BlackHat Money

Few things are more discouraging to a passionate entrepreneur than creating products and programs that don’t sell well.

It’s hard not to take it personally, which can bring up feelings of doubt, hurt, disappointment and even embarrassment. But for the savvy, “I’m gonna make it happen” business owner, there’s no such thing as failure – there’s only feedback.

When the feedback you get is an audience that’s not buying, it’s time to take a look at the offer you’re making.

There are two levels to creating a compelling offer. I want to share some of the tips from my Passion for Profit coaching program on what you can do in the development stage to ensure that you’re creating an offer your audience won’t be able to resist. (Then, next time in Part 2 we’ll look at how to present the offer in the most desirable light.)

Here are four clear-cut and simple tips you can use to be certain you’re putting your time and energy into offers that will get snapped up!

It’s tempting to create a product or program focused on something you know your audience needs. My advice – don’t do it. People are notorious for not buying what they need, but instead spending their money on what they want. I call this the broccoli vs. ice cream syndrome.

When in doubt about whether the topic you’re considering is ice cream or broccoli, ask your audience. Pick up the phone, send out an email, put together a survey. You’ll be surprised at how happy they are to steer you in the right direction.

Irresistible Offer Tip #2 – Give It a Mouth-Watering Title

Titles (like headlines and subject lines) serve an absolutely crucial role in your sales and marketing – they capture your audience’s attention. The goal, of course, is for your title to create a powerful incentive for your potential client to want to buy. So it has to reach out and grab them and motivate them into action.

So spend some time on crafting a really delicious title for your product, program, event, workshop, ebook or home study course. Some tips for a great title: it’s specific, it is conversational rather than salesy, it’s curiosity-provoking, it highlights benefits and results rather than features, it’s not overly clever or cute.

I usually recommend to my clients they spend at least as much time on the title as they do on the content itself. Yes, it’s that important!

Irresistible Offer Tip #3 – Add On a Tempting and Relevant Bonus

For me, the key word here is “relevant.” Adding a bonus (or two or three) can certainly increase the appeal of your package. But too often, I see folks throwing on things that are totally unrelated to the main offer. The point of a bonus is to give that extra nudge that tips people off the fence. If I’m considering your business building program, I’m not likely to be swayed by a bonus e-book on organic recipes or an audio about feng shui. (Not that those aren’t interesting and valuable subjects in the right context.)

The best bonus directly supports the results offered by the main package component. Ask yourself: Would this [whatever the bonus is] clearly add to the value of what I’m getting? If the answer is no, head back to the drawing board.

Irresistible Offer Tip #4 – Determine the Value Before You Set the Price

Price is often the first thing business owners want to figure out when they’re creating a new product, program or event. But as I counsel my clients, it’s usually the last phase of your program-development process.

Here’s why – it’s hard to determine a fair price until you’re clear on what is being offered, both in terms of “deliverables” and results. Secondly, other factors can come into play as you determine the “magic number.” There are times when it makes strategic sense to price a program on the low end. For example, if it’s a new –and untried- offering (it then becomes paid learning), or so you can draw more people into it and have a bigger pool for your upsell offer.

Tie Your Offers Up with a Red Ribbon

Your special brand of transformation is important in helping your clients solve their current challenges. The content of what you offer is always showcased by the “wrapping” you give it. When you think strategically and creatively about your topic, title, bonuses and pricing, you can create a “pretty package” that’s easy for them to say ‘yes’ to.

Helen Graves, Grand Poohbah of Crackerjack Online Marketing Strategy, offers practical online sales and product marketing tips to create long-lasting client connections. She can be reached via www.CrackerjackOnlineMarketing.com.

Sign up for her free special report on product launch strategy, “How to Create Desire So Your Products and Programs Sell Like Hotcakes,” at www.Product-Campaign.com

Article Source:FREE Downloads

In the dental marketing seminars that I hold, people often ask me how to achieve big money in the niche of dental marketing. You see, some people may be successful in their business, yet others may not. So what does it take to be successful in the dental marketing business? In my dental marketing seminars, I tell them that to make big money in the business and be successful, take up speed! The way to make big money and more of it in life, in any kind of business there is, has always have to do something with how fast you manage things in your own business. What I tell them in my dental marketing seminars is that if you want to have more and more money, then you need to do the necessary activities that enables you to have more of it faster. This is simple, all you need to have is strategy.

