Target Your Best Clients

I hope you’re enjoying our ongoing discussion on message to market match and the marketing triangle. So far we talk about the markets you choose and the message (what you say). You can review those links at my postings below.

Today we’ll move on to Media which means the devices you use to get new clients to your business and how you get past clients to buy again. Remember, we’re using Dan Kennedy’s Marketing Triangle as a basis for our conversation.

By media, I’m talking about any means of delivering your message to your target audience (your market). These can include (but certainly not limited to):

• Direct mail
• Yellow pages
• Newspapers
• TV
• Radio
• Websites
• Blogs
• Videos
• Seminars
• Tele-seminars
• Webinars
• Car racks
• Signage
• Billboards
• Banners
• ValPak style mailers

The list goes on and on.

I know some of you probably have some pre-conceived notions about some of the media listed and think of some of them as bad or good media. To be honest, there is no such thing as a bad or good media, just as there is not good or bad tool in your toolbox in the garage. There are tools that are more appropriate than others, say if you want to pound in a nail, or screw in a screw. One does better than the other for certain jobs.

The same is true with your media. Here’s an example. If you’re targeting people over the age of 70 for vacation rentals in Florida during the winter, relying solely internet websites, online videos and e-mailis foolish. You’ll need to use other media to reach those people such as direct mail or magazine/newspaper ads.

However, if you’re targeting college aged spring breakers to come to Lake Havasu, then the web may be a perfect place and you’ll probably want to rule out the yellow pages, Val-Pak etc.

You want to limit yourself to those media that are paid the most attention to, and the ones that are preferred and given creditability by your target audience. And, most importantly, one you can affordable reach.

To know if they are affordable, that means you must track your lifetime customer value (LTCV) and short term customer value (STCV) as some media can and should be ruled out and make others more attractive.

How To Get Mailing Lists, Part 2

So last week I left you with the basics on getting commercially available lists for your business. As usual I posted that last conversation on my blog. To review, go over to the blog. Today we’ll go over some other ways to grow your mailing list.

One way to grown your existing list is to use “turn-key” vendors who can get you lists that match your target audience. Then, they do the entire direct mailing for you, including the writing of the copy, printing, mailing, all the grunt work you shouldn’t be doing. we do a lot of this for our clients here at 3D Mail.

There are two others that I would highly recommend you check out. One is Dean Killingbeck's New Customers Now program. Dean works with restaurants, auto repair shops, chiro's, dentists and others to get new people moving into your area and introduce them to your business. Check out the site and tell Dean Travis over at 3D Mail Sent ya.

The other is Rory Fatt's Royalty Rewards. Royalty Rewards is a complete "auto-pilot" rewards/loyalty program that is great for getting your clients to come back more often and get them to buy more each time they come in. A great combination! Here's a video you can watch on Royalty Rewards. It's hosted by Rory and my dad Keith. We did a webinar on this a few months ago. Check it out here. I give both my highest endorsement.

A third way to grow your list is by compiling it yourself through lead generation marketing. We've discussed lead generation marketing before so I'll be very brief here.

Lead generation marketing is the ultimate ‘pull’ marketing strategy. It allows people who are interested in your product or service to pull information for themselves about you and your business, rather than
the usually ‘push’ marketing that you usually see.

Almost all “Madison Avenue” marketing is push marketing. What you need for prospects to ‘pull’ information from you is great bait, or a lead generation magnet. This is something that you’re prospects request from you. They come in many forms, but the most typical is free information about your business or industry.

That's a wrap on our discussion on mailing lists. I'll be back next week with some more great information for you. See you then!


To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

How To Get Mailing Lists

Earlier in the week we discussed the lists you should be using in your business. If you missed that discussion or want to review, go on over to the past blog entries to catch up. Today we’ll talk about ways to get lists, and how to grow your own in-house list.

One way to get a list is to rent commercially available lists. This article discusses the basics of renting lists. We'll get to other ways of growing your list in upcoming tips.

