Spin the marketing wheel and bank the dough (pointer 4)

It's that glorious time again.

Where we spin the magnifico marketing wheel and see where the pointer, points. 

And before we get into it, let me just straddle the soap box here and poke my pointy nose into things for a second to say that if you dismiss what you're reading here regarding these strategies, or you nod your head in happy agreement but you do nothing with what you're eyeballing, then it's as bad as being able to read, but not read, being able to walk, but not walk, being able to help, but not help, being able to drive, but not drive, being able to love, but not love. End of lesson.

And so the pointy pointer lands on....  

Raising Prices! 

I can hear the collective tension rise up inside the throats of many.

Here's what you probably know: 

Your prices are already way too low (on some of your products and services).

Now it's not a good idea to raise prices for the sake of raising prices. 

(If you're a low cost provider and your desired goal and mission is to be the lowest priced vendor, supplier, business or product provider in your marketplace, then this raising prices strategy will have nothing to do with you at all. Skip on by and enjoy the rest of your day) 

In raising prices... 

You've got to give reasons why. 

You've got to add additional value. 

You've got to improve the quality of your service or product. 

You've got to ensure the entire A-Z customer buying and post buying process and standards, are all raised and bettered.

What you can't do when raising prices is to trance someone into buying from you or hammer them over the head with some kind of sob story.

They'll sniff that a mile away. 

And it won't truly resonate or connect.

And yet, there are providers and services all over the place who are high priced yet providing little or additional extra value than their closest competitor.

They'll soon be rumbled as their pricing won't match the quality of their services.  

Of course, if your business has a personality and has a loyal rabid following for what it is you sell and promote, then raising prices won't be nearly as troubling.

In fact, when you go even higher in your prices with new product and service offerings, there'll be a certain percentage of your customer base who'll devour and lap it up.  

And they'll do that because they've already been convinced and have bought into who you are and what your products and services stand for in their lives.     

Test it out. Raise dem prices!

There are 3 other strategies on the marketing wheel that deliciously blend and merge into the raising prices one, and you'll get to see what they are over the coming days.

Spin the Strategic marketing wheel and bank the dough (pointer 2)

It's spin the marketing wheel time.

And, the lucky ducky strategy the pointer plops on just now, is...

Continuous Communications.

Tada! 

Yawn.

Well guess what?

Yawny and unsexy it might seem, yet... when you mail more, when you're in constant communication, when you're connected to your subscribers and customers...you'll get more eyeballs on your communications.

And that generally means...

You'll make more dough.

But don't count your money yet because I said it generally means you make more dough.  

It's this generally word I want to poke into a little more.

Because here's what WON'T bring in the dough for you when it comes to your communications: (And that's irrespective if you send one communication a day, a week, a month) 

• Making the whole communication as dry as toast to read. (there's zero personality being shown) 
• Not being at all entertaining. (i.e. being a dull, drab bore in print)
• Not having a different point of view to all others in your marketplace. (aka -- being a samey samey)
• Only selling, selling, selling and having nothing else of value to share or communicate. (We all like to buy, but not when a torrent of emails are only (and desperately) focussed on getting our money) 
• Making your offers as limp, unenergetic and uninviting as a pooped out marathon runner who hasn't brushed their teeth for days, yet wants to join your banging, late night house party.
• Having little to zero creative inventiveness and story telling prowess, thus making your communications sound and read almost exactly the same... each and every time. 

So if you're going to communicate, and regularly, do it in a way that makes it a joyful delight for your recipient. 

To tie this all together:

There's a creeping separateness that naturally happens when you stay out of the communication loop for too long.

And we all know that. 

In personal life and, in business.

And in business... 

The money numbers don't lie.

You don't want to let that lack of continuous communication happen, especially now that you have a little list to work from to fix things, where you simply... do the OPPOSITE.     

Let's spin the marketing wheel again tomorrow and see where the marketing dough making pointer, lands next.    

    

Want a regular dose of the kind of emails that'll do Taj Mahal wonders for your business?
Go Here. 

Email Marketing Q & A (Part 2 )

Q: Why do you think Email has been given a back seat recently as a marketing vehicle...is it because of social media marketing being so prominent?

RH:My take on it is that email, the proper use of it, will be here to stay as long as the internet is here and so that’ll be like, forever. Social media marketing has its merits, though all in good measure. 

It seems like whenever the next new shiniest marketing tool comes online, there’s this buffalo stampede that can be heard for miles, with everyone who has been sold into the idea and concept, touting it like it’s their online saviour. 

Which of course is just plain old hype and I suppose a business owner has to go through the experience to see that social media marketing isn’t as it’s cracked up and promoted to be. 

Yes, there are wonderful uses for it all but tell me a business that’s built its business solely on social media marketing and then you’ll have me as being an eager listener.

And the dirty little secret is that the big guns, you know, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Ebay… they’re using offline direct mail to grow their businesses.

Gasp. Who’d have thought that, right? 

I mean, shouldn’t they be using just social media marketing as they’re purely online businesses? Now you know. Okay, now, social media marketing used in conjunction with email, can be a powerful combination. 

But give me an either/or choice and I’ll pick email as a method of building a deep strong relationship with customers, as well as making regular sales like clockwork, I’ll take email, any day of the week, month or year. 

Now those who spurn email and its inherent uses and power, simply do not know how to use it effectively. 

And so what happens as a consequence? 