Go With The Process Of Creation:

In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell the audience that they should have this important thing: the process of creation. What do I mean by the process of creation? It means developing these steps:

• Idea – first thing to do is that you should have an idea on how to go for your goal.

• Knowledge – next is to have the knowledge required to execute your idea for the goal.

• Resources – then get the resources ( people,etc.) needed to do it for you, and help you implement it.

• Fire – next step is to move quickly… and fire, fire, fire!

• Feedback – get the feedbacks from the results that you have achieved ( doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad).

• Re-evaluate – then re-evaluate, re-aim, and fire again!

Move And Take Fast Action:

In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell my audience that whoever moves faster in the business becomes 10 times more successful and 10 times wiser. Remember this: “wisdom is created through knowledge gained from experience, and not that gained only from the books!”. A Harvard Graduate might be considered a brilliant person, yet he/she may not be necessarily that wise!

This is why speeding up in the business is very helpful and necessary in the niche of dental marketing. This is what I encourage all my audience in my dental marketing seminars to do. It is the only variable that can accelerate you on to the road to success. Eliminate the things that are holding you back, and move beyond. To do this you should take fast action, which will give you less time to over-think, less time to worry, and also less time to become static. Fast action always work best… so do it now! Speed up!

Log on to our website, www.DentistProfits.com and get a free CD and Book titled, “How To Predictably Grow Your Practice 25-35% Every Year While Enjoying More Control, Time Off, And Bottom-Line Net Profits!”.

My name is Ed O’Keefe, and over the past 7 ½ years I have shown over 5300 General Dentists world wide how to flood their practice with patients using my counter-intuitive, yet extremely effective dental marketing, internet dental marketing secrets, and dental advertising secrets that are proven, guaranteed, and unmatched by anyone else in dentistry!

Article Source:FREE Downloads

In my dental marketing seminars, I remind my audience that to be successful in their dental marketing business, they should not forget to make use of the Internet. I always give them this scenario in my dental marketing seminars: “Today, more and more people are using the Internet in their daily activities. They shop through e-bay rather than go to the malls, log on to social networking sites rather than meeting people in person, listen to music on-line rather than using the traditional radio,etc. With these facts in mind, the Internet itself can be considered as a good media to promote your dental marketing business”. Sharing this scenario to my audience in my dental marketing seminars would be very helpful for them to visualize the power of the Internet as it will be used in their dental marketing business. So, just how exactly does going on-line become a good strategy for the business? In this article I will show you the four factors supporting this fact.

1st Factor: More And More People Are Logging On To The Internet

More and more people are using going on-line in their daily activities. Growing numbers of people are searching on-line compared to any other media for their service providers; to get chat in social media directories, to get directions to places they want to go, to get in touch with friends through social networking sites, and much more. In my dental marketing seminars, I tell the audience to build their websites in a way that it would increase the traffic of your daily visitors. These visitors could be your potential patients.

2nd Factor: The Power Of Good Keywords

In my dental marketing seminars, I encourage the audience to come up with good keywords, for it can help you become successful in your dental marketing business. Make use of specific keywords (like dental, marketing, or any appropriate ones). This, if done correctly, can help you literally dominate your are in the Internet, and overcome your on-line competitors!

3rd Factor: Every Visit Counts

Always remember that it’s always free to get new patients through the Internet! The idea here is that the more visitors you have on your site, the higher the ranking of your page is. And if your page ranks higher than any other pages in the search engine, then you can get people to find your own website without paying the search engines (google, yahoo,etc.) for every click of the button. This will make your page more famous than any other page there is in your niche. So what I always tell my listeners in my dental marketing seminars is: every visit counts!

4th Factor: Getting The Best Of Both Worlds On-line

In my dental marketing seminars, I tell the audience that if they want to get free,natural traffic and get paid traffic as well, then they can enjoy the best of both worlds on-line. The key here is that when someone searches of the keywords “Your Town Cosmetic Dentist”, you would want to be the one that is displayed all over the search engines. The visitors will be able to see you in every corner of the page. You would always want all doors to lead to you!

I would always encourage my audience in my dental marketing seminars to make use of the Internet in their business, supported by these four factors. It will not only give you more and more new patients, it will also give you more income as well in your business. The more patients you have, the more rewarding it would be for you!

