Direct Mail Postcard Marketing Tips

Direct mail has been a powerful way to get your message in front of people for many decades. In this article we will take a look at a few direct mail postcard marketing tips.

1. Choose a reputable vendor to print your postcards. If you are working in a business opportunity that suggests a vendor it is probably worth paying a little bit more to them, that it would be to cut corners and find someone yourself.

2. Pay attention to the offer on your postcard. Although you do pay for every square inch of your postcard it needs to be easy to read and feature your offer front and center.

You have a couple of seconds to get someone's attention and the offer should be what their eyes are drawn to. One good thing about direct mail postcard marketing is you know almost instantly whether you have hit upon a good design or not based on the results it gets.

3. Although email marketing is free direct mail postcard marketing is still fairly inexpensive. Based on this fact you should plan on multiple mailings as people need to see an offer several times before they act on it.

4. Include a link to a landing page where you can capture your prospects contact information and follow up for free for many years to come. You do this by using an autoresponder and it allows you to further promote your product or program to them via their email.

This is several direct mail postcard marketing tips that will help your next campaign be more successful.

Bill Bettler

Money On Command

Bill Bettler has been in sales and marketing for over 13 years. He currently makes a Full Time Living as Owner of Money On Command, an Internet Marketing and Direct Sales Company. He brings a fresh and innovative approach that's based on the principle of "Attraction Based Marketing". Born and raised in New York, Bill was previously co-owner of a Mortgage Lending company. Visit At:

[http://www.10K10Days.com]

Targeted Email Marketing - Explode Your Profits

Do you often feel that you are wasting time with your online marketing efforts? You may be placing free classified ads, or buying random lists of opt-in leads from lead generators. However, the real profits are made when you target your efforts only to those who definitely need and desire what you have to offer. Targeted email marketing accomplishes just that.

Email marketing is just what it sounds like-sending offers and promotions through email to someone who has requested such offers. This is one of the least expensive ways to market an online business, and one of the least time consuming if you use an autoresponder. However, having opt-in leads isn't the same as having targeted leads.

Targeted email marketing is the process of sending out emails to those who specifically require your products, services, or business opportunity. There are many ways to obtain targeted prospects, including purchasing email leads. These lists of prospects are often pre-qualified based on a series of data or a survey.

For example, if you are trying to sell books about parenting online, you need to target parents. Such information is publicly accessible, and parents may be contacted in a number of ways by a lead generator with an offer to opt-in to information about parenting. Once they have agreed to receive emails from third parties regarding parenting, you can purchase their email address on a list of other targeted email marketing leads.

Targeted leads are much more reliable than any other type of email leads you may generate. As with any method of marketing, success is in the numbers. The more contacts you make, the more sales you will make. However, the numbers get a lot easier to master when the contacts you make already have a need and/or desire for what you have to offer.

If you want to follow a step by step proven online money making system [http://howtomakeinstantmoney.com/] that you can setup today all you have to do is Click Here [http://howtomakeinstantmoney.com/].

Email Marketing - Three Keys Before You Hit Send

Unfortunately, the first word that pops to mind when many people mention email marketing is 'spam.' The junk mail of the modern era, spam is frequently held up as an abominable combination of inconvenience and social evil, with spam blockers and anti-spam petitions filling the news online and offline. Of course, this means legitimate email marketing campaigns can get lost as weary consumers indiscriminately flag all marketing material as spam just to keep their inboxes clutter free.

How then can a company that has a legitimate, creative idea for an email advertisement series avoid getting caught in the spam trap? There are three key steps good copywriters and marketers can take to set themselves apart and boost their message open rates.

A Cautionary Tale

Important campaigns usually succeed or fail well before they're ever launched - in the planning stages. Consider a recent and already infamous Intel advertisement. The advertisement had athletic sprinters lined up to race, a reasonable attempt to link the company's processors to speedy performance. It failed because these athletes all were African American gentlemen who appeared to be bowing to a tall, smug looking Caucasian businessman. This was a clear breakdown in the planning process. No one asked the fairly obvious question 'What could be wrong with this image?' Intel pulled the advertisement and publicly admitted the mistake, but the image remains as a vivid reminder that cutting corners in the planning phase can bruise your brand.

