Direct mail and Email Marketing are great ways to stay in touch by sending something relevant and of value. Your goal is to have the recipient look forward to your communication, resulting in building relationships that influence people to use and refer you.  You know you’re doing it right when people ask to be added to your list.

Remember, not everyone will be a customer, but if they like and trust you they might refer you.

Make your contact list smart by segmenting your list into different groups of interest.  What are they interested in?  Know your people!

Example: Maybe you have a lot of people on your list that like to run.

You could send:

• The schedule of monthly local runs.

• The results of local runs

• A list of running clubs.

• Running tips.

• A link to a great running blog post.

A great place to start is by sending to your largest interest group.

Design you marketing piece to be all about them, and make anything about you subtle like a signature at the bottom of the page.  Include your picture, name, company and contact info.  Should they run into you they will recognize you from your picture.  If they need you, they will contact you.  More importantly, be consistent and take the time to build a positive relationship.  Relevant marketing may take more time but the return on investment will be much greater.

This week, Promotional Consultant Today takes a look at the art of networking, starting with that essential networking tool—the business card.

After shaking hands, one of the rituals of meeting in business is to exchange business cards. It’s almost a reflex reaction. But in the world of electronic communication are business cards now dead? Have the e-mail signature line and smart phone apps replaced a card? Most people say that a business card is still necessary even just because it is a tough habit to break when meeting new people.

So what information should still be on a business card or in an e-mail signature line?

Still important:
Name
Company Name
E-mail Address
Website address
Office phone and cell phone: Who is at the office anymore?
Mailing Address: List a real street address, even if it is the home office. P.O. boxes are creepy.
Slogans: Your slogan separates what the company does from the rest of the market. Think of it as your “unique selling proposition.”

Newly important:
Social media handles for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn: This makes it easier for customers and prospects to connect with you.

QR codes: a great way to tell a bigger story right on the mobile device.

Not important:
Fax number: Almost as dead as paper stationary.

Titles: Be careful of being a one-man band and having the title of CEO. It looks pompous.

Pagers: Unless you are a doctor or a bicycle messenger, leave it off.

Gotchas:
Misspellings: Ask someone to proofread your card. Handing out a card at a networking event where the person’s title is printed as “principle” instead of “principal” is a fatal mistake.

Print that is too small: 95 percent of the population over age 35 needs reading glasses. The reader shouldn’t need to put glasses on to read your business card.

E-mail: It’s fine to use a free service such as Yahoo! as a back-end mail server, but spend some money to get an account that looks more professional. While barry1995@yahoo.com may be functional, it is amateurish. Get an address that includes the company’s domain name and forward it to your Yahoo! address if necessary.

Home numbers: It sets a bad precedent.
Remember that the business card is not an art installation. Don’t reinvent what has worked for years. Grab 10 favorite examples of business cards. Study them by noticing their font choices including type size and color combinations. Although the logos and paper stocks vary, good business cards are very simple. Forget the gimmicks. Simple business cards still work.

Source: Barry Moltz is a small business speaker, consultant and author. He gets business owners growing again by unlocking their long-forgotten potential. He is also the author of You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business, Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success, and BAM! Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World. He hosts his own radio show, “Business Insanity Talk Radio”, and writes regularly for the American Express Open Forum, Allbusiness.com, The Huffington Post, the Chicago Tribune’s Chicago Now and Crain’s Chicago Enterprise City.

Do You Have a Personalized Email Address?

Example:  Let’s say your name is John Doe and you own XYZ Moving Company,

Your current address is JohnDoe@gmail.com.

Did you know for only $9.99 per year you could have a web address & personalized email address like John@xyzmoving.com and point it to go to your johndoe@gmail.com account, promoting XYZ Moving instead of gmail.  I bet gmail doesn’t need your help advertising.

The part that comes after the @ is called a domain name.

Click Here to: Check to see if the domain you want is available.

If you already own a domain name, have you setup a personalized email and pointed it to your email account?  It’s easy to do and most domain reseller support departments would be happy to assist you with the process.

