Maximizing Your Marketing Potential by Using a Mail House

If you have a business you would naturally want to maximize your marketing potential. In order to achieve this, you must utilize sources such as a mail house to push your marketing strategy over the top.

However some businesses are discouraged to utilize the direct mail approach to marketing because they think that it is expensive. Instead, these businesses put their marketing funds into advertising on television, print and radio. Then there are some companies who would go with the online approach because they believe that it serves the same purpose as direct mail, and thus offer the same benefits without the cost. What not many businesses realize is that online direct mail marketing often goes directly to mail users’ spam folders where they are not likely to be opened, let alone be read. Direct mail approach remains the most effective tool in promoting a brand or product.

With direct mail marketing, you promote your brand directly to your target market. Many companies take a wider approach to marketing by utilizing broad marketing strategies which make use of media such as print, radio, and television. A broader approach is all very well, but it offers businesses little control over whether who receives their message and leaves them wondering if their target market has seen, read or heard their pitch. Direct mail marketing eliminates any uncertainty that your message is received by targeting your clients where they live.

Enlisting the help of a mail house has been proven time and gain to boost a marketing campaign. As such, it is a smart idea to make something that has been proven effective a part of your marketing plan. A mail house can help you in each aspect of your marketing campaign. A reliable mail house can provide you with client listings that are appropriate for your brand or product, or help you search for your target market. They also have the resources to help you penetrate a bigger client base.

Employing the services of a mail house can make it easier for companies to launch their marketing campaign. Aside from providing client listings, businesses will also have the benefit of working with a team of experts who know the market and who can help him in terms of planning and strategizing their marketing campaigns. Reliable mail house has a wealth of experience in dealing with marketing campaigns and will be able to provide expert advice on how to properly market a brand or product. What is more, a mail house can also help a business create worthwhile content or copy, as well as help you come up with interesting graphics.

A direct mail marketing campaign requires creating and properly arranging various mailing components into one neat package. A mail house would be able to offer these services and more. A reliable mail house has the personnel and equipment to print, sort, address, insert, seal, package, fold, tab, apply postage to your mail, and so much more including assembling binders and laminating. If you are considering assembling the various components of your mailing in-house to save some money, think again. Doing it in-house will eat up a lot of your time and resources, and could cost you a lot of money in the long run. With a mail house, your mailing components will be assembled neatly and properly.

Because they work closely with the post office, many mail house service providers can get postage discounts and save you a considerable amount of money in the long run. Couple that with the effectiveness of direct mail marketing, and enlisting the services of a mail house makes it really worth investing in.

About the Author: I’m Kaycee Mabborang, I write for Print & Mail 4U, a company specializes in various printing and direct mail services. I have been producing top quality content at a very quick pace since 2007.

Common Mistakes In Business Practices That You Will Need To Avoid

Many new business owners consider that the financial management of their enterprise is an over complicated task that is best left in the hands of their accountant. However, nothing could be further from the truth, because the task of the accountant resides exclusively in recording the cash flow from and to your enterprise, not interpreting it. He is not qualified to keep track of your company’s profit loss ratio and take business decisions according to it. You are!

While I’m not saying that financial management is a walk in the park, you can definitely make things easier if you steer clear of the mistakes that I’m going to present in the following article.

Failing to establish business strategies that are easy to follow

You should start your enterprise by organizing a list of tasks that are mandatory for its well being and profitability, such as:

  • Constant verifications of the company’s revenues
  • Checking out the value of the expenses on a regular basis
  • Examining the cash flow
  • Requesting a forecast of the company’s budget in the long and short term

Strategy

Photo credits: stefan.erschwendner

There are of course other tasks, related to your particular business niche that you need to account for. However, the point is that you need to plan these actions on a regular basis and always make time for them, irrespective of how busy your schedule is. Without them, financial chaos are bound to unleash and that’s never good for business.

Combining personal income with the company’s income

Right off the bat, that is probably the worst thing you could possibly do because it’s a surefire way of embezzlement. Disconnect the two accounts – business and personal – is the first action you should engage providing you recognize yourself in this situation. At the same time, it is critical to refrain from paying your company’s expenses from your own pocket or vice versa, purchasing personal use goods/services from your business account. It is also necessary to point out that these erroneous approaches will make it difficult to keep track of profit and loss statements, income statements and cash flow statements.

Avoid paying your taxes as much as possible  

Many financial experts state that the taxes themselves are not the actual reason why businesses become crippled. To put it simply, the taxes that you have neglected to acquit will start piling up to the point when you will not be able to get out of debt. Other common errors you can make is to utilize the money that should be dedicated for taxes in order to account for other operating purposes or to forget about setting aside the cash that goes on taxes for each of your employees. In order to avoid these costly mistakes, my suggestion is to open a dedicated tax bank account which will be utilized for no other purpose and that will also help you provide the quarterly estimates requested by the IRS authority.