First, understand you will be RENTING these lists for one-time, two-time or multiple use and the price will go up with each option. The lists will be “seeded” with false names and addresses that deliver your mail to the list owners, so they can police the use of their lists.

Second, you’ll probably wind up working with a List Broker. A good List Broker can be of great help to you and can usually help you uncover ideas that you did not originally consider. You’ll find the List Brokers in your own area in your Yellow Pages, under MAILING LISTS and LIST BROKERS or similar categories.

Third, you will need to educate yourself about available lists, in order to clarify your ideas about what you want BEFORE meeting with or talking with List Brokers. You can start at your nearest major city, main public library, where you’ll find a current or one-year-old copy of a huge directory called “SRDS”, for ‘Standard Rate And Data Service’.

While at the library, you should also read some back issues of trade magazines like Direct Marketing and DM News. In a couple of hours, you can become conversant in the terminology, the language of the list business, so you can ask smart questions and deal with List Brokers.

There’s more on renting lists, but I think you’ve got the basics covered here. Next week we’ll talk about ways to grow your own in-house list without have to buy or rent a list. See you next week.

To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

The Lists You Should Be Using

So where’d we leave off… That’s right, using direct mail and lists. To see where we started off last week, see my first blog post on the subject. To see where we left off last week on the use of lists, see that blog post below. Today we’ll pick up where our last post left off on the lists you should be using in your business.

The first thing to know is that all lists are not created equally, nor should they be. Today we’ll go over the four different kinds of lists you’ll encounter, in order of importance, starting with the most important.

First and foremost is your list of current and active clients segmented and sorted by a myriad of
topics. They can be sorted by SIC code in B2B, the products or services they’ve purchased, they’re buying behavior (do they buy only on sale, or at full price, one time of year, or year round, by brand etc), demographics and psychographics and many others. Your task as a marketer of your business is to ID and filter the segments that make the most sense
in your business.

A distant second to your sorted and segmented in-house list is your in-house list unsorted. While this certainly is better than advertising to the unwashed masses, it’s certainly not as good as having your list sorted and segmented as we described above.

Third on the list is a response list. A response list is a mailing list of individuals who have responded previously to direct mail offers, hopefully selling similar/complimentary to your. You can further segment these lists by the demographics and psychograpics we have discussed in previous posts.

Finally, there are complied lists of consumers and businesses. This is basic consumer and business data taken by survey, public records etc. There can be and is money in lists like these. You need to be sure you’re getting the right kind of demo and psychographics to match your copy and your offer to them.

There are few more kinds of lists out there, but those are the one’s we’ll concern ourselves with the most. So how can you go about getting those lists? We’ll talk about that a little later in a separate post.

Marketing Tip Reader’s Only Special

As we discussed, getting the proper list should be your #1 priority when starting a new direct mail campaign. You’re in-house list should be your most profitable one. But what if you’re ready to move to cold prospects? How should you start? I’ve teamed up with a list
company to make that quick and easy for you. Just some of the benefits include:

• 95% Average deliverability rate. Your mail gets delivered and into the right hands each time.
• 92% Delivery guarantee. Other list companies only guarantee 90%. You mail will get delivered, opened and read.
• Updated monthly so you have the most up to date records and information
• 100% Nine digit zip codes

We can now supply all your needs for consumer data including:

• Age, gender, income, marital status & more!
• Date of Birth
• Interests and Hobbies
• Credit
• New Movers
• New Homeowners
• New Borrowers
• Pre-Movers
• Even Voting party preference
• Plus Dozens more!

We can also supply your business data including:

• SIC codes
• Sales volume
• Employee size
• Phone numbers
• Emails
• Website information
• Women Owned Indicator
• Square footage
• And dozens more

3D Mail Results is now truly your One-Stop-Shop for everything you need for your next 3D Mailing. Copywriting, grabbers, lists and fulfillment! Give me a call at 888-250-1834 and we’ll started on your next successful 3D Mail campaign!

To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

The #1 Reason to Use Direct Mail

So, did I do a good enough job of teasing you and leaving you hanging with my last email? To review our conversation from earlier on the benefits of direct mail, see my blog post.

