Direct mail campaigns are a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. Using them wisely can bring in new business, build customer loyalty and expand your brand awareness beyond other types of advertising. While they are one of the oldest marketing tools, direct mail campaigns require more than just sending out a postcard to a mailing list. Here are five pitfalls to avoid. Using a Bad Mailing List Today’s data hygiene services have advanced data tracking tools to ensure that mailing lists are up to date.  While reputable companies may charge you a chunk for a quality mailing list, it’s worth the extra dollars ...

Let’s face it, with summer right around the corner business can get a little slow with everyone headed to the beach instead of spending time in your store. Regardless, that’s no excuse for your marketing plans to take a vacation on creativity! Here’s 7 tips to help boost sales with creative marketing. Summer Themes Try making a theme with your product such as road trips or the beach and blend it with your brand or products. Give away baseball caps with your company logo and tickets to a local game or zoo to help promote your business. Partner with Other Businesses Get together with ...

If you’re like most business owners, you think of marketing initiatives on a yearly basis. It is this crucial planning that dictates how your marketing dollars will be spent for that particular fiscal year. Prior to putting together your marketing plan and allocating funds to the various marketing channels your business uses, consider these tips for better results. Analyze We learn from our mistakes, at least we hope we do. Before you even start thinking of what your marketing budget for the coming year will look like, make sure you do a full analysis of the past year’s ...

QR Codes Part 1 - What are QR Codes? QR Codes Part 2 – 4 Ways To Use QR Codes In Your Direct Mail Pieces In this final post on QR codes, here are 9 real life examples of QR codes being used by a variety of companies. QR codes are becoming more common marketing tool because of its ability to combine the best features of print marketing with the best features of online marketing. Ralph Lauren By leveraging QR code technology back in 2008, Ralph Lauren offered consumers the opportunity to shop via their smartphones by scanning the QR code appearing in print ...

Companies are always looking for new tools and ideas to grow their business. However, the best options are often based on the tried and tested marketing techniques. Outflow marketing is one of the main ways of increasing your business. Outflow marketing focuses on the ways companies move their message and product to the market. Outflow marketing deals with talking and selling your business, products, and services. There are many components available for outflow marketing. Any type of promotion or advertising all falls under the category of outflow marketing. There are so many tools available that you should figure out which ones work ...

Small businesses seem to be optimistic about business prospects in 2010, according to the third annual Signs of the Times Business Survey conducted by FedEx Office. When asked if there were any areas where they were considering increasing spending in 2010, 42% of the survey respondents selected marketing/advertising. Almost 90% of those surveyed found that printed marketing/advertising tools are either somewhat or very effective at driving customers to business. In terms of increasing communication, 44% plan on increasing communication with exisitng and potential customers via newsletters, direct mail, etc. More than 60% of those surveyed think that traditional marketing and advertising (e.g. newspapers, ...

Having an effective sales and marketing plan is crucial in order to get the results you want. Whether it is to increase brand awareness or to sell specific products or services, you should always make sure to optimize your marketing plan to get the best results possible. Know Your Customers. If you can't identify specific information about who your customer is, you need to run a customer profile analysis. Once you figure out who they are and what they want, then you'll be able to cater to their needs. Build Your Customer List. Having a strong customer list is a simple way ...

Many restaurants have been adjusting the look and feel of their menu in order to entice their visitors, according to an article from the New York Times. With restaurants feeling the effects of the recession, they are hoping that these adjustments will encourage people to spend a little bit more on their visits. One change some restaurants are making is listing the prices as single digits without a dollar sign, for example listing a dish as 9 as opposed to $9 or $8.99. Restaurants are finding that a simple 9 is more friendly and manageable for visitors, and does not emphasize ...

After you have worked hard on marketing and conversion to bring a new customer to your business, you don't want to lose them right away. It is important to try to turn those people to be repeat customers who you can rely on for business. Customer Retention has proven to be cheaper choice rather than attempting to bring in new clients. Here are 4 ways to keep your customers loyal to your business. Respond to emails quickly. If you make it a point to respond to emails within 15-20 minutes, your clients will not only be surprised by your efficiency, but it ...

As a full service marketing agency, it’s kind of hard not to notice the marketing efforts utilized by the businesses around us. It’s great to see campaigns being launched and creativity being stretched. So we thought it would be interesting to make this a regular thing and see what companies are doing to help grow their business and increase their exposure. Today’s featured business: Apple I was bound to write an article about Apple at some point. It’s like writing an article about the power of social media, and then leaving out Facebook and Twitter –it’s unacceptable. I remember being in Junior ...

As a full service marketing agency, it’s kind of hard not to notice the marketing efforts utilized by the businesses around us. It’s great to see campaigns being launched and creativity being stretched. So we thought it would be interesting to make this a regular series and see what companies are doing to help grow their business and increase their exposure. Today’s featured business: Clear In the last few months, I’ve had three different Clear sales agents stop by our office. Clear has taken the city by storm with its 4G WiMax technology and affordable rate plans. Technology is constantly advancing, ...

As a full service marketing agency, it’s kind of hard not to notice the marketing efforts utilized by the businesses around us. It’s great to see campaigns being launched and creativity being stretched. So we thought it would be interesting to make this a regular thing and see what companies are doing to help grow their business and increase their exposure. Today’s featured business: Express I received this ad from Express awhile back, and recently decided to check on their website to see how the promotion was going.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Express.com had updated their website to be ...