They bad mouth the media, based on their erroneous assumptions, based on false information, based on simply not taking the time and investing energy and flop sweat to doing it right. 

And let’s just take a look at this; email is just another format to communicate. 

Nothing more. It’s not the holy-grail. Neither is facebook or twitter or any other social media marketing platform. They’re all communication vehicles, just like the fax, the mobile phone, tv, video, letters in the post. 

And with all of those media platform or tools or vehicles, whatever I’ve just mentioned, if you don’t know how to effectively communicate using whatever media, you’re not doing as well as you thought.

And you can’t blame the media platform because if someone else is being successful at using it then it’s you, me, whoever is the mind behind the use of the communication tool in question; we’re the problem and not the media platform! 

If someone else is successful at it, and we’re not; we’ve screwed it up along the line, somewhere. 

Email Marketing Q & A (Part 1 )

Q: With most inboxes exploding everyday with one communication or another, how can a business stand out from the masses and get their email communications firstly, to stand out amongst the dozens of others that are fighting for attention. And secondly, how can one get their emails opened?

RH: You know, some really truly believe that there’s this special trick or a stealth ninja back door strategy that has their email always in the front of the email opening queue and so has it standing out from all other emails like Rudolph the Reindeer’s red nose. 

There’s no such strategy. 

And frankly, if you try to ‘trick’ the reader into opening an email and there’s no payoff for them in terms of a benefit or a value that the subject line seemed to have implied or promised, then you’ll be thought of as a slick trickster, a con artist trying desperately to win attention and you may have lost that customer or potential customer, along with all their referral and residual value for years to come. 

The authentic way to get your emails to stand out and to get them opened and to get them read and acted on, is to be someone that your customers and prospects like hearing from. 

To be someone they trust and revere, someone they have some kind of emotional affinity with. Someone who is liked, and look, that doesn’t come by accident. That doesn't happen by chance. It’s not something that happens like an instantaneous lottery jackpot win or something that you attract to you and have manifested just because of thinking about it but doing nothing to make it all happen. 

On the other hand, it’s something that does happen when there’s a definite desire and a want from the business owner or entrepreneur to connect, to really and truly deliver important, valuable and interesting communications and conversations to customers and subscribers alike. 

That’s the way to be looked on as a welcomed guest and not someone who is simply classed as an annoying pest because of showing none of the qualities in being a person of value and of being of an interest that people want to hear from and in fact, can’t wait to hear from because of the fresh, inviting and compellingly interesting communications sent on a timely and regular basis. 

And that actually is the way to build up a true personality driven business. And it’s something most businesses should opt doing because there’s a powerful and distinctive market place advantage in being that person or that business a person looks to amongst all others in the same business category or the same industry.

And that's because all other businesses will be looked upon as nothing but commodity based businesses, giving nothing more than an exchange of goods or services for money, and nothing much more. 

There’s much to be said about creating a personality based driven business because that’s where the true value is and believe it or not, people will pay more and stay longer with those kinds of businesses and organisations, than they will a nameless and faceless corporation that has no soul or no spirit or personality about them. 

NOTE: Are you keen to ramp up your  email marketing game? Want more from the written transcript of where the above interview came from? Email me and I'll give it to you. PLUS... I'll give you access to a powerful yet simple report on how to create personality in your  emails.

raja . hireker @ gmail . com  

The VALUE Lie

Here's an email, received today, 4th April.

---------

Spring Sale Starts This Weekend

Dear Valued Customer,

I thought I would take the time to let you know our Spring Sale starts this weekend. We have some mouth-watering special offers on new orders and some end of line showroom clearance models that offer fantastic value for money We do hope to have the pleasure of seeing you in our store in the near future   Regards XXXXXXXXXXXXX The Director ------------   Now I receive a mail from this Furniture and Design company, maybe three times a year... whenever they have a sale and want money.   So I ask myself the question ;    How valued AM I, when all I receive is a boringly written, 'we've a sale' email?   Pathetic, really. And make note of the language - for example -  "I thought I would take the time to let you know our Spring Sale starts this weekend"...   I mean, who cares? Who really cares if THEY Have taken the time to tell us that they've a sale on.   It's as if they're doing me a special favour to interrupt my life to let me know there's a sale, because they want money.    How boring, bland and horribly typical of most businesses to communicate in such a non valuable way!   It's all about THEM.   How different would it be if I was told something like...    Dear Valued Customer,   Looking at our past records, it looks like your last purchase was a XXXXXXX. We hope you we're really thrilled with your XXXXXXXXXXXXXX and it's given you so much pleasure since buying.   I wanted to write to let you know that we've actually overstocked on a range that's really quite complementary to your previous purchase and so because of that, we wanted to invite you to a special viewing for our VIP customers.   If you bring this email with you on XXXXXX and you decide that you'd like to purchase anything you see on the evening, we'd love to give you a special 25% VIP saving, as well as giving you an extra special gift just for coming along.   We'd really love to see you on XXXXXXXXXXXX   Does something like that communication make you feel more valued than the first email?   Is it more inviting, more appealing, more chance of you coming to the store and buying, then the first communication?    Well, it's that VERY DIFFERENCE in the written communication that makes ALL the difference in sales, profits, in having continual happy delighted customers.   Alas, although most business have great products and services, they're woefully inept at communicating in a way that makes the customer value what's on offer, that makes the customer feel valued, appreciated and acknowledged.   www.RajaHireker.com