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   Thursday, September 6, 2007

Now that you have some great tips on how to create your marketing materials or perfect promotional flyers, etc. Where do you go to get them printed and/or mailed? Here are 5 tips I can give you on how to manage your direct mail efficiently.
Many business owners I know typically go to Kinko’s or Office Depot (which are great resources for some things) for their printing and then fold, stuff, label and stamp their own mailers. NO, NO, NO….depending on the number of mailers you have it could be much less expensive and less time consuming to go through a professional printer, print broker or even online and then to go to a local mail house for mailing services.
You don’t have to do it all yourself. Besides, what is your hourly rate? How much is your time worth? You would most likely be better off outsourcing these types of things rather than spending your valuable time when you could be working with a client instead.
While I’m on the subject, how many people do you have on your mailing list or current database? Are you including EVERYONE YOU KNOW? If not, WHY THE HECK NOT? Everyone you know will either be a prospect for your business OR a referral source without question. They all need to know what you’ve been up to or what you’re doing now in case they need your services/products or know someone who does.
I could go on and on with suggestions on who to use for printing, mailing, and all the services that go along with doing this but we’d be here forever. So, here are 5 tips on how to manage your direct mail efficiently:
1. Plan for large mailings. There's a big difference between a sales letter and direct mail, which is generally sent to lists of at least 5,000 at a time. Your lists must be large, since even good response rates may fall between 2 percent and 4 percent. If you don’t have a very large list – meet more people! There's another difference, too. Direct-mail campaigns are built around a single goal--an action your prospects must take in order to

move farther along in the sales cycle. Not surprisingly, mailings that are designed to produce leads yield higher response rates than those designed to close sales.
2. Choose the best format. In addition to catalogs, there are three basic types of direct mail: postcards, letters and packages (called dimensional mail). When creating your annual campaign, you can choose one type or all three. Postcards, preferably oversized to grab attention, can be an inexpensive way to alert prospects to an upcoming event.
Successful direct-mail letters, on the other hand, are complex packages: They generally consist of a teaser envelope--which promises something appealing inside--a one- or two-page cover letter, various inserts expanding on the offer and often a business reply card with a return envelope. And if you want to virtually guarantee your mail gets opened, you can put it in a box.
Last year, dimensional mail averaged the highest overall response rate--5.49 percent--of any direct-response medium, according to the Direct Marketing Association.
3. Assemble your campaign. Direct-mail marketing is rarely a do-it-yourself job. The steps include: designing and printing the creative pieces, choosing the lists, and delivering them both to a mailing house for labeling and distribution. Most mailing houses will be cost effective for a minimum of 1000 or more pieces for your addressing and postage handling and some can even do printing as well.
Print brokers will find the best printing prices for your job, either locally or regionally through gang runs and such which could take longer but produce less expensive results. Online resources will be quick and easy to use, sometimes providing the best pricing and quickest turnaround however you will want to test their quality first by ordering print samples.
Decide exactly whom you want to reach, and then obtain a list and/or use your own database. It's a good idea to mail multiple times to the same list, and you can reduce

your costs by negotiating for duplicate mailings at the time your initial list purchase is being compiled.
4. Test and measure results. Direct-mail success is measured one campaign at a time. It's essential to test various components of the campaign--the lists, your offers and creative approaches--in order to continually improve your response rates. The key is to test just one component at a time and make incremental adjustments until your campaign produces optimal results.
5. Call K. Sawa Marketing. We can offer referrals or solutions to your direct mail campaign needs. You don’t need to research it all yourself, we already have. We can help you with the campaign itself, what the message is, who to send it to, when and how. We can also find the best printing, mailing and delivering resources available based on your time frame and your quantity.
About the Author
Katrina Sawa, Small Biz Marketing Expert, helps entrepreneurs and small business owners build their database of clients and prospects, determine the best ways to market their business to their target market, teach them how to network, develop follow up systems, marketing and advertising plans and find ways to get free or low cost publicity which all lead to more customers and increased sales!
Katrina has been named "The Networking Queen" by her peers and clients
ever since she founded her business in 2002. She was always found out
mingling at chamber of commerce mixers, business networking events and
expos and any event she could attend where her target market would be in attendance. Consistent networking and follow up is the primary reason Katrina has been so successful in her business.
An avid gardener, party planner and softball buff, Katrina enjoys the sunshine of Northern California. She grew up not too far from the Sacramento area and then received her B.S. in Business, Marketing Concentration, from California State University, Sacramento.
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PERMISSION TO REPRINT: This article may be reprinted provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution:
Katrina Sawa, Small Biz Marketing Expert and Founder of K. Sawa Marketing. © Copyright 2002-2006 K. Sawa Marketing. Reprinted by permission of Katrina Sawa, a marketing and promotional expert who helps small business owners and entrepreneurs make the most of their marketing dollars and time. For more insight about her services, to get FREE Marketing Advice, or to sign-up for her FREE GET NETWORKING ezine, visit her at www.ksawamarketing.com, or email: katrina@ksawamarketing.com.