Visit us at www.DentistProfits.com and get a free CD and Book titled, “How To Predictably Grow Your Practice 25-35% Every Year While Enjoying More Control, Time Off, And Bottom-Line Net Profits!”.

My name is Ed O’Keefe, and over the past 7 ½ years I have shown over 5300 General Dentists world wide how to flood their practice with patients using my counter-intuitive, yet extremely effective dental marketing, internet dental marketing secrets, and dental advertising secrets that are proven, guaranteed, and unmatched by anyone else in dentistry!

Article Source:FREE Downloads

As a dental marketing consultant, I hold dental marketing seminars that would teach dentists on how to market Invisalign in their profession. Invisalign is a solution offered to patients who want to achieve a whiter, stronger teeth. But in dental profession, there is always a challenge on how to market our solutions to our patients… and marketing Invisalign would bear the same challenge for dentists. In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell my audience that marketing Invisalign successfully in their practice is achievable through two ways: first is have a staff that’s well-trained to handle patients, and second is hold an Invisalign open house. In my dental marketing seminars, I define these two ways in detail so that my audience will have a clearer view on the subject matter.

First Is Through Your Staff….

In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell the dentists that they should always have a staff that’s well-educated and well-trained to handle each patients concern. Also, always remember that dental teamwork is very important. So how do you do it? In our case, we ask our patients what we call our “magic question”: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your smile?”. With this question we can have an inkling of how much the patient would like to go for the solution. Then after they give us their respective answers, we would then ask them: “What would make it a 10?”. And this is where teamwork comes in. As a dental team, we listen to their various answers. We take down notes so that we can effectively give back and sell the treatment to our patients. Then also we remind the patients of the benefits of the solution. We tell them that it’s invisible, it’s removable, and gives much confidence to patients. Stating this advantages would be very helpful in selling the treatment as well.

Second Is Through Holding An Invisalign Open House….

In my dental marketing seminars, I also tell the dentists that they should conduct an Invisalign Open House. I remind them to keep two things in mind when doing such an open house, and these are, first, market your Invisalign day appropriately, and second, have two schedules for the event.

• On Marketing Your Invisalign Day Appropriately….

The big mistake that a lot of people do is that they decide to do the open house, but they send out a mailer to their existing patients, and they get 1 to 3 phone calls. You should be expecting this, because if your going to do an entire open house,and you have an opportunity to make $5000 a case or say $15,000 net per case, you need to throw more money at it. And you need to have your staff get people to come to it. So, this is what you should do. You have to start planning the promotions of it 4 or 5 weeks minimum in advanced, so as to get 2 to 3 direct mail pieces to your existing and inactive patient base in that time (so once a week for the first three weeks to promote it). If in case you want to use e-mails, you should definitely go and just send out e-mails. If you want to go through phone numbers, either you’re going to do two things: you can physically call everybody; or just do a voice broadcast, which will go out to every single home and it will share with people the details and where to call.

• On Having Two Schedules For The Event….

The reasons behind having two schedules for the event are two things: first, you can use the same marketing dollar to promote both events; and second, some people who can’t make it on a given schedule, say Wednesday night, will be able to make it on a Saturday schedule between 10:00 to 1:00, so the endpoint here is that you will enable them to have a dual option for the people, and let them choose more dentistry as well.

So these are the strategies that I teach the dentists in marketing the Invisalign solution in the dental marketing seminars that I hold. I also remind them that if they’re going to have a lot of Invisalign patients, they will refer more than traditional patients will, and also choose more cosmetic dentistry in your practice!

Log on to our website, www.DentistProfits.com and get a free CD and Book titled, “How To Predictably Grow Your Practice 25-35% Every Year While Enjoying More Control, Time Off, And Bottom-Line Net Profits!”.

My name is Ed O’Keefe, and over the past 7 ½ years I have shown over 5300 General Dentists world wide how to flood their practice with patients using my counter-intuitive, yet extremely effective dental marketing, internet dental marketing secrets, and dental advertising secrets that are proven, guaranteed, and unmatched by anyone else in dentistry!

Article Source:FREE Downloads

With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is why article writing, submissions and publications are also getting popular.  There are already many tools that people can use to make the process of distributing their articles more easily. Though this is invaluable in getting the contents more exposure, which is only half of the story.

