very affordable and starts at $20 per month. If you choose to use your outlook or other email service, be sure to send a blind email when sending to a distribution list. What is a blind email? Here’s an example of an email I would send in outlook to 50 people:

To: tmarketinglady@yahoo.com

Cc:

Bcc: 1234@abc.com, 567@abc.com, 211@abc.com

By putting your own email address in the ” To ” line and the recipients in the ” Bcc ” line, this will avoid everyone on your list from seeing others email address. Not only is this thoughtful, but people will appreciate you protecting their privacy.

Now, the benefits of using e-mail marketing in your marketing strategy.

Low cost - using email marketing is less expensive then using print, radio, or TV advertising to promote your products.
Better metrics - it is sometimes difficult to determine if a customer coming to your store came in because of an ad, but with an email marketing program with built in tracking, you can see how many people opened your special offer, how many clicked on the coupon, and how many clicked through to your website or landing page.

DIY - you can do it yourself. Most all email marketing services come with built in templates you can choose from. All you have to do is type in your text and upload any images. If you do not have any of the templates or want the newsletter to look like your site, hire a web designer to make you a custom template and upload it to your email service.

Targeted information - with email marketing, you target each group with different messages. For example, your list may contain customers who purchased from you in the past and ones who have not. You can segment your list into 2 groups and send customer loyalty discounts to previous customers.

Now that was just a brief overview of e-mail marketing. Using it is not difficult at all, but if you do not have the time to manage your email campaign, hire a consultant to work with you.

Tarsha Polk, a.k.a. The Marketing Lady™ is a small business marketing coach. She will guide the business owner to Think Bigger, Broader, Differently, and Smarter through marketing consulting and business coaching.

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If you want to learn how to get your clients to do your selling for you
through excpetional customer service, read on. Learn customer service
secrets from tourism professionals, apply them to your business and
prosper.

1. Be a Good Listener - Most important, listen to your
customers’ concerns and complaints, as well as their praise. Discover
what it is they want. Your guests are your best source of information in
assessing your services and performance. Well-written guest surveys
are invaluable for getting feedback, testimonials, and referrals. Help
prospects qualify themselves before signing up. Make sure they
understand the rigors, responsibilities, and dangers, as well as the level
of exertion, entailed in the experiences you offer.

2. Exceed Expectations - Under-promise and over-deliver on a
consistent basis with exceptional service. This is what they’ll remember
and tell their friends about. It is amazing how small details can make a
big impression. You work hard and spend big money to get qualified
prospects to call your office or e-mail you. How professional, informative,
and timely is your response? That first contact can set the tone and
significantly impact a purchasing decision.

3. Practice Safety - Clients want to know the destination and
activities are safe. They will feel more at ease during real or perceived
risks if they have been educated about their new activities or
environments in advance. Unfortunately, if most human beings’ fears or
worries are not addressed, their minds will grow weeds, not flowers.
Advise on plant, animal, and natural resource cautions. Let them know
that there is generally nothing to worry about if they respect the
environment and heed your advice. Brief guests on your safety
procedures for any excursions without staff away from home base.

4. Provide Great Food - Guests must eat well, never be hungry,
and have adequate water and drinks. Fresh food with ample portions
served at a scheduled time can make any adventure more memorable
and satisfying. If meal service is going to be delayed, provide a little
snack to tide guests over.

5. Cater to Sleep Needs - Guests need and want comfortable
and peaceful sleep. Make sure everyone is comfortable with his or her
bedding. Cater to individual needs by offering single accommodations.
Charging an extra cost is okay. Provide easy access to bathrooms with
safety procedures for nighttime use. Separate late evening social areas
from sleep areas by distance and/or trees or a hill. Hand out earplugs if
necessary.

6. Think Comfort - Provide first world standards when possible.
Bathroom breaks and bathing is important on a regular basis. Give
people every opportunity for comfort: hammocks, beach chairs, portable
toilets, whatever you can provide. Never go too long between bathroom
breaks. Some guests may have weak bladders and need more frequent
breaks to feel comfortable and relaxed. Make sure everyone has
adequate water, as well as appropriate clothing and footwear.

7. Be Sensitive to Capabilities - Never exceed physical or
mental capacities of guests. Always ask groups and individuals if they
are comfortable with the activity and exertion level before and during the
activity. Be sensitive to the slowest as well as strongest in the group.
Splitting the group into two smaller groups is a good option. Rest as
needed. I believe in a trip rating or difficulty system that allows guests
and outfitters to jointly participate in selecting the most appropriate trip.