1. Lay the Groundwork

The lesson here is that simple research, like enlisting a test audience, can mean the difference between hit and miss. The same holds true for email advertising campaigns - research is vital. Just because you can send out 100,000 generic emails within a few minutes of setting up a campaign idea does not in any way mean you should. Strategic planning up front not only can save you time in the long run, it also can secure your results.

2. Know the Audience

Previous articles have referred to the phenomenon of audience-influenced brands. This is particularly true now that the Web has become so extensively accessible. People's opinions can catch public attention almost instantly, and word of mouth can spread across the entire world in a heartbeat. Whether or not you want the audience to control your brand is irrelevant; it can and will happen of its own accord, and you should be prepared for it.

Have you taken the time to really get to know your audience? There are thousands of Internet communities dedicated to every conceivable topic, hobby, interest, or fad and your product very likely falls into one of these. Visit these user forums, find out what people are saying, what needs are not being met, and what the general opinion is. Also, don't just mine for information, but participate in the discussion. Engage and learn how people think and what they want to know about things. This isn't a chore; this is an opportunity that businesses have rarely had in the past, a goldmine of information for any marketer to tap.

3. Kick up the Content

In many cases, businesses fail to treat email as a legitimate medium, although they're eager to take advantage of it. Disregarding outright spam, even some well-intentioned 'campaigns' amount to little more than a poorly organized message presented in a jumble of mismatched colors rather than a serious attempt at focused communication.

The content of the email has to be strong. The first line has to provide a good hook, the body has to get the core, essential details out quickly and effectively, and the end has to have a call to action (be it a purchase or a website visit). Take the time to craft a message that shows you respect the reader's intelligence, and put as much thought into the structure of the email as you would any other example of your best writing.

Once these three key elements are in place, consider a test circulation of your campaign before officially kicking it off. There is very little substitute for getting another pair of eyes to look over your hard work. They can spot unfortunate mistakes, call attention to strong points, and help you refine the process before the message is irrevocably out on the Web.

Enzo F. Cesario is a digital brand engagement specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat which employs Brandcasting, informative content and state-of-the-art Internet distribution and optimization, to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to e-commerce websites. To get the free Brandcasting Report go to Brandsplat.com or visit the blog at ibrandcasting.com

Cold Calling - Marketing to Your Hit List

In most companies, cold calling means calling any list of prospects that you have any hope at all of selling at any time in the future. Although you can market like that, here is a better way.

If you go through your list of past customers, you'll notice something strange. Eighty percent of your marketing business will come from twenty percent of your customer list. In some companies it may even be a ninety five/five percent split. In other words, five percent of your customers will account for ninety five percent of your sales. You need to identify that five percent, and find out what they have in common.

This is easier to show in a business to business example. You have a few customers that account for most of your marketing results. If these are big companies, why not just get a list of the other big companies in your area and concentrate on marketing to them. I don't mean just give them a call. I mean send them direct mail packages, give phone calls, mail them articles they may like, and send little gifts. Make offers that are hard to ignore. Make them your cold call marketing hit list.

You can go to zapdata.com or infousa.com to get the lists. Make sure you have the name of the CEO and the phone number.

Then you just call, mail, or e-mail (light on the E-Mail) something every two weeks.

Will they take you call right away and see you? Maybe one or two will, but that's not where your real measurable success is. Figure on spending anywhere from a few months to a couple of years just to get to see the CEO. But you know what? After you have been in contact with them (meaning the CEO, not the company) for several months, an alchemy takes place.

Now you are not a stranger. In fact, you may become a topic of conversation. The CEO will remember your name. He will begin using you as an example of how his marketing reps should be more persistent in their cold calling. He will begin to wear down. And something else will happen. Eventually the company that currently sells what you sell to him, will do something that irritates the CEO. You'll get a call to replace the guy they are mad at.

If you look at the amount of money that you invest in marketing to each new Big Fish customer, you'll see that it is far smaller, by percentage, than what you spend marketing to the little accounts.

Of course, you still service your small accounts. But you concentrate on getting the big ones. Your company will love you, your spouse will love you, and you will surprise yourself at how easy this type of marketing really is.

And after you talk to the CEO once, it isn't cold calling anymore.

