Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The First Step in Your E-Marketing Strategy

 
Keeping your brand in front of interested prospects on a regular basis is essential in today's barrage of marketing messages. You want to cultivate a group of self-selecting prospects who have an interest in your product and a top-of-mind awareness of you. If you fail to remind them who you are and what you do, they'll forget about you.

Job #1 is collecting email addresses. This is where many companies' E-marketing campaign stalls out. They just can't seem to get over the hump of collecting this essential contact information, even though customers are in their place of business. Know how to do that? Ask them.

I saw a brilliantly executed example of this at a local restaurant this week. While we were contemplating our menu choices, the server pulled out card-sized forms and laid them in front of us, then flawlessly executed this script:

"We're asking you to fill out this card so we'll know who you are and so we can communicate with you by email. What you'll get by email are special discount offers, particularly on your birthday and anniversary. As a reward, we'll send you a $10 Gift Certificate as soon as we receive your card. We promise not to bother you with more than 1 email a month."
Perfect. Give the customer a reason to provide her email address. Give her a reward for doing so. And assure her you're not going to beat her up with daily or weekly emails. The card included only first name, last name, email address, birthday, anniversary and zip code. Nothing else. Brilliant.


Take a look at your own business. How could you be more effective in gathering email contact information from people you'd like to cultivate as repeat, long-term customers? They're presenting themselves to you, either in person or on the phone. Why not just ask them for a way to re-connect?

Please take a moment to share your E-marketing successes or difficulties with others. Click "Comments" below.

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Terry Weaver


CEO
Chief Executive Boards International

http://www.chiefexecutiveboards.com/
TerryWeaver@ChiefExecutiveBoards.com


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1 comment:

  1. Great information. I got lucky and found your site from a random Google search. Fortunately for me, this topic just happens to be something that I've been trying to find more info on for research purpose. Keep us the great and thanks a lot.

    ReplyDelete

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