Inside the Envelope

What is a Premium? A premium is anything of value that you offer a prospect or client in exchange for taking an action that you direct them to. This could include an incentive or a gift. The right premium could encourage someone who might otherwise set aside the mail to act now instead of later (or not at all). This works especially well when there is a limited quantity available or you state a deadline for responding. An example of this would be offering a Starbucks coffee gift card in exchange for filling out a survey or submitting an honest testimonial. Premiums can also be used to generate demand for your products and services, to reward fast response, or to boost the size of an order. Why Does a Premium Work? Everyone wants something for free, but they also want to reward those who rewarded them. Premiums work because of the "rule of reciprocation" made famous by Robert Cialdini, a psychologist and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion...

What's a unique selling proposition (USP)? First the Wikipedia explanation: "The unique selling proposition (a.k.a. unique selling point, or USP) is a marketing concept that was first proposed as a theory to understand a pattern among successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. It states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and that this convinced those buyers to switch brands. The term was invented by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company. Today the term is used in other fields or just casually to refer to any aspect of an object that differentiates it from similar objects." A strong USP can mean the difference between being "just another company" and one that's unique and memorable in the minds of customers and prospects. To do this, a USP must accomplish three things. Each USP must make a strong appeal to the target audience. Not just words, not just product puffery, and not just window advertising. It must...

Typically, many hours are spent deciding on the logo, layout, and tagline to include on a company's business cards. But not much time goes into thinking about strategies to make those business cards actually work to bring in customers. That is a mistake. Business cards are like mini ambassadors for your business. They represent you, your company, and your brand. Business cards often provide the first impression a recipient will have of you and your company. They shouldn't be just an afterthought in your marketing collateral mix. To effectively market and advertise your business, whether through business cards, social media, or a website, the first step is to create awareness. Awareness is generated through uniqueness. The colors, stock, font, graphics, and unusual finishing touches like rounded corners or foil stamping and special die cutting can all add up to create a business card that stands out in a crowd. Simple elegance and a clean, uncluttered layout work bes...

Most advertising today is of the "me too" variety. When you've seen one, you've seen them all. The louder they yell: "LOOK AT ME!" the faster you want to toss the ad in the trash, change the channel, or click delete. Open the yellow pages (if you can still find one!), look inside a magazine or newspaper, listen to a radio ad, watch a TV commercial, or take a look at your mail. Can you see any difference between most of the messages you encounter? Very few of the ads truly stand out. Why does this ineffective method continue? Because competitors continually monitor each other. They conclude, without any real proof, that the competitor's ads must be working. So they copy each other. The line of thinking that goes with this method is to hit the audience over the head repeatedly until they cry uncle and buy something. This might work for a company with a massive advertising budget, but it is ineffective for smaller budgets. If you want to cre...

Let's get right to the lessons: Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Studies of sales practices continue to show that most salespeople don't follow up more than one or two times after making a presentation or giving a quote. Marketing is no different. Most businesses will attempt to deliver one or two marketing messages and rarely follow up afterward. Unfortunately, one or two delivered messages will rarely produce tangible results. We live in a world where people are bombarded by marketing and sales messages every day. So it's unrealistic to expect one message -- no matter how creative the graphics or how great the sales copy -- will make it through that clutter. Our logical minds would tell us that if our target audience wants the product or service we're selling, they'll take us up on the first offer we provide. But that's not how it works in real life. The...

Networking events such as Business After Hours and organizations like BNI and Meetup.com provide great opportunities to meet and mingle with other, like-minded businesspeople outside their place of business in a more relaxed and non-threatening environment. Unfortunately, some entrepreneurs do not get the most of this great opportunity because they feel awkward or simply don't know what to say or do. Instead of getting excited to start building relationships, they end up heading for a quick exit, the buffet line, the bar, or the restroom. If this describes you, there is a better way. To make this type of networking event feel comfortable and more enjoyable, you need to have a plan. When you're prepared, you'll feel more in control. Being in control can help relieve the anxiety of being in a new setting and situation. Your plan should include making new friends, building relationships, giving before asking, and looking for opportunities to grow your business. It...

The bulk of marketing budgets is often reserved for acquiring new customers. Much energy, time, and money is spent pursuing prospects that have a marginally small chance of ever becoming a customer. There's a flaw with this strategy. The simplest and most effective way to boost your bottom line profits is to remember who brought you where you are today: your existing customers. If you aren't consistently advertising and staying in touch with current and past clients, you're missing out on the best way to continually grow your business. For every month that goes by without making contact with your past and existing customer base, you'll lose up to ten percent of the clients you've worked so hard to acquire. Retaining clients is therefore an extremely important business growth strategy. Selling your services to new customers means earning their trust. It takes hard work to build this trust. When a prospect becomes a customer, you have only begun to earn th...

There are two broad categories of marketing you can use for your company, and it's important you understand the difference. These two types of marketing are called brand/image marketing and direct response marketing. Although both can have a place in marketing your business, for small businesses one (direct response) is much more effective and efficient than the other. Brand or image marketing works off the premise that you can create awareness for your business or products by building name recognition. As Wikipedia explains it, branding "involves associating a product name or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers." Successful brand marketing needs mass media like TV, radio, and billboards to push the message to a broad audience. For large companies with big ad budgets, this can be effective. Unfortunately, institutional marketing like this is difficult to track, making it hard to quantify a return on investment. Fortunately for small businesses, ...

Most business owners have a love/hate relationship with their email. Mostly hate. But like it or not, business owners and executives often "live" in their email inbox, so it makes sense to learn to control the beast before it controls us. The first step in getting past email overwhelm is to clearly define who the boss is in this relationship: you or your email. That might sound like a silly question, but ask yourself if: Your email client is set to automatically check for new messages every few minutes. You read your email on multiple devices -- computer, smartphone, iPad, etc. You feel a compulsive need to see who is sending you email as soon as you hear the sound that indicates a new message has arrived. If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you are not in control of your email. It is in control of you, and you need to fix that. Begin by setting a schedule for checking and responding to your email. That might mean 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minu...