Archive for November, 2007

Call and get a kit…

Monday, November 26th, 2007

Tempurpedic Night-Time Renewal Kit

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! My family and I sure did. Though I miss my friends in El Paso, now that we’re back in Austin, all of our family is within a 4 hour drive. We had 19 over for dinner and it was such a blessing to have our entire family together to celebrate with us this year.

This week, I’d like to talk about the no charge offer.

If you’ve seen the commercials that Tempurpedic (beds) has been putting out these past few months, you know that they are offering to give callers a complimentary night-time renewal kit.

I can only imagine the investment they are making into television production & advertising and the staff to handle the calls….not to mention the kit itself, the postage and the time and effort to follow up on all of the kits that were sent out.

Why would anyone make that kind of investment, giving stuff away to an entire nation? It’s not like they’re just marketing that free thing on television commercials, it’s on their website too.

I’ll tell you why they do it – to build their database with interested prospects.

Even though at their core, they sell beds, they don’t use that word as a stand alone product.

They use it as an activity – “Welcome to bed”…they use it as part of the names of what they offer – “Celebritybed”…however, what they market is a “Sleep System”.

Remember last week’s topic – “The Packaging Of Salt”? It’s how they package and market their beds. They want you to buy an experience.

Because they want you to look at what you are sleeping on in a new light, they have a lot of work to do getting you sold on buying their “nighttime experience” rather than “just a bed”.

Do you offer a product or service that asks people to change?

Personally, I do. I also choose to give something away for free because I want to give people the opportunity to try it (see www.freecustomgreetingcard.com )

When I started in direct sales as a work at home mom in 1999, I had no ad budget. It was all I could do to scrape together the couple of hundred bucks it took for me to purchase the starter kit. I had never networked. I didn’t even know my neighbors.

I did however, see the power of the internet. And I knew I could find a lot of other people on it and I could advertise my business to them.

As traffic increased on my website and hundreds of people requested catalogs or contacted me, it only made sense that I should keep all of that information and continue to communicate with them.

I started looking for ways to send a regular email newsletter out to those folks because at the time, my little Outlook Express program couldn’t handle it.

As software options because more prevalent, I moved thousands of contacts around until I found the perfect system. I wanted to be able to send real birthday cards, anniversary cards, holiday cards, and thank you cards in addition to the email newsletters.

If I had the advertising and staff budget that Tempurpedic had, it would have been a lot easier :) But I didn’t. It was just me and I worked hard to develop my own giveaways and incentives to grow my mailing list and communicate accordingly.

I soon had over 10,000 people on my list, was giving something away every month, sent out a regular newsletter, acquired over 3,300 customers and was personally selling between $3k-10k a month in products.

So, would it be worth it for YOU to build a mailing list by giving something away? I don’t mean a five cent sample either. You have to give something away that someone would want, but the key is, you must assume they are interested in what you have to sell and follow up accordingly.

I’m sure Tempurpedic doesn’t go to the trouble of giving away a Nighttime Renewal Kit to everyone that wants one just to throw money away. Think about why they do it and how they do it. Perhaps you could apply the same concept to your business.

Depending on what you sell, you don’t have to do it like they do, giving away something to everyone who calls or like I do today, giving away a free greeting card to everyone who wants to send one. You can run a contest instead and just give one really nice thing away each month.

It takes work and dedication to make a project like this work, but it can reap huge rewards. If you’d like a little help, you can always contact me. I’ve done it. I know what works and I know what doesn’t.

Save yourself some time and money – leverage my eight years of experience.  Schedule a consultation today.

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If you’re new to my Monday Message and would like to read past issues, stop by the Newsletter section.

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Make it a great week!

Wishing you great success,

Ricci Neer

PS – have you sent your free greeting card? Visit www.freecustomgreetingcard.com

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The Packaging Of Salt

Monday, November 19th, 2007

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned that I’d soon be talking about the packaging of salt. I’ve had some interesting responses.

What came into your mind when you thought about “package” and “salt”? Perhaps a round container with a dark blue label on it, with the impression of a girl standing under an umbrella?

That’s how I thought about salt for years. Then I heard about the wonders of sea salt. I looked for it in my grocery store isle and started using what I found there.

As I became more conscientious about my food choices, I began to do more research, read more books and subscribe to more mailing lists that had to do with natural health. My diet became better and I spent more money on supplements and organic foods.

I was a prime candidate for whatever the natural health food peddlers wanted to package up and sell to me.

Which brings me back to salt.

About a year ago, one of the email newsletter lists that I was on (and still am on) touted the wonders of the “Purest Salt On Earth With Amazing Health Benefits”. Wow, with a headline like that, who wouldn’t want to know more? The sales letter was chock full of information and facts to back up their claim.

I had to have some of this pure salt and I bought 2 lbs of it on the spot. From someone I’ve never met, online, because I was subscribed to their mailing list. They sold me.

Have you ever been 1) a prime candidate and 2) bought something you didn’t even know existed until someone sold it to you? Sure you have. We all have.  (that’s what infomercials are for!)