The best thing about having a personalized email address is that you can re-point your email if you move to another email provider. Example:  You change to Comcast and your new address is johndoe@comcast.net.  All you need to do is point john@xyzmoving.com to johndoe@comcast.net.

I love gmail.com and think they offer a great product, but they don’t pay my bills.  Orders 4.com does and that’s what I promote.

I guess my driving and road manners better be at their best once  I have my phone number on my car.

Rumor has it that you need commercial plates if you have business signage on your car.  I have heard that it’s pretty inexpensive to get commercial plates but, the fine is pretty hefty if you get caught without them.  Since the city needs revenue I better spend a little to save alot.

I will post a picture of my car after the graphics have been installed.  In the meantime here is  a picture of someone’s Hummer with a matching business card dispenser attached to the back window. I have seen these attached to realestate signs, store fronts, and vehicles.

Wishing you  great sales & safe driving!

Pam Furlong, Orders4.com

I’ve gone to a lot of time and effort to meet all those people I gathered cards from. A few cards here and there turn into piles of cards. I keep thinking someday when I have time I’m going to enter them into my contact data base. I even bought a business card scanner to help. That was a great idea but truthfully not how I want to spend my spare time (whatever that means).

My best intentions have turned into haunting piles that remind me I should be staying in touch with all those people. After all the reason I went to all those mixers, open houses, breakfasts, and lunches was to build a large network of resources. Now I am avalanched by piles of business cards I keep moving out of my way.

Many people call me to see if I know any one that does this or that and having a large network of resources helps me build relationships by helping others.

It drives me crazy when I need someone’s contact info and I know I have their card. I start the needle in a haystack hunt. The big decision is which pile to start with first.

Now the other side of the coin is If only my contact data base where up to date then I could do a mailing or organize my contacts and make a plan to stay in touch. You know that “Top of Mind” thingy all the advertising agencies are talking about.

Well my piles have haunted me long enough; so I came up with a solution to my own challenge and have added it to the services offered by orders4.com so we could give the rest of the world peace of mind.

Whether you use an outside service or do it yourself get those business cards organized so they’re your friends not your fighting foes.

3 Solutions to turn your business cards into helpers verses hindrances.

1. Contact Orders4.com about our new service: Biz Card Piles 2 files:
(my favorite solution)
We transcribe and organize your business card piles into a neat digital data file that you can import into your contact data base. The digital format we offer will work with applications that accept a CSV or text file.

2. Have a data entry party and enter all your cards into you contact data base

3. The manual filing method is better than plies

Get some small index card files & A to Z tabs to fit the file boxes.

Sort & file your cards alphabetically by business name or by the person’s last name

ar·my : noun
-a body of persons organized to advance a cause

Building a Social Media Army
When I decided to write this post I actually Google’d how to start an Army and was a little scared of what I found. In America forming your own army or militia is a constitutional right (2nd amendment) and is protected by Federal law. Treason, however, is illegal. I found that the main characteristics of starting an Army/Militia is to get them vetted, trained, paid and readied for action!
Loyal followers not only ‘pledge allegiance’ by retweeting, reposting you or sending you shoutouts. Having an army of loyalists helps grow your influence over the products, services and activities they chose. Having a strong Social Media Optimization plan supersizes that influence and carries to the people that your influencees influence.
We all want loyalists, but here’s the harsh truth: Loyalty is difficult to achieve! Many people try to build it with clever marketing campaigns and promotions. The reality is that one-hit-marketing-wonders or a few concert tickets will create short term relationships. Superficial efforts don’t dig deep enough into their minds to make a difference!

So how do you build a Social Media Army?

1.) Define Your Cause
Take a minute and really define what you are building. You might have read a book or two, worked with strategists, consultants or managers that helped you define your Marketing Goals. Your Social Media goals should mirror, but they are different. I have yet to meet a client that doesn’t say, I need to be on (whatever platform) and when I say, “why or what are your goals?” They look at me kinda funny. It has to be clear in your mind what you are doing, that is how the mystery of Social Media is squashed. In addition, determining goals will help you manage your expectations of Social Media.
Here are the most prevalent goals I hear:
-Increased Brand Awareness
-Reputation Management
-Improved Search Engine Optimization
-Increased Relevant Visitor Traffic
-Improve Sales for a Product or Service
-Gain personal connections (*hint* this should be everyone’s goal!)
Written Goals = Success. Determine key metrics BEFORE you get started. Pick three solid metrics to track: Web or Blog Traffic, SEO Ranking, Amount of Targeted Followers in certain time are common.