So the #1 reason to use direct mail is that we get to use lists! I know you’re probably saying to yourself, “Well… Duh, of course we use lists.” But let’s go over the power we get when we use them correctly.

In no other media can we laser target and shrink our world to the exact demographics (like age, gender, income, etc.) and psychographics (like what they buy, where they buy, they’re interests, hobbies, charitable giving, etc.) like we can when we use well selected.

I’ll steal a line from my mentor. Dan Kennedy:

“If you want a list of one-legged midgets in Akron, who have 2 kids, a dog, is married and bowls in a league on Wednesday nights, you can find that list. Now, admittedly it won’t be a very big list, but you can get with a little digging.”

You certainly can’t do that in radio and TV. There’s a reason they call it “broadcast” media. You cast a big, broad message and hope something sticks. If you’ve ever advertised in or investigated newspapers, TV, radio etc, they’ll tell you something like their average listener/viewer/reader is male, age 19-45, has a household income of 25K-150K etc.

Now, for big, dumb companies with marketing budgets to burn, that may be good enough, but not for me. I want to know their age within a few years (say 40-44), their interests, what kind of car they drive, their voting preferences, what books they’re reading, and I can get that, plus whole lot more with a direct mail list.

There’s enough information there for you to ponder for a few days. We’ll continue next time on the different kinds of lists you can and should use. Have a great week!


To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

Direct Mail Strategies

It’s no secret that I’m a big believer in using direct mail or why else would I be in the 3D Mail business! However there are a lot of great reasons to use it.

The biggest reason to use direct mail is it’s as close as we can possibly get to one-to-one, nose-to-nose, toes-to-toes selling without actually beating a path to our clients. Not only that, we can multiple ourselves several times over by sending many message at the
time. I’ve yet to find a sales person who can be in two places at once, selling to two different prospects. And like selling face-to-face we can customize our message to meet the needs, desires, wants and demographics of our prospects or clients, but more on that as we move forward.

We can also get involvement with the client or prospect and there are many ways to do this, including using 3D Mail. When we get involvement, we get a commitment of time, and if we get the proper commitment of time, the chances of making a sale goes up dramatically.

We’re also given format flexibility and tons of creative space when using direct mail. There are postcards of all shapes and sizes, regular ‘flat’ envelope mailers, greeting cards, self-mailers, magalogs etc. with even more sub categories in those listed above. And using all these different formats is crucial when selling to the same people over and over again. Just when they tire of seeing your postcard mailers, you can change it up with 3D Mail, then change to another format, then another, keeping your content ‘fresh’ in the eyes of your clients.

But the #1 reason to use direct mail isn’t any of those listed above. I’ll reveal that later this week. Until then.

To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

Did you get my mail?

Last week we started a discussion on getting your direct mail past the gatekeeper. The first thing I suggested you do is to actually enlist the help of the gatekeeper, which can be a very successful strategy. To read my thoughts, visit my blog here. Today we’ll move on to some other strategies you can use.

One way to be sure your package gets past the gatekeeper is fear. The gatekeeper must fear blocking you and your information from their boss. If they do intercept it you want to send something that has the boss storming out of their office demanding where their package is.

3D Mail does a wonderful job in getting this reaction. I often encourage my clients to make follow up phone calls whenever possible after sending out eye-catching 3D Mail. When you get the decision maker on the phone and ask, “Did you get my bank bag, or pill bottle, or treasure chest…” you better believe if they didn’t get it they’ll be asking questions.

If you can’t make follow up phone calls, you’ll certainly want to send follow up direct mail, referencing the past messages you sent. Again, when you get through to the decision maker, and tell him you previously sent a bank bag, a message in a bottle, etc you can bet they will be asking around.

Of course I’m biased towards using 3D Mail to get past gatekeepers. But there are some other ways as well. In most offices, FedEx and UPS packages go directly to the decision maker. The same with personal courier services who drop off your material. However these can expensive and cost prohibitive. That’s another reason why I prefer using 3D Mail.