Let us take a look first at the common mistakes that some people make before submitting their contents to article directories:

1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.  In article writing, there are three key benefits why you are promoting them; branding, lead generation and promotion, which are all part of your optimization efforts.  But there is only one reason why you write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If the article is not focused on this primary and most important purpose, it will fail to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading them.  You need to figure out first how to get people to read what is in your article, then make them click on your resource box. You can achieve this by producing better contents.

2. Failing to maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.
You may know already that your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from that same articles?  Mention keywords at strategic places. Just be sure not to overdo them. Some are even using anchor texts which is also an effective method. But it is important to know that majority of the directories are not able to support this.  Remember that is not only about the links back to your site. Part of doing well in your article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of audiences and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work.  Better search engine results also are great benefits.
But these things do not put much money in your pocket.  There are other factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity that can boost your earnings. Not just increase the number of visitors to your site.
Start out with a plan and see to it that your article will serve the function that you intended it to have.

3. Publishing content that does not help your readers.  Maybe in the process of writing articles, you are thinking that all that is you wanted is links back to your site.  And any visitors it can generate are fine.Guess what?  Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. Oftentimes, they have some guidelines and specifications on the articles that they are accepting.  You can double the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles that the directories want to share with other people.  All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight. Write the articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work the most effective way for you.  This also means you have to obey the standard guidelines, spell checks, researching on a good topic and even hiring a writer to produce a good content on your behalf.

In the end, it is all really a matter of choice on your part. You can start getting a little exposure from increased links back but on a very basic level. Or enjoy massive exposure from a little extra time making quality contents.
It will be your choice. You may not be aware of the fact that an article submitted on directories is not meant to have the same level of exposure as highly-targeted content ones geared on a narrow group of people.
Learn the difference between these two and it will surely help you know what kinds of articles to write and to submit.

The Affiliate Way Network is a company that trains individuals and small businesses how to market themselves. For more info please visit:
TheAffiliateWayNetwork.com

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In order to achieve a successful marketing campaign, it is extremely important that customers are able to interact with your organization. By using EZ Wallpaper Marketing, one of my amazing and outrageous viral marketing techniques, this interaction can be successfully achieved. All it takes from your company some creativity – you craft a unique wallpaper design and add an unforgettable business-promoting offer that can’t be refused!

We’ve chosen this event to showcase the premier of this successful online marketing sequence. PDA Marketing, the creator of EZ Wallpaper Marketing, is also the innovator that developed marketing techniques including Doodle-opes, the Andrea font and certificate Doodles. These tools not only allow your company’s message stand out, it allows for a re-connect from your audience to get your company back on their mind.

With today’s challenging economy, everybody is struggling to get noticed. The creation of EZ Wallpaper Marketing allows you to do just that. This revolutionary product will transform the way customers are reminded of your company. In addition to clients’ campaigns, this tool is undoubtedly one of the most customer-attracting yet inexpensive on the market. Being able to touch and retouch your audience is key, and EZ Wallpaper Marketing allows you to achieve this important goal.

Bill Glazer’s book, “Outrageous Advertising That’s Outrageously Successful,” has become a best-seller – and not by accident. PDA Marketing helped design some of the exhibits in the book. Being able to combine several marketing tools into one effective campaign is just the beginning of the process. Knowing how to market your business is key to gaining exposure or beating the competition.

Once this EZ Wallpaper Marketing is combined with your unforgettable offer, all you need to do is e-mail it to your clients. Once they see how amazing this product is, they will send it out to all of their friends. This will not only grab your client’s attention, but also gain more notice from others not familiar with your business. Your company benefits from these connections, which drive additional business to you!

About PDA Marketing: Andrea Ratajczak is a seasoned marketing executive and co-founder of PDA Marketing, a full-service marketing and design firm in Baltimore, Md. To discuss EZ Wallpaper Marketing and her other proven strategies, or to have her design your wallpaper marketing campaign, e-mail her at andrea@pdamarketing.net or call 410-788-2007.