Improvising instead of planning  

Remember how I mentioned the fact that you need to have the financial statements on your desk to analyze at least on a monthly basis? Well, that will not serve any purpose if you have not set an actual goal for your business. In other words, you have the data at your disposal but you have no idea what it signifies. Is it good? Is it bad? In the absence of a pre-established financial goal – for example a certain monthly/yearly net profit – you have no clue regarding whether or not your current business strategy needs tweaking. On the other hand, by creating at least a basic estimate of your expectations will permit you to find out how close you are to the goal and adapt accordingly.

Forgetting to put a part of the revenues aside for a rainy day

The volatility of the financial environment nowadays makes creating a revenue savings fund more necessary than ever. Almost every field of business can experience sudden shifts in supply and demand, so without a lifeline your company may be assuming more risks than it can handle. However, there is an alternative reason why a certain percentage of your revenues should go into a savings account: unexpected opportunities. What I mean here is that there is no way to predict when you could be granted to possibility to make an investment that would allow your business to expand or reinvent itself. Therefore, if you want to be certain that you are not the one left on the shore while that ship sails, be sure to take this advice into consideration.

Not outsourcing some of your workload

As a rule of thumb, in the business world you cannot make money without spending some cash first. Here I’m not referring to the budget for marketing and advertisement, but rather to that associated with distribution and fulfillment services.

If you have been in business for a while now, then it is likely you already have these details sorted out. However, if you do the math, you will soon realize just how much this actually costs. All I’m saying is that fulfillment centers have managed to help some industry veterans reduce company expenses. Isn’t it worth checking out if this is applicable for you as well?

New companies that consider they can’t possible afford such an investment, should think of their competition. Can you say that you can live up to the standards in your niche operating from an adjacent area or a stock room? Think about it, folks!

About the Author: Chad is a writer for fulfilmentcenters.com, a leading fulfillment service in the US.

How to Create a Healthier Work Environment Without a Wellness Plan or a Budget for it

Many people today are very conscious about their health, and while these people are making the necessary choices to improve their health in their personal lives, they want to find a business that places just as much importance on the topic as they do.

Many companies are realizing that their employees are making healthier decisions, and these companies are making the decision to also become healthy.

Some companies make the mistake in thinking that in order to make the work environment more healthy for employees, they need to take the time and invest the money in creating a detailed health and wellness plan, but they don’t. In order to make your work environment healthier, you don’t need to invest in fancy incentive programs or bring doctors in for health screenings. Instead, you need to implement the following changes around the workplace to make it a healthier environment for all.

Ban smoking.

You’re going to upset some employees, but since their habit has a negative effect on others in the company, you don’t have to feel too bad about banning smoking on company property. Don’t let your employees stand outside the front door to smoke a cigarette—make them leave the property in order to do so. If you have a large business and leaving the property would be too much of a hassle, create a designated smoking area far away from the building. This allows everyone in your office to breathe in fresh air. Plus, if the smoking area is far enough away, it may incline some of your smoking employees to quit.

Invest in healthier office furnishings.

If you sit at a desk all day, your chair and your desk can be damaging your posture and your overall health. Enlist the help of an office furnishings specialist and invest in ergonomic chairs and desks to make your employees more comfortable and improve their overall health. Make sure that employees who use computers for most of their day have the correct mouse, mousepad and keyboard support to reduce their risk of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Open up the stairs.

Some companies have their staircases locked and only allow employees to use them during emergencies. Instead of doing this, unlock the doors to the staircase and allow your employees to use it to travel from one floor to the next. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator is a great way to exercise, and doing this provides an easy way for your employees to burn some calories throughout the day.

Offer healthy snacks.

Most companies have food and drink vending machines in their buildings, and if yours does, make sure to replace unhealthy snacks with healthier choices. Replace pop machines with water machines, and if you can’t replace the vending machine with healthier food, remove it and invest in a different program, such as a fresh fruit delivery program, which offers your employees the chance to snack on fresh fruits instead of chocolate.

Creating a healthy environment for your employees is important, but doing so does not mean that you have to invest in a health and wellness program. Instead, you can make these small changes around the office to make it a healthier environment for all.  

About the Author: Lucille Anderson is a human resources educator providing guidance in the creation and implementation of health programs for corporations.

Social Customer Service for Small Businesses

Social customer service is the process of using social media to meet the demands of customers. Traditionally, customer service success was measured through satisfaction ratings, defect rates, first-time resolution rates, average handle time, agent utilisation, and cost of servicing the customer.

Today, in the age of social media, when companies talk to customers through the same media as friends use to talk to each other, metrics have evolved. Now we look at customer sentiment, self-service usage, cross-sell, up-sell rates, conversation volume, likes, retweets, +1s, and net promoter scores.

social customer service

Image by owenwbrown

In 2010, 25% of enterprises were using social media to respond to service enquiries by customers or partners. In 2020, that number is set to rise to 90%.