8. Be Fun - Be friendly, helpful, courteous, and fun! Make sure
your staff is there for the guests and not for themselves. Good
storytellers, jokesters, and musicians can distinguish your staff and
company from other companies. Be sensitive with humor and with
families with kids. If you cater to kids, employ staff that loves kids. Guests
sometimes need encouragement or guidance to try an activity. You are
the guide and activity director combined. Discuss activities or mini-
classes in advance so guests will know what is happening and when.<
br>

9. Provide Information - An informed guest is safer and more
relaxed, and has more fun. Our guests are educated and want to learn
about their new environment. Assume that guests know little or nothing
about their surroundings. Look for opportunities to provide a minimum of
three details about each type of surrounding element during any outing.
Be prepared to talk about the plants, animals, birds, trees, rocks,
geological formations, fish, marine mammals, and shells. Include
information about local culture, economy, and history, too. The more we
can share, the more value we are providing our guests.

Like other businesses I know and have worked with, you, too, will
experience more repeat clients and referrals by applying these details of
great customer service. Your business, in time, will prosper like never
before!

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Do you search through piles and files on your desk looking for prospect and customer information? If you do, you need a simple system to eliminate this wasted time. Some salespeople have tried using digital technology to improve this sales nightmare. I was one of them and finally gave up, reverting back to the tried and true analog method of a pocket spiral notebook.

New technology including the computers and cell phones doesn’t always work faster or better than a simple analog system. Many salespeople are simply not able to take advantage of digital and wireless technology everywhere. Fortunately, there is one analog sales tool we should never be without. The old fashioned pocket spiral notebook always works and should be within reach of a sales person.

One Location for Notes

Salespeople can simplify note taking and record keeping with a pen and spiral notebook. The spiral notebook has the advantage of instant access, zero warm up time, always on and easy to operate. I prefer the spiral notebook because it can fit inside a small purse or jacket pocket.

Having one location for all your notes makes selling easier. You can always find important information and details of any conversation. Skipping through your notes becomes faster when you adopt this simple one location method. As you finish each notebook, you can date it and file it. After I transfer my notes from the notebook to my computer, I cross out the notes and keep the page intact. If you never tear out a page, you will have a nice record for filing later.

Steve Martinez implements Business Development and Sales Management strategies with a focus on automating the sales process with technology. Selling Magic is a pioneer in automating and customizing ACT or Outlook with the best practices of sales management integrating emarketing and technology for greater profits. http://www.sellingmagic.com

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Using Internet technologies to market to new and potential customers can be a highly productive tactic with great ROI. Businesses of all sizes have successfully developed emarketing campaigns that help them drive sales and improve customer retention. If your company is thinking about using email marketing, here are some important considerations to discuss before you get started.

Develop a Strong List Before You Begin
Your audience can be made up of everyone with whom you have an existing relationship. That means clients and customers, people that you know on a business level, personal friends. Do not violate the CAN-Spam Act by buying or stealing email addresses from any source. That’s spamming and it’s illegal.

Eletter or Ecommerce?
Consider your audience and develop email campaigns that are appropriate for them. If ecommerce is the driving force behind your emarketing, develop campaigns that offer value and pull customers to your site to order. If your business offers professional services, develop an eletter that will educate, inform and even entertain. Content is a critical component of successful emarketing.

Plan for the Long Run
Do not start any email marketing strategy unless you are willing to invest in it for at least 6 months, preferably a year. While traffic and metric reports give nearly real time information and you can monitor results quickly, you need time and exposure to evaluate the data, craft the best message and develop your subscriber base.

Measure for Success
You will want to have an idea of how to define success for your campaign before you begin. It may be immediate sales, open rates, click thru’s or, most probably, a combination of factors. When you have established goals it is much easier to develop an emarketing strategy that will reach and exceed your expectations.

With a sound strategy you can use emarketing to connect with customers and build your business. And after all, that’s what all marketing is about.

Claudia Trusty and eletternews.com
http://www.eletternews.com/ develop and design creative emarketing strategies that get results. For more information about designing effective, and cost effective email marketing campaigns, visit eletternews.com at
http://www.eletternews.com/

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If you’re like me, you’ve had plenty of experience with BAD customer service. Just think about the last time you had a bad experience with a product or a service.

Perhaps the product or service did not live up to the sales pitch. Maybe the company was unresponsive to your calls or emails. Maybe they did not do what they said they were going to do. Or they gave you the run-around when you called to report a problem or ask a question.

If you think about it, all of these negative experiences boil down to one thing, a lack of customer service. And a lack of customer service usually stems from a lack of customer focus. It seems many businesses have simply lost sight of who they are really in business to serve.