Article Source:FREE Downloads

In the dental marketing seminars that I hold, people often ask me how to achieve big money in the niche of dental marketing. You see, some people may be successful in their business, yet others may not. So what does it take to be successful in the dental marketing business? In my dental marketing seminars, I tell them that to make big money in the business and be successful, take up speed! The way to make big money and more of it in life, in any kind of business there is, has always have to do something with how fast you manage things in your own business. What I tell them in my dental marketing seminars is that if you want to have more and more money, then you need to do the necessary activities that enables you to have more of it faster. This is simple, all you need to have is strategy.

Go With The Process Of Creation:

In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell the audience that they should have this important thing: the process of creation. What do I mean by the process of creation? It means developing these steps:

• Idea – first thing to do is that you should have an idea on how to go for your goal.

• Knowledge – next is to have the knowledge required to execute your idea for the goal.

• Resources – then get the resources ( people,etc.) needed to do it for you, and help you implement it.

• Fire – next step is to move quickly… and fire, fire, fire!

• Feedback – get the feedbacks from the results that you have achieved ( doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad).

• Re-evaluate – then re-evaluate, re-aim, and fire again!

Move And Take Fast Action:

In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell my audience that whoever moves faster in the business becomes 10 times more successful and 10 times wiser. Remember this: “wisdom is created through knowledge gained from experience, and not that gained only from the books!”. A Harvard Graduate might be considered a brilliant person, yet he/she may not be necessarily that wise!

This is why speeding up in the business is very helpful and necessary in the niche of dental marketing. This is what I encourage all my audience in my dental marketing seminars to do. It is the only variable that can accelerate you on to the road to success. Eliminate the things that are holding you back, and move beyond. To do this you should take fast action, which will give you less time to over-think, less time to worry, and also less time to become static. Fast action always work best… so do it now! Speed up!

Log on to our website, www.DentistProfits.com and get a free CD and Book titled, “How To Predictably Grow Your Practice 25-35% Every Year While Enjoying More Control, Time Off, And Bottom-Line Net Profits!”.

My name is Ed O’Keefe, and over the past 7 ½ years I have shown over 5300 General Dentists world wide how to flood their practice with patients using my counter-intuitive, yet extremely effective dental marketing, internet dental marketing secrets, and dental advertising secrets that are proven, guaranteed, and unmatched by anyone else in dentistry!

Article Source:FREE Downloads

As a dental marketing consultant, I hold dental marketing seminars that would teach dentists on how to market Invisalign in their profession. Invisalign is a solution offered to patients who want to achieve a whiter, stronger teeth. But in dental profession, there is always a challenge on how to market our solutions to our patients… and marketing Invisalign would bear the same challenge for dentists. In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell my audience that marketing Invisalign successfully in their practice is achievable through two ways: first is have a staff that’s well-trained to handle patients, and second is hold an Invisalign open house. In my dental marketing seminars, I define these two ways in detail so that my audience will have a clearer view on the subject matter.

First Is Through Your Staff….

In my dental marketing seminars, I always tell the dentists that they should always have a staff that’s well-educated and well-trained to handle each patients concern. Also, always remember that dental teamwork is very important. So how do you do it? In our case, we ask our patients what we call our “magic question”: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your smile?”. With this question we can have an inkling of how much the patient would like to go for the solution. Then after they give us their respective answers, we would then ask them: “What would make it a 10?”. And this is where teamwork comes in. As a dental team, we listen to their various answers. We take down notes so that we can effectively give back and sell the treatment to our patients. Then also we remind the patients of the benefits of the solution. We tell them that it’s invisible, it’s removable, and gives much confidence to patients. Stating this advantages would be very helpful in selling the treatment as well.

Second Is Through Holding An Invisalign Open House….

In my dental marketing seminars, I also tell the dentists that they should conduct an Invisalign Open House. I remind them to keep two things in mind when doing such an open house, and these are, first, market your Invisalign day appropriately, and second, have two schedules for the event.

• On Marketing Your Invisalign Day Appropriately….

The big mistake that a lot of people do is that they decide to do the open house, but they send out a mailer to their existing patients, and they get 1 to 3 phone calls. You should be expecting this, because if your going to do an entire open house,and you have an opportunity to make $5000 a case or say $15,000 net per case, you need to throw more money at it. And you need to have your staff get people to come to it. So, this is what you should do. You have to start planning the promotions of it 4 or 5 weeks minimum in advanced, so as to get 2 to 3 direct mail pieces to your existing and inactive patient base in that time (so once a week for the first three weeks to promote it). If in case you want to use e-mails, you should definitely go and just send out e-mails. If you want to go through phone numbers, either you’re going to do two things: you can physically call everybody; or just do a voice broadcast, which will go out to every single home and it will share with people the details and where to call.