The study is in how you can create this dynamic and turn it into a profitable system for YOUR products and services. More on that another time…

Now, I’m not selling it, but if you want to see the same letter I saw, the same words that prompted me to buy something I didn’t even know existed, you can see it here:

http://www.mercola.com/forms/salt.htm  - BUT before you get excited about this amazing wonder salt and buy it here….I have something else to tell you.

I OVERPAID!

Yes, it was worth it. I LOVE this salt. And it lasted forever. I used it in everything and I am only running out now, a year later. However, after I moved back to Austin, I went to a little place called “Central Market”. And guess what they have there? A salt bar! All kinds of colors and types of salt from around the world. I was enamored! It was in bulk and I could buy as much or as little as I wanted of every kind of salt imaginable.

So, after a little research, I found that I could get Himalayan Pink Salt for around $4 a pound. But originally, I paid over $10 a pound. It was all because of the packaging (and marketing) of the “purest salt on earth with amazing health benefits”.

What could you sell more of, even at a premium price, if you packaged and marketed it more effectively? Subtle but creative methods are all around you. Think outside the box and try something different.

Central Market didn’t package and sell me on the benefits of the salt, and if I had never heard about it from the email newsletter I received, I would have walked by that salt bar without even knowing what I was missing. (and by the way, if I hadn’t moved, I probably would have purchased more salt from the place I did before, just to get my hands on more of it!)

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If you’re new to my Monday Message and would like to read past issues, stop by the Newsletter section of my Get The Word Out! Marketing website http://www.gtwomarketing.com/?cat=13

Also, if you want to know why “Sales & Marketing” is THE seminar topic MOST requested by entrepreneurs and small business owners nationwide…visit www.gtwomarketing.com

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Make it a great week!

Wishing you great success,

Ricci Neer

PS – have you sent your free greeting card? Visit www.freecustomgreetingcard.com

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Monday Message from Ricci

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Happy Monday!

As you can see, I have a new look today.

I want you to know that these messages are personally from me to you. Even though hundreds of people read my newsletter each week, this is really meant to be more of a personal message and less of a corporate announcement, hence the new look.

These past two weeks, I’ve been working on a huge project, so please forgive any delays that you may have experienced in scheduling a consultation with me.

This weekend, I totally revamped the Get The Word Out! Marketing website. Take a look – www.gtwomarketing.com  The process for scheduling a consultation is now a whole lot easier!

I’m off to an early appointment this morning, but I still plan to share with you a study of the packaging (and marketing) of salt. More on that later.

I have so much to be thankful for. One of them is YOU. Thank you for being a part of my network and please let me know what I can do for you!

Wishing you great success,

Ricci Neer

PS – have you sent your free greeting card? Visit www.freecustomgreetingcard.com

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The Holiday’s Are Coming – Is Your Mailing List Ready?

Monday, November 5th, 2007

Monday Marketing Minute 11-5-07

Before computers, I stunk at sending out my holiday cards. I had my little handwritten, dog-eared address book, but I rarely added much to it.

And updating it? Let’s see….where did I put that scrap paper that had my mother’s new address on it….

Life in the rolodex lane just didn’t work for me.

Then along came computers and the internet. Over the years, I’ve been deluged with contact management options. When I started my business in 1999, it was most important for me to communicate by email, so I used an archaic version of “Group Mail”. I had data everywhere. 10,000 records to be almost exact. I used a program called “email Juggler” to filter out the duplicates as I worked with records.

It was a long and menial process, but I was determined to get this contact management thing mastered. People were precious to me and I didn’t want to lose anyone!

Then, along came programs that eliminated the need for all the manual manipulation. I tested probably 80 of them over the years. I finally settled on a program called phpList that works via the website. I used it for about 3 years.

The only problem with it was though it was great at managing my email lists, it didn’t really offer a printed solution. The only thing I could do if I wanted to send a lot of cards or printed materials was to download the lists into Excel, do a mail merge and print labels.

How exciting was that? I spent all that time creating a beautiful mail piece, only to have to slap an ugly label on it. With that level of personalization, I wondered if they would even take the time to read it.

What to do, what to do….

Eventually, I heard about variable imaging or print on demand, where each piece is customized with data from a spreadsheet or something. I didn’t know much, but I had to know more!

I made an appointment with a local printing company and took a tour. I was enamored by the system, but I needed to find a way to package this concept, not only for my own mailing list solution, but also for my clients.

I could tell you about the rest of my discoveries, but I’ll just stop there. I’m sure this is enough to provide some insight into my journey. Perhaps you can even relate to some of these challenges.

Finally, this year, my holiday mailing list is up to speed and ready to go. Not only that, but I have a system in place that reminds me of everyone’s birthday and anniversary, so I can send personalized cards all year long. The best part is, I don’t have to write them myself – they only look like I do.

I even use this system in combination with my email newsletter program so that I can send out personalized emails, like the one you’re reading right now.

I know what works – and what doesn’t. I tested all programs with the end in mind. I needed something cost effective and that made sense. You probably do to.

And you can try it for free today.

http://www.freecustomgreetingcard.com

Go ahead, give it a spin on my dime. Let me know what you think.

Now you can stop licking envelopes and buying stamps. This might very well be the answer you’re looking for to help you with your holiday greetings.

Ricci

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