|
|
|
|
 |
|
Topic Search: |
|
Is It Time To Put Fax Marketing Out To Pasture?By Karen Braschuk
The term “home invasion” may have taken on an entirely new meaning. As a small business owner, how do you feel when you receive a solicitation fax at home at 3:00 a.m.? “It’s okay, guys. It’s just the fax machine. There’s no need for alarm. Just go back to bed. No, honestly, no one died.” If you work in a remote location, you may arrive at the office the next morning only to find that your fax machine has been busier than you’ve been all evening. How fair is that? I have a friend who has a well-paying job at a medium-sized company. He manages and supervises a sizeable staff. He also has the misfortune to be seated closest to the fax machine. His unofficial role is to “sort the wheat from the chaff” in terms of faxes. For every 50 pages he throws into the garbage, perhaps one or two pages are of real value to his company. I’ve never told him this, but I suspect the latter is the real reason his company pays him such big bucks. As a small business owner, my resources for office items like paper and ink are closely budgeted. Imagine my glee when I receive numerous faxes from companies advertising their discounts on paper and ink. Could they be creating their own demand so they can provide the supply? I recently performed an informal survey amongst my fellow small business owners as to how they felt about fax marketing. A common response was that fax marketing was so ‘90s. I have to agree. It’s a “home invasion” that we can’t control. Unlike emails and flyers that can be deleted or thrown in the garbage, marketing faxes use up the recipient’s material resources. It’s a form of marketing that takes a chunk out of one’s prospects right up front, before they’ve even decided whether or not they want to become a customer. From what I’ve seen, most fax target marketing campaigns aren’t quite that on target. My office is in a building I don’t own. Why do I continually receive faxes offering me paving services? I have to admit, the latest fax I received did tempt me to contact the sender. It was from a lawyer asking if I wanted to sue someone. I wonder how he’d feel if he knew that “someone” was him? I do have one positive thing to say about marketing faxes. They make great paper airplanes.
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Off The Shelf Software for Making Business Lists Available to all small businesses are business lists, which come on CD ROMs. This off the shelf business list software can help you in your small business. You can see what is in your marketing area and target those business customers which could be potential clients. You can also use it to make a list of all those companies which might be competitors of your. Any small business can have at their disposal on CD ROM incredible lists of industries. Here are some of the CD ROM programs we recommend that you buy and use to create customized lists: Market Research ? How Good is the Data? "Make money for taking surveys"," Cash for your opinion", "Make easy money at home". Marketing Planning - Preparation and Accountability We all know the saying, "Failing to plan (prepare) is planning (preparing) to fail." I truly believe in this statement and I hope you do as well. Building your service business, including marketing it must be planned and does take work. So What Do You Do? Once you have the attention of a business prospect, at some point in the conversation, the prospect will ask you, "So what do you do?". In most cases, you will only have 60 seconds, to catch the interest of the prospect. Therefore, your response to this questions needs to be specific enough to tell what you do, but interesting enough for the prospect to ask for more information. Do You Know Where Your Marketing Dollars Are Going? We all know the importance of marketing to increase sales and bring in new business. Questioning the Data of Demographic Off The Shelf Marketing Products I have been working on a direct mail campaign for our team in many areas and we are finding that the yellow page listings and business list CDROMS contain so many closed companies that we are spending too much on the mailings which are opened a little less because of the anthrax scare. Even customized lists are of little value. No one is keeping these lists fresh and deleting the ole data. Book of Lists are outdated as soon as they come out, CDROMS rip people off by disallowing lots of search downloads, yellow pages forget it. Phone numbers are wrong, addresses are wrong as a matter of fact most business parks are 30% unoccupied, downtowns about 15% and industrial areas about 28% nationwide, so with all these jobs and companies gone, there is no one keeping track of the data. Yet we are told the recession is over? Whatever. Are we judging by the stock market? Because it is not real either. Chamber Of Commerce Meetings If you run a small business you should be a member of the local chamber of commerce. Most cities which 50,000 people in them have 5000 small businesses. Yet these same cities only have 500-1000 people in their chambers of commerce. There are many reasons for this. Some say it is a huge expense, which is somewhat short sided because you will get a good return on your chamber membership business thru additional steady and loyal customers. Others negative comments might be, they never do anything for me. This to is an incorrect perspective in that you only get out what you put in or as JFK said, Ask not what your country can do for you. If you are a member of the chamber of commerce then you have an advantage over the 80 to 90 percent of the businesses who are not. If you participate you have another 80% advantage over other members who do not participate. After Your Postcard Mailing: Follow Up with Finesse I've heard a lot of people lament the fact that they just sent out a big postcard mailing, and, alas, no one called. 6 Article Marketing Smarts: How To Get More Reprints And Exposure It probably depends on what you expect your article to achieve for you - better branding, more sales, or more publicity. Guerilla Marketing Lesson 2: Why Do People Call Me? Before we begin, I want you to think about how many times you actually sought out an advertisement. How did you know where to look for it? Why did you choose that one? Whether you know it or not, the number of times you were exposed to the message has a huge impact on you. Also, the message and how it made you feel had a large influence on your response. Why Market to Generation X? Generation X"--the 40 million or so people born between 1965 and 1976--understands it is living in a world of uncertainty where neither the govern¬ment nor private employers offer lifetime financial security. This is, however, the next generation of responsible adults, bright young people with families to protect and educate...and nearly 40 years until retirement. Direct Mail Response Devices and How to Craft Them Successful direct mail packages contain three things: an attractive offer, a call to action, and a response device. The offer is the Incentive. The call to action is the Imperative. And the response device is the Instrument. Standards for Dry Washing and Pressure Washing in Mobile Car Care The industry standard for mobile washing is completing the car and removing the dirt so it is clean as promised to the customer. Some would say this is not a standard but rather the minimum required. The environmental standards for run off are simple in that no used wash water is allowed to enter a storm drain. Which is fairly simple and straightforward. Customers obviously prefer a clean car. Five Deadly Small Business Marketing Mistakes Here are some marketing mistakes that take a heavy toll on small businesses. They have been very harmful to businesses at any stage, but especially harmful for new businesses. These Four Things Will Make Your Direct Marketing Successful Direct marketing is built on four things. The other way to look at it is that when you think direct marketing is not working only one of four things can be wrong. Let's look at each. You Cannot - Not Market Everything you do - or don't do sends a message and marketing is about sending messages. You can market well or you can market poorly, but you cannot - not market! The Most Powerful Marketing Weapon Ever Invented It was probably first discovered out there in the caves or wherever else the history of mankind begun. And yet this weapon has been used so sparingly over the centuries. It is so powerful that those surprisingly few who have stumbled on to it and appreciated and respected its power have ended up making untold fortunes. When, Why, and How to Use Mailing Lists Mailing lists may be the cause of more heartbreaks than anyother single factor in mail order. A poorly chosen list, a weakmailing and the high cost of mailing to a list can tax theoptimism of a new dealer very, very quickly. Arm yourself withknowledge before embarking on a course like this! Winning At Business With Your Marketing Game Plan Stuart from Colorado had talked to a number of marketing firms and gotten estimates for designing and printing his marketing materials and building a web site for his business producing promotional cds. One firm quoted $100,000 to build his web site alone. He sensed something was missing or wrong, but couldn't put his finger on it, so he called me. Whats Your Marketing Weak Link? Your marketing weak link could be undermining the rest of your marketing. It is vital that each link in your marketing system supports and builds upon the previous link. Each link must bring your customer closer to the next sale. Any link that takes the customer further away from the sale, makes your marketing program inefficient and causes you to lose money.
|