2.) Know Your Audience
Who are you trying to reach. Pinpoint the characteristics of the perfect listener as it relates to your format. Understand how your target audience uses Social Media (gender, age, geography, etc.)
-Listen and then listen more.
-Ask yourself the following questions when you are designing Social Media Optimization Campaigns: What’s your point? What type of program is this? What is your purpose? Awareness, Sales, Loyalty? What’s your relationship with audience? What does your audience know about you today? When and where is your audience using Social Media?
-Who are you to this audience?
-Elevator pitch or 60 second commercials are obsolete how do you describe who you are or what you do in 140 characters or less?

3.) Know Your Battle Field
Before you begin, worry about social media tools last, not first – tools will change (remember AOL? Yahoo? MySpace) Listen to the conversations people are having about you and your brand. The easiest way to do this is to Google yourself or I love the Twitter Search Tool.
-Set the foundation of transparency that takes your cause across all social mediums.
-Get them emotional about your brand.
-Connect with them.
-YOU are NOT that important. FOLLOW people back and respond to them when they talk to you.
This is a shame and a spoiled chance to take someone from being engaged to being invested with your brand. I run a few celebrity/artist Twitter accounts and never get tired of hearing a fan we follow back spread the word and brag to their Followers that so and so is following them. It is a really powerful and sometimes under used tool of Social Media by brands and but dang does it sure work!
-Create personality behind the story. Show them you are more than a logo or a photo. Help followers find common ground that lets them relate to you. ie your you are a Dog person so connect to your Dog Lover followers on Social Media. It only takes a few posts and tweets to identify these people.
-Content is King! Without the value to the audience, you will get the inevitable “so what?“
-ALWAYS make account open to public-It’s ‘Social Networking,’ Not ‘Anti-Social Networking’!
-Speak WITH people not AT them, Social Media is a dialogue not a monologue!
-Forget ‘What am I doing?’ and ask your followers, ‘what are they doing?’

4.) Promote Your Cause
Cross Promote Social Media Networks: tweet to followers to join your Facebook Profile or Fan Page, Post your Twitter Account to Facebook Account. Make sure that you Social Media Logos are clear and visable on your website.
-Add to Business cards, letterhead, vehicle magnets other Broadcast and Print Media.
-Consistently talk about your participation in .
-Provide listener services through Social Media as long as you can follow up.
-Run Social Media-only promotional offers and place a deadline on it and be sure to track results.
-Invite followers to your events. Include links to where they can register.
-Let followers know where you’re going to be and invite them to join.
-Make bumper stickers for your Business that say “Follow Me” with your Social Media branding.
-Put “Follow Me” on the back of your T-Shirts along with your .
-Create a Ning network for your clients, loyalists to engage your brand, advertisers and each other!
-Use #Hashtags and custom shortened URLS when orchestrating contests.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all. Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.
-George Washington

Reposted with the permission of Jessica Northey

Bulls eye marketing is delivering your marketing piece  to the right person, with the right message, at the right time and it is critical in ensuring overall marketing success.  The beauty of targeted relevant marketing is that it makes the promotion, pricing and distribution of your products and/or services  easier and more cost-effective.

Pam Furlong, Owner of www.orders4.com – Marketing tools: Print, Email Marketing & Promotional Items

QR Codes can store website addresses, contact info, Phone numbers, coupons, or other info.  They may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, cars, business cards, shirts or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a Smart Phone equipped with the correct QR Code reader can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed website.

You can download a QR Code Reader application onto your smart phone for free; some phones already are loaded with a reader.

Scan the above QR Code to see how it works.

Call me and I’ll generate one free QR Code with your web address or contact info for you.