3 Tips on How to Build Your List (your database) From Your Website
Don't you want to someday work strictly by referrals and word of mouth? Wouldn't you like to work less hours and make more money?
Your database is any business owners most precious asset. So, let's get it as big as humanly possible so that you can keep in front of them regularly (that's a whole other story) so that when they think about your product or service YOU are on "top of mind".
So, what are the 3 Tips on How to Build Your List From Your Website?
1. Add an Email Signup Box to the Home Page of your website and even all the inside ones as well. Have that link to an email marketing program like the one I'm using so that when they sign up it goes automatically into your list. This makes it easy for visitors to add themselves to your list - but you have to tempt them!
2. Develop Exceptional Copy for your site. You will not retain the interests of visitors without great copy, good headlines, informative yet easy to read text. And if you're selling something online or a service like coaching or something make sure you have separate "sales" pages for each product or service (depending on what it is). If you aren't good at writing copy that sells then make sure you hire someone who is - Good Copywriting is VITAL TO THE SUCCESS OF ANY WEBSITE!
3. Develop an Email Marketing Campaign that you can get them to sign up for in #1 because it's not enough you add them to your list; you need to remind them about you often (like I do on my emails – are you getting them??). Then the copy in that email sign up box should give them something like a Free Report or some kind of Free Resource they will want to sign up to get, using that as the incentive to get them to sign up (it must not say - "sign up for our newsletter").

Does this make sense? It's not that hard. The thing that is hard is actually getting your website updated in a professional, functional manner in order to implement these "must haves". This is not normally something most people can do themselves and frankly you are doing yourself and your business a disservice by attempting to design your own site. This is not something that you should be doing - delegate it!
If you want more information on how to maximize the copy on your website, how to find a better web designer, developer or hosting company or how to launch an email campaign - I can help you to either do it, find someone I trust to do it right or refer it out to someone who will take care of your needs.
About the Author
Katrina Sawa, Small Biz Marketing Expert, helps entrepreneurs and small business owners build their database of clients and prospects, determine the best ways to market their business to their target market, teach them how to network, develop follow up systems, marketing and advertising plans and find ways to get free or low cost publicity which all lead to more customers and increased sales!
Katrina has been named "The Networking Queen" by her peers and clients
ever since she founded her business in 2002. She was always found out
mingling at chamber of commerce mixers, business networking events and
expos and any event she could attend where her target market would be in attendance. Consistent networking and follow up is the primary reason Katrina has been so successful in her business.
An avid gardener, party planner and softball buff, Katrina enjoys the sunshine of Northern California. She grew up not too far from the Sacramento area and then received her B.S. in Business, Marketing Concentration, from California State University, Sacramento.
===========================================================
PERMISSION TO REPRINT: This article may be reprinted provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution:
Katrina Sawa, Small Biz Marketing Expert and Founder of K. Sawa Marketing. © Copyright 2002-2006 K. Sawa Marketing. Reprinted by permission of Katrina Sawa, a marketing and promotional expert who helps small business owners and entrepreneurs make the most of their marketing dollars and time. For more insight about her services, to get FREE Marketing Advice, or to sign-up for her FREE GET NETWORKING ezine, visit her at www.ksawamarketing.com, or email: katrina@ksawamarketing.com.


UK Electricity & Energy Giants Want To Have Their Cake and Eat It
Claims by the major UK gas and electricity suppliers that they have been forced to increase their prices in order to claw back the huge deficit created by the unprecedented rises in wholesale prices would, on the face of it, appear to be a reasonable explanation for their action.
However, if this were an entirely accurate picture they would be expected to take a hit on their profit especially since they have passed on to their customers '...far less than the full extent of the increase in wholesale energy prices experienced...'
But profits are rising and rising big time and the explanation given is that these profits come from a different source - from upstream activities such as generation and exploration.
Now this might appear plausible except that it was they who persuaded the UK government against wide ranging protests at the time that they should be allowed to integrate both generation and supply businesses as they operated much more efficiently in tandem.
They can�t therefore have it both ways - either the vertically integrated companies should report as single entities and come clean about the overall level of profits they are making from activities that are ultimately paid for by the final customer or if they wish to divorce the business activities then the government must revisit the rationale for allowing such integrated giants in the first place.
If the former approach is the preferred one then the decision to raise tariffs to such unprecedented levels was completely unjustified and consumers have a right to new fair rates along with compensation for overcharging.
Furthermore, the original argument given for raising tariffs to these levels is itself now redundant.
Wholesale prices have seen a sustained retreat since the summer but this has failed to halt the drive towards even greater profitability.
Scottish and Southern Energy will be raising prices on 1st January 2007 despite an advance in pre-tax profits for the first half of the year to a staggering �484.5 million. Energy supply director, Alistair Phillips-Davies is recently quoted as saying 'If, as everyone hopes, falls in wholesale energy prices continue and are sustained, we will move as quickly as we can to reverse the price rises of recent years.'
But shouldn�t they be applying these price reductions now, or at the very least forego any further increase?
--
Graham Paul is the Sales & Marketing Director of Electricity4Business Limited. E4B is an independent business electricity supplier
Visit Electricity4Business.co.uk website.