Finally, you can use fake priority envelopes. These are envelopes that look and feel like real express envelopes by the USPS, FedEx or UPS, but they are much cheaper to mail. They go directly through the USPS and the postage rate is the same as sending a “regular” 1st class letter.

We have a handful of these kinds of envelopes at our website here. They come in two sizes, 6 x 9 and 9 x 12, with six different looks. Check them out. You may want to give them a test in your next direct mail campaign.

In the Land of the Blind...

The One Eyed Man is King.”
Erasmus (of Rotterdam)

We know that Erasmus wasn’t talking about copywriting when he spoke those words some 500 years ago, but he may as well been. In critiquing many 3D Mail sales letters the past 2 years, it’s become obvious that many who do their own copywriting can be blind. So for the next few weeks we’ll discuss a bundle of copywriting topics. First an introduction and the #1 thing you can do to kill any response.

The first thing you must realize when you create copy is that it is NOT advertising, but salesmanship in print. That means you want to write like you talk, don’t write to sell. The truth is the best copy would probably get you a failing grade in high school composition class. If you’ve written copy and a high school English teacher can’t find anything wrong with it, throw it out and start again!

Second, the same principles apply in business-to-consumers markets and business-to-business markets. I hear this all the time. The B2B people tell me it can’t work in B2B, and the B2C people tell me it can only work in B2B! They are fundamentally the same. Sure, there are some slight differences, but as a whole, the concepts and ideas we talk about over the next couple weeks can be easily applied to both group.

Lastly, as promised, here’s the #1 thing you can do to guarantee to kill your response. It’s what one of my mentors, Bill Glazer, calls copy kryptonite. It’s BEING BORING! Your copy can never be too long, but it can be too boring, and we’ll discuss that a lot as well over the next couple weeks.

Diversity leads to stability

On Wednesday we started a discussion on sequential marketing and how 2 + 3 = 1. If you didn’t read it, check out the blog entry below and that will make sense. I’ll continue today with a few other strategies in sequential marketing.

This may sound a bit weird coming from the 3D Mail Guru, but you’ll always want to use multiple media, multiple different ways. That means direct mail using 3D Mail and more traditional mail, email, faxes, phone calling, voice broadcasting etc.

Here’s the reason. Different people respond to different medias. Some like email, others fax, still others direct mail. You never want to rely on one sole way to get new or repeat clients to purchase. As one of my mentors Bill Glazer says, “Diversity leads to stability.”

Second, you want to keep adding touches until it is no longer profitable or you can no longer make the offer.

For years we used a 3-step new client sequence, and that was it. It worked exceptionally well for many years. We decided to test a fourth step to see if we could again be profitable. Guess, what? It worked and
for many more years we used a 4-step sequence.

Finally, if you read my emails, you know I’m against most Madison Avenue, brand building style marketing you see. However, there is an accumulative effect of such exposure that creates additional customers
over a long period of time.

Maybe they’re just not ready for what you got right now, or, after 3 letters, if finally hits them that maybe they have a friend or relative that could use what you’re offering. Whatever it is, sequential marketing can and will have that affect on your customers.

2 + 3 = 1?

I know you may not be a math major, and I certainly wasn’t, but stay with me on this one as we start a discussion on sequential marketing.

Sequential marketing is a sequence of marketing, with each one clearly referring to the previous one, all sent in a fairly condensed period of time, usually 4-6 weeks. You’ll usually double your response with 3 touches. This is where my fuzzy math comes in. Let me explain.

We know that using 3 steps will almost always double our response. Let’s say we’re mailing out 500 bank bags as the first step in a sequence to our in-house list. We get a 4% response rate, or 20 responses. Now let’s say we send a postcard as our second step and the mini trash-can as our third step.

When you do the math and calculate response and return on investment, you’ll almost always get 20 additional responses from steps 2 and 3 combined. So my fuzzy math would mean:

Step 2 (postcard) + Step 3 (trash can) = The same response at Step 1 (bank bag)

The math may not hold exactly with each marketing sequence you do, but you’ll usually be within a few percentage points either way.