Small business selling and sales training expert Claude Whitacre gives talks on selling, and small business marketing. Claude is author of the book The Unfair Advantage Small Business Advertising Manual. You can download a free copy at http://www.local-small-business-advertising-marketing-book.com You can subscribe to Claude's free weekly marketing and sales tip at http://www.claudewhitacre.com

Internet Dental Marketing Takes a Hit

I recently looked into some of the top cosmetic dental groups in my immediate area. As a direct response marketer I couldn't help but notice how clueless some of them were when it comes to online marketing. One common problem that was obvious to me was the fact that many of these Dental web sites had come from the phone company.

These sites in particular offered many new challenges and several interesting problems. First, they were almost impossible to manipulate for the search engines. The HTML included in these sites are pretty basic and they were very limited when it came down to the nitty gritty.

Whats The Deal With Meta Keywords?
Are meta data keywords important? A lot of people in the know say they are not that important. I have seen negative articles written about this topic in tech publications such as, "Web Designer" magazine. We have tested the arrangement of this type of material in my studio and found some rather interesting points of interest. If you do not arrange them in a certain order you will botch up the description of your web page on the SERPS, (Google search engine result pages).

The search engine spiders will jump down and grab a hold of the first bit of text it can. If that bit of text happens to be, "Closed on Sundays" then your web site page will look rather unspectacular online. It will read something like, "Welcome to Smith Cosmetic Dentistry - Closed on Sundays". There is very little chance that your page listing is going to get clicked on anytime soon. There would be the missed opportunity to truly sell your services.

Example: "Welcome To Smith Family Dentistry - Cosmetic Dental Surgery Is Here and Brings Relief to S.E. Michigan".

I can list two sentences inside the description and this is my chance to REALLY sell the dental company. Sadly, a lot of dental practices do not do this because they lack the basic knowledge to do so. I honestly believe that the description section is the absolute best place to sell your services. In fact, it is important to treat this area like you would treat direct mail. This serves a double purpose. On one hand it is there to really deliver a preview to your online prospect. It should entice them enough to click on the above blue link, (Title of web page) and open your page.

You want your web page to get opened just like you want your direct mail to get opened. The whole purpose of being out there online is to get seen before your competition just like in direct mail. I do not see this to be any different because the objection is the same.

As Internet presence you need to exhibit some sense of control. And it is hard to get a grasp on Internet dental marketing when your formatting is limited. I actually prefer to either get a template to work out of that I purchase from a web company that I can upload myself to a blank hosting account. I want to be able to manipulate the HTML to have it speak directly to search engine spiders. I also would be open to manipulate the entire HTML pages from scratch if I had a choice. Buying a pre-fabricated solution from a phone company would seriously be my last choice in the world of Internet marketing. I would demand that I have this level of sophistication and control from my web site for one very simple reason.

Search Engine Spiders Travel Through Hyperlinks
To put things bluntly search engine spiders travel through hyperlinks looking for very specific keywords and conditions. I prefer to think of them as ticks hopping from one infected dog to another looking for a new host. This is the true nature of the search engines. There is a cohesive process involved that in dental organizations fail to recognize it. But that is their loss. Your customers are fickle and are looking for very specific things and do not necessarily want to do business with you. Your prospects are really in search for information.

I have come to the conclusion that nobody really goes online to buy stuff. We have become an information hording civilization and this is nowhere more true than the Internet. The sites that offer the least amount of information stand to lose on two levels. One, the search engines will give you a low page rank and not take you very seriously. Two, your customers will get bored with your online offerings and choose to find another online dental presence that will answer their questions.

In the end, nobody really cares that much about your staff or that you love people. I have found that your online prospects are really self serving characters after all. They want to know the big burning question and that is, "What's In It For Me?".

There are certain stop words that search engine spiders see and that spells out bad news for your web site. If you do not have the right structure in your site then it is not going to be able to be crawled through very effectively. In addition if you have to wrong long tailed keywords in your site you can pretty much forget about attracting traffic.

This stuff is so touchy.

But that is the what you need to know when you do Internet Dental Marketing.

Ted Cantu helps dentists get online and create a steady flow of online visibility. Cantu runs i-Cantu Media LTD which is a Web 2.0 Video studio located in Farmington Hills, Michigan. You can get the real scoop on Internet Dental Marketing here