Instead of the old saying, “the customer is always right,” many businesses seem almost bothered by customers these days. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret from my early ad agency days. We used to have a saying, “this business would be great, if it wasn’t for the clients.”

How ridiculous is that?! We wouldn’t have had a job if it weren’t for the clients (I’m older and wiser now!). Yes, sometimes clients can be difficult, but they are the reason we are in business. Our job is to serve them. If they are upset, we should welcome the opportunity to find out why, and use that information to improve our product or service.

Yes, sometimes you’ll run into some yahoo who is being totally unreasonable and you just have to deal with it. But very often, client complaints uncover a problem or something we can improve upon.

So make it a point to really listen to your customers. Make a commitment to treat all your customers well. After all, giving great customer services is one of the best and cheapest marketing tools available. When you treat your customers well, or even better, when you deliver beyond their expectations, you will be rewarded.

Those happy clients are the same clients who will happily refer you. The opposite is also true. If you disappoint a client, or don’t deliver what you promise, or you just plain treat them badly, they will likely tell everyone they know how horrible you are. In fact, those disgruntled clients are more likely to talk about you than your happy clients. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it usually works.

The good news is, it’s not hard to give great customer service. You simply have to be aware and make it a priority. Following are 10 tips to help you offer stellar customer service.

(1) Be accessible

Your customers should be able to get a hold of you, or someone in your company, if they have a question or if they need service. Provide multiple ways for your customers to get in contact with you, such as email, phone, mail or fax.

(2) Respond in a timely manner

Make it your policy to return all phone calls or emails within 24 hours. And, if you cannot commit to that, then determine what timeframe you can manage and let your customers know upfront they can expect to hear back from you within that amount of time.

(3) Listen to your customers

Often when a customer calls or writes to complain, they just want to be heard. In fact, sometimes, just listening is all you need to do. Take the time to listen to what your customers have to say before you start responding or defending your product or service. They may just have a point.

(4) Treat your customers with respect

Even if the customer on the other end of the phone is acting irrationally, or being rude, don’t lower yourself to their level by reciprocating. Treat everyone with respect and you will be respected in return. Plus, you never know when someone’s just having a bad day, and they happen to be taking it out on you (we’ve all done it).

(5) Don’t argue with your customers

You can never win an argument with a customer. Because if you do win, you’ve more than likely alienated the customer and you’ve lost their business. We all know the customer isn’t really always right, but instead of focusing on what went wrong and defending yourself, focus on how you can solve the problem or fix the situation.

(6) Honor your commitments

If you say you will answer emails, then answer them. If you offer a guarantee, then honor it. Nothing spoils a customer relationship faster than being promised something and not getting it.

I got a nice email last week from a client that made me realize just how important this is. Here’s what he wrote:

“Many thanks for your prompt and comprehensive reply. Your personal interest, caring and enthusiasm is clearly apparent. Most company owners invite you to respond and promise to reply personally, they seldom do so …”

Yes, it took me some time to respond to his email. But I promise email support to all clients who purchase my 10stepmarketing System and therefore it is important to honor that commitment. If I ever get to the point I can no longer respond due to the volume of requests or other time commitments, I will stop offering this service, not just stop responding.

(7) Do what you say

If you say you’re going to call someone on Tuesday, call them on Tuesday. It’s as simple as that. If you want your customers to trust and believe you, you have to follow through and do what you say.

(8) Focus on making customer relationships, not sales

The long-term success of your business rests on your ability to make long-term customer relationships. If you sacrifice relationships to make short-term sales, your business will be short-lived.

(9) Be honest

Don’t exaggerate the results your product or service will provide. Don’t promise things you cannot deliver just to make a sale. I see hype all over the web these days; everything is a quick fix or a silver bullet. It suckers people into buying the product, and then the product doesn’t deliver. Think that customer is ever going to make another purchase from that business? Not likely. Be honest and direct about what your products and services can deliver.

(10) Admit when you make a mistake

No one’s perfect. We all make mistakes; it’s part of learning. So when you do make a mistake, don’t try to cover it up or deny it. Just admit it and if necessary, do something to make the situation right. Your customers will appreciate it and they’ll be more likely to stay customers.

So how does your customer service measure up? Are you practicing these 10 steps and offering stellar customer service? If not, I challenge you to take your service up a notch. Approach it like Ken Blanchard and instead of just being satisfied with happy customers, create “Raving Fans” (a great little book if you haven’t read it).

Commit to putting these 10 tips into practice. Get to know your customers. Make them the focus of your business. It’s one of the keys to marketing success and best of all, it doesn’t cost very much!

(C) Copyright 2005 Debbie LaChusa

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