Later in the week we’ll talk about a few other sequential marketing strategies you can use.

What to do with the envelope

When I’m speaking with 3D Mail clients on implementing 3D Mail, almost always the envelope question comes up (assuming we’re using an envelope and not something like the bank bag or trash). What should I put on the outside, should it be mailed ‘blind,’ live stamp or not?? There are lot of questions. Here’s a quick read on my thoughts on your envelope when using direct mail,either 3D or ‘flat.’

There are two school’s of thought with envelopes, the ’teaser’ and the ‘blind.’ We’ll talk about the teaser first.

The teaser envelope means that there is “teaser copy” on the outside of the envelope. This could be a message about what’s inside, testimonials, a quote, etc. You’re essentially revealing that the contents are an advertisement.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to use the ‘teaser’ with a group of people who already know you and are interested in what you offer. Your in-house list of buyers or prospects would be great for this.

Also, you want to be sure that if you use teaser copy, you really use it. There’s no sense in putting just one thing on there, you’ve already revealed it’s an ad, so go all out, and use every inch of that envelope. Remember, it’s another sales opportunity

The second way is the ‘blind’ approach. This is best when for a list of people who don’t already know you. There are no labels, and is typically address by hand or a very good handwritten font.

However, this isn’t always the case. Here’s a true story. For many years we used the Million Dollar Bill with great success in our business, and we always addressed the envelopes by hand. However, we finally tested a regular courier (type-writer) font, and guess what?? While our response dropped a tiny bit, our return on investment actually we UP since we were no longer paying for the extra time to handwrite every envelope. So, while the general rule is to use a handwritten font, be sure you test!

However, we always followed these rules to a ‘T.’ We never used any labels for the prospects address or our address, there was no company name in the return address, just our address, there was no teaser copy, and we always used a live, 1st class stamp, and usually a commemorative stamp.

Creating Your Marketing Calendar

On Wednesday we started talking about using a marketing calendar. We talked about why it was critical that you have one, and a couple things to consider when you’re creating your calendar. To review, see the blog post below.

Moving on today, we’ll discuss 2 more things you must consider when you create your marketing calendar.

This is a biggie. You need to agree on specific marketing initiatives that can be accomplished, with specific deadlines. That last part is H-U-G-E! Unless you have specific deadlines in which to get things done, there’s nothing holding you accountable to getting it done.

Too many marketers go at marketing half-assed, and flying by the seat of their pants. If you have a known specific goal and a specific deadline set far enough in advance, you’ll have a much better chance of reaching those goals on time, and on budget.

This is one reason why I like holiday marketing so much. There’s a specific day you must meet to get the promotion done. Once it’s gone, you can’t use it again for another year.

Next, you need to space out your marketing initiatives where your clients regularly hear from you throughout the year.

Let’s take our holiday themed marketing we touch on above. It’s great if you want to run a Thanksgiving promotion, and a Christmas promotion, but that better not be it. Your clients will only hear from you twice in a 30 day period, and then wait for 11 months. You need to have those, and a Labor Day promotion, an Independence Day sale, Women’s History Month (March) etc. Clumping your promotions together is not the way to go.

For more information on Marketing Calendars, be sure to see the Blog readers only resource on the post below.

That’s a wrap for this week. We’ll pick up on Tuesday of next week. Until then, keep on marketing!

Don’t Exaggerate

For the last week I’ve been discussing the 13 big mistakes I often see when critiquing sales letters. To review where we left off see my blog posts below from last week. Below are the next two mistakes copywriters often make.

4. Exaggerated Claims.
Many copywriters and marketers think the more astonishing your claims are the more persuasive. This is a fallacy. If a claim is exaggerated, it seems and feels untrue. You thus lose that all-important credibility.

Tip: First you should dramatize your advertising claims with the help of short emotional words. Then prove each claim. Expert comments and testimonials can be a big help. Give a reason why.

In the headline from last week, the roofer is giving away a big screen TV because his crew usually doesn’t do anything in January and February and his suppliers are slow also. He explains that in the letter.