• On Having Two Schedules For The Event….

The reasons behind having two schedules for the event are two things: first, you can use the same marketing dollar to promote both events; and second, some people who can’t make it on a given schedule, say Wednesday night, will be able to make it on a Saturday schedule between 10:00 to 1:00, so the endpoint here is that you will enable them to have a dual option for the people, and let them choose more dentistry as well.

So these are the strategies that I teach the dentists in marketing the Invisalign solution in the dental marketing seminars that I hold. I also remind them that if they’re going to have a lot of Invisalign patients, they will refer more than traditional patients will, and also choose more cosmetic dentistry in your practice!

Log on to our website, www.DentistProfits.com and get a free CD and Book titled, “How To Predictably Grow Your Practice 25-35% Every Year While Enjoying More Control, Time Off, And Bottom-Line Net Profits”.

My name is Ed O’Keefe, and over the past 7 ½ years I have shown over 5300 General Dentists world wide how to flood their practice with patients using my counter-intuitive, yet extremely effective dental marketing, internet dental marketing secrets, and dental advertising secrets that are proven, guaranteed, and unmatched by anyone else in dentistry!

Article Source:FREE Downloads

The greatest waste of any Internet marketer’s time is to waste all their time learning and building products. But not marketing the business as they should. For someone to be a success within Internet marketing, you must market your websites and maybe even forcefully. To increase your website traffic you have to be forceful with your marketing. Lots of Internet entrepreneurs get very excited about their product however when it comes to market that business and send website traffic to it they tend to shy away from it.

The best and most successful way to promote your business online and send lots of website traffic to it, is with article marketing. It is very powerful in building you the kind of website traffic which essentially purchases products from you. Make sure you target your articles at your particular audience. Articles in article directories are approved one by one by the editors so don’t try to spam it. Each and every article will have to be of high quality to be accepted.

So where do you begin to make articles your private money making machine? Simply follow this 2-step plan:

1. I create a lot and outsource significant articles. Articles which are applicable to the businesses I am working in. The articles must be informative and contain lots of helpful snippets of information. Today, I prefer to outsource rather than writing them myself, this frees up a lot more of my time, rather than being glued to my computer screen.

2. I distribute these articles to all the popular article directories on the Internet. These directories obtain massive amounts of website traffic each and every day. You can therefore leverage this traffic to visit your own websites.

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David Gange

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Most of us have heard the old saying “It’s better to give than to receive.”

This is both an admirable and virtuous notion often associated with sharing on a personal level between partners, family and friends. But the concept also extends to the world of business where a clear and sustained focus on ‘giving’ can serve as a highly potent catalyst for successful sales lead generation strategies.

However, the meaning behind the word ‘giving’ is actually a fairly loose one. For example, one dictionary definition of ‘giving’ describes it as, “to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation.”

Well, that may be fine for birthdays and Christmas, but in business, commercial reality determines that a slightly less altruistic approach needs to be adopted to deliver a worthwhile return on any investment made in an effort to find new customers.

So, instead, let’s call it ‘nurturing’.

In terms of business lead generation, nurturing is the process of developing interest and encouraging engagement with your prospects, with an ultimate aim of delivering sales to your business.

Nurturing has a pivotal role to play in terms of sales lead generation and kicks in once good prospects have been identified – from a mailing list for example. It’s the single most important process in turning browsers into buyers and prospects into customers

Getting through loud and clear

There are a number of ways you can reach your intended audience but few are as flexible, influential and cost-effective as those delivery mechanisms which exist in the on-line space.

Email is a particularly good example of how to nurture prospects. Email delivers significantly more than just words and pictures on a screen, it provides the ability for highly tailored, personalised messages to be delivered quickly and at a time that can be precisely controlled. Additionally, due to its electronic format, email is the perfect medium for acting as a ‘carrier’ for web-based campaigns, where a call-to-action is a click away.

Additionally, a wide range of metrics can be harvested during the lifespan of an email campaign and carefully scrutinised to provide valuable insight into your customers’ behaviour.