One fifth of Fortune 500 companies engage with their customers on Facebook. These companies do more than marketing: they are actively listening, engaging, and responding to customer questions. But social customer service is not only the preserve of large corporations: it’s equally (perhaps even more) beneficial for small companies.

Many small companies are reluctant to start using social media as a customer service platform, believing it to lack credibility and fearing its (potentially) unwieldy nature. However, with its popularity continuing to increase, companies who ignore social media (and the customers who are active on social channels) are at risk of becoming irrelevant.

Social media channels provide opportunities that companies have not had before, which can be leveraged to significantly enhance customer service. Platforms like Twitter allow companies to monitor their customers’ opinions and complaints, even when the customers are not taking the time or making the effort to contact the firm directly. Social media also allows companies to respond faster than ever before, not only to the originator of a complaint or issue – but to all (or at least many) of those with whom he or she may have communicated about the issue.

Another specific benefit of social media is that users are willing to share extensive information publicly. That gives businesses access to people’s preferences, interests, opinions and networks, making social media an invaluable asset for many companies, and specifically small businesses, as it provides a low-cost means of finding out about their current and potential customers. Social media is a democratising force online, giving firms of all sizes access to the kind of information that was once exclusively held by the largest businesses.

Most people think of Facebook, Twitter, and perhaps LinkedIn when they hear the expression, “social media” and these are indeed the most popular platforms. But there are others, which may lend themselves particularly to communicating certain kinds of messages and advertising certain kinds of products and services. Those that are essentially visual – YouTube (video) and Pinterest (images) – can be especially powerful.

So how can a small business best exploit these media? First, be authentic. Don’t be cute: be real. Second, do one thing and do it really well – perhaps by creating a community and then sharing your particular expertise. Finally, monitor your customers and clients – the people who already use your products and services – to see what they’d like more of or less of. In other words, take time to learn from your customers, and act on their feedback. After all, they are your most valuable resource.

About the Author: Will Vicary is a digital marketing specialist whose interests include CRM solutions and online customer experience, as well as online lead generation. He is specifically interested in CRM insurance and cloud technology.

Make Signage Work for You – Five Smart Tips for Your Small Business

Small businesses don’t have the budget or resources that large companies do, which means they need to get creative and spread every dollar as thin as possible. Most small businesses do not have the budget for tactics like television or radio ads, and most businesses large and small know that direct mail doesn’t have a high success rate.

So what does a small business do when they need to market themselves effectively? They turn to signage.

Signage is a tried and true marketing tactic, and it’s especially great for small businesses that are just starting out. Not only is it extremely budget friendly, but it’s also one of the most effective and reliable tactics on the market today.

Digital signage girl
Image by Haruhiko Okumura / Flickr

But like any marketing tactic, signage is only effective and reliable when it is used correctly. As a small business thinking about using signage, the following are tips to help ensure you get the most out of your signage strategy.

1. Choose the right location.

As a small business, you want to ensure that your target market is seeing your signage, which means you need to do your research and find the best location for your signage. Make sure that you’re choosing a high traffic area that contains a good majority of your target audience. This way, your company name and message will be seen by those who will use your products and services, giving you a bigger opportunity to increase sales.

2. Keep it simple.

Your messaging needs to be clear and succinct in order to have the best impact. As a small business, you want people to know who you are and what you do, and if the messaging on your signage is not clear, it will only confuse your potential customers.

It’s also a great idea to make sure that your company name and contact info are easily seen on the signage. If you create a great sign but forget to include this information, nobody will know that it’s your company offering these products or services. Your contact information, especially website or social media addresses, are a great way to generate traffic to your online campaigns to seal the deal.

3. Capture attention.

We just told you to keep your messaging simple, but you still need to create a great sign that will capture your customers’ attention. If you stick with bland colors and boring fonts, your signage will get lost in its surroundings. When you use fun colors, exciting fonts or even a great headline, your signage will get more visibility and be remembered more easily.

4. Don’t overlook mobile.

If you can’t find the one great location to place your signage (or if you have a big enough budget that allows you to have multiple signs), opt to use mobile signage. People are driving or stuck in traffic everyday, and if you place signs on your vehicles, you will easily reach these people.

As a business, you can create signage and place it on one of your own vehicles, or there are companies out there that rent ad space on vehicles and their sole purpose is to drive around large towns all day promoting your sign.

5. Prepare for trial and error.

Signage is one of those tactics that you may have to play around with before you hit the nail on the head. If you place signage in one location and you don’t see a great return, place your sign somewhere new and see how it works out in this location. You may have to place your signage in a few different locations before you find the one that works the best, but thanks to its versatility, this can easily be done without spending extra money.

The use of signage is a great marketing tactic for small businesses, and when you implement the signage with these tips, you’ll find more success.

About the Author: M.P Brown loves providing advice to small business owners.