5. Confusing offer.
So many sales letters do not make a clear, easily understandable offer. The result is few or no orders. Reason? When consumers are confused, they don't act--they do nothing. Confusion always breeds inaction.

Tip: Think through your offer very carefully and write it down before you prepare a single word of your sales letter.

3D Mail Success in Real Estate

It seems a real estate agent out there, who's also a coach in the niche, found out about our products and used them with some great success. See a video by Jay Kinder right here. I guess I'll need to get him on the phone and work out something with his members!

Don’t be Full of Yourself

On Tuesday I started out with the first big mistake people make with their sales letters. To review, see my blog post below. Now are the next two mistakes copywriters often make.

2. Copy is full of "Me" messages.Some examples: My products are terrific. My company is wonderful. We've been in business for 15 years. We have a long tradition of quality, blah, blah, blah.

So much advertising is full of this drivel. This is all about you. No one in the world cares besides you. Your prospects want to know exactly what benefits they will get from your products. In other words, if you sell grass seed, don't dwell on what it's composed of. Instead describe how beautiful their lawn will be.

TIP: Here is the fastest way to improve your copy. Review the first draft of your copy. Eliminate all these words--I, our, we, my. Substitute you and your. I promise you'll be amazed and truly gratified with the result. It's sure to blow your mind!

3. Copy fails to answer the question "What's in it for me?" The process, of course, starts with the headline. An excellent copywriting technique is to prepare bullet points. These should consist of all the benefits a buyer of your product will get.

Tip: Your benefits should be stated in headline format. The secret of making benefits even more powerful is to describe the benefit of the benefit.

B-I-G Sales Letter Mistakes

I often get asked to critique sales letters, and I come across a lot of the same mistakes nearly every single time. I’ve condensed it down to 13 of the biggest, most glaring mistakes I often see. Today we’ll start with the first one, and it’s probably the most often made mistake.

1. Poor Headline. Or what's even worse, no headline. The most important part of sales letters is the headline. Unless the headline immediately attracts attention and generates interest, your prospect will stop reading right then and there. This means you have no chance -zero- to fulfill the purpose of the sales letter, which is to make a sale. Your headline should communicate the strongest customer benefit(s) of your product or service.

TIP: Creating a great headline. This is entirely contrary to what many “experts” say, but it is what most experts do!

Headlines are critically important and yes you can spend hours, days, even weeks if necessary, creating headlines and then testing one headline against another. You can create at least 15 to 25 and test the strongest ones. You can write as many as 200 to 250 before choosing two to four to test against each other to find the most profitable.

Or you can do what most copywriters do when they critic someone’s copy. They read the copy and pick out a biggest benefit and make it the headline. Then they look for one or two other big benefits and make them sub-headlines.

Here’s an Example:

“How To Get a New Roof,
And a FREE 42” Flat Screen TV Just in time for the Big Game”
I Really Don’t Want to Lay Off My Crew this Winter
I only Have 10 TVs – Call Now To Be Sure Your Get Yours!

On Friday I’ll cover 2 more mistakes I often see. Stay tuned!

www.3DMailResults.com

Tune into Your Clients Favorite Radio Station, WIIFM

We’ve been discussing the elements of crafting an irresistible offer for your clients. So far we’ve discussed what an irresistible offer is and how they must match your prospects or clients interests in terms of Geographic’s, demographics and psycho-graphics. To review, see my last blog entry here. Today we’ll start on the first of 8 tips for crafting your offer.

The biggest factor in crafting an offer is to set your radio dial to your clients favorite station, W.I.I.F.M. or “What’s In It For Me?”

It’s vitally important to remember that your clients are NOT interested in what you are selling. However, they ARE interested in the results of what you’re selling and what it does for them at a personal and emotional level.

You must ask yourself, are you selling the camera?

Or are you selling the memory?













(Yes, that’s really Venice. A picture my wife took from a gondola in the Grand Canal in July, 2007. It doesn’t even look real, does it!?!)

The easiest way to turn what you’re selling into what your clients want is to take your features and turn them into benefits. So if I’m selling my camera, I’m not selling the fact there’s 23 different settings for day, night, low-light, objects in motion, a car setting, train setting etc.