And it gets even better. More value can be extracted by using forward-thinking email marketing agencies that offer value-add services such as ‘follow-up messaging’. This activity involves sending ‘reminder’ e-mails to respondents and forms a crucial piece of the lead-generation process for businesses that are serious about increasing sales.

Nurturing is an ‘ART’

Nurturing is most definitely an art, where art stands for authority, relevance and trust. Let’s look at each one more closely.

Authority  

This is a demonstration of your know-how and expertise within your business area or sector. Use your e-mails to inform and educate your audience. Make it clear to them that you really know your stuff by conveying the extent of your knowledge and experience.

Relevance

This is a critical aspect when nurturing. Segmenting your e-mails to better suit your prospects can be a highly effective strategy. Making your messaging more personal, such as addressing your prospects by their names for example, will have a much greater impact than by simply sending ‘blanket’ e-mails.

Trust

You can neither buy nor legislate trust. Trust is the belief or confidence that a person’s expectation of an experience will be met. Trust, therefore, needs to be earned.

Prospects will gain trust in your business via your messaging providing it fulfils certain criteria. For example, if it’s received at regular intervals and on time, it’s of a high standard both visually and content-wise and, crucially, if it comes across as genuine and sincere with no sign of any ‘traps’ or ‘gimmicks’.

It’s worth noting that trust can also be gained by reassuring your prospects that you are an ethical company who is fully compliant with on-line legislation as well diligent about security and privacy issues.

All the Aces

When it comes to email marketing, you needn’t keep your cards close to your chest. Instead, show your hand. Demonstrate that you have something of real value to offer. This simple strategy is just a way of saying, “This is what we’re about and we’d relish the opportunity to establish and maintain a business relationship with you.”

Examples of value-content delivery mechanisms include links to:

• Useful, informative articles, whitepapers or guides
• News updates of your products, services or industry
• Newsletters or e-zines
• Discount vouchers, special offers or promotions
• Exclusive invites to previews, demos or showcases
• Third party referrals
• ‘Viral’ content.

Maximising your approach to nurturing

At this point, a few assumptions need to be made about the recipients of any emails you intend to send.

Before you start out, it’s important to gain an understanding of where you generate your revenue to identify your existing customers’ wants and needs – why do they use you?

You also need to take into account that over time, the needs of your customers will change, so you may have to adapt accordingly. Talking to your customers will help you assess exactly which ones need more attention as well as where you can improve your products, services or processes to meet their expectations.

By recognizing the significance of who your prospects are along with a solid understanding of their wants and needs, you’ll be going a long way to putting smiles on the faces of your newly acquired customers as well bolstering your balance sheet.

Leveraging content for sales lead generation

If you find your marketing team creating quality content that you are using to nurture sales leads, such as white papers and opinion pieces, you can also leverage these for a more diverse approach. This has the benefit of extending your potential reach to new markets without re-inventing the wheel.

You could, for instance, use your content on PR websites and trade content websites, even adapting the content for specific vertical markets. Alternatively, you could use your value content in lead generation publications, such as the wide range of emedia titles.

Tell the tale, don’t sell the sale

Email marketing is without doubt an extremely powerful and effective marketing tool but its purpose isn’t necessarily simply to sell overtly.

Expertly done, often with the help of expert assistance, email can engender strong levels of authority, relevance and trust with well-planned, impactive and highly targeted messaging. This is all part of the nurturing process.

There’s also another old saying, “Share and share alike.” Admittedly, while the root of this maxim originates from within a legal context, its meaning remains a case in point.

Take an equitable view of any information you are prepared to share with others so that they can benefit from your ‘gift’. The whole idea is that you also get to share – not in the information itself but in the rewards that nurturing your prospects brings.

Pioneers in business to business email marketing since 1999, emedia publish free opt-in email bulletins covering a range of markets: From Technology to general business management areas covering Small Business, Finance, HR and Marketing as well as more specialist areas such as Education, Public Sector, Construction and Healthcare.

Our email bulletins enable organisations to communicate information, privilege content and exclusive offers to the business community to help them keep ahead of the competition.

It is emedia’s policy to only launch a new bulletin when it is 100% confident that the title will continually provide subscribers and marketers alike with real value. This approach has seen emedia successfully expand its reader base to over one million subscriptions.

emedia is an active member of Return Path’s Sender Score Certified program, the leading third party email certification program.

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