I’m selling that when you finally get to take that dream vacation to one of the world’s most beautiful cities, you can rest assured that you’re pictures will be so stunningly beautiful, that every time you look at them you’ll be transported back right to where that photo was taken, every time you look at it.

www.3dmailresults.com

Segment your List to Match your Offer

We are picking up our discussion on offers after a brief hiatus. To review where we’ve been, see my blog post from last week.

When you’re crafting an offer, you MUST take your target audience into consideration, but their demographics and their psychographics. We’ll start with the basic on demographics,

Demographics are characteristic that make-up your target audience. In Business-to-Consumer markets they include (but not limited to):
• Age
• Gender
• Occupation
• Income
• Martial status
• Children
• Rent/own home

And many others not listed here. You must consider each of the common characteristics of your market when crafting an irresistible offer.

For example, if you’re selling adjustable beds, and you’re offering a free video with testimonials, demonstrations etc your main demographic is more than likely people over a certain age. You’d probably want to offer the option of a DVD or VHS. Whether you drive them to a website is also a consideration. Driving them to a phone call may be a better option. Careful consideration must be given towards biases that exist in any list.

In business-to-business some common demographics include:
• Industry or SIC codes
• Job title
• Annual sales
• Number of employees
• Public or private
• And others

Whether working in the B2B or B2C environment careful consideration must be taken in examining the demographics of your list. Next week we’ll start with the first of 8 tips you can use to craft your next irresistible offer. See you then.

www.3dmailresults.com

Irresistible Offer, Part II

Earlier this week I introduced the idea of an irresistible offer to you. To review where we’ve been, check out my blog post from Tuesday. We’re going to pick upwhere we left off here.

When crafting an offer, the very first thing you mustconsider is your target audience. An offer that doesn’t resonate with your audience will not be successful,no matter how good you think it may be.

But how do you make it resonate? Your offer mustmatch your target audience’s interests, needs andmotivations. For the ultimate success in matchingthese three areas, you must find a starving crowd and segment your list(s) using geographics, gemographics and pyschographics (buying habits).

Geographic targeting is probably the easiest to defineand recognize so we’ll start there. Geographics is the physical area which you can serve, or the effectiverage your business has. How far will your clients cometo you, and how far will you travel to them. A window washer may have an effective range of a 15mile radius around his office. A real estate agent itmaybe 25 miles.
These are certainly not limited to your local community. Most people would consider a dentist to be a “locals” only business. However, I personally know of a handfulof dentists who have clients fly in from all over the country to specifically visit their offices. It all dependson WHO you’re marketing towards, and the specificmessage you put forth.

I also know a retail store owner who sells parts and accessories for race car drivers. He’s able to travelto a different track on race weekends, wherever thebiggest race of that weekend is held, and open hismobile shop. Because he’s willing to travel to exactlyto where his customers are located, he has extendedhis effective range.

Next week we’ll discuss the ways you can segment yourlist and create an Irresistible Offer using demographicsand psychographics.

http://www.3dmailresults.com/

Life and Limb

Going back to the person who invests life and limb in creating her course on parenting. If she’s given any thought to parenting at all, she has statistics. She’ll say, “There are x-# parents of kids between a and b.”

Great. Unfortunately, an overwhelmingly majority of those parents don’t give a rat’s behind about being better parents. Some think they know it all. Some think their kids are screwed up, but they’re okay. Most don’t think at all. Some are dead broke. Some are functionally illiterate. And I could go on.
Somewhere in all that, there is a miniscule percentage who are literate, open-minded, concerned, self-improvement oriented, and have already demonstrated their willingness to invest time and money in being better parents. But if you have to wade through all the muck to find them, you will run out of gas long before you get there.

“But there are millions who NEED my product.” Terrific. Want to get me excited? Show me how many have previously, preferably repetitively, demonstrated their ability and willingness to invest in their desire for products or services like yours. Then, show me that we can find them and reach them. Now, we got something. Now I can help you.