Published December 2007

High-Tech Tool Talk

By David Frey (page 18)

Marketing is made easier with the advent of easy electronic tools to help you reach customers with effective messages.

Times have changed. An increasing number of competitors are pulling out all the stops to take away your customers. Fortunately, there has been an equal growth in the type and quality of marketing tools at your disposal to beat the competition.

You still have the same reliable marketing options, such as print advertising. However, with advances in technology, there is a new breed of low-cost tools you can use to attract and convert new prospects. I’ll introduce you to six technology-based marketing tools that every small business should be using to get more customers.

Electronic Newsletters

One of the most effective follow-up marketing tools available is the humble newsletter. Electronic newsletters are much like paper-based newsletters in that they inform, entertain and make product or service recommendations. The difference is that you can send an electronic newsletter instantly to thousands of people with the simple push of a button for almost no cost.

Of course you need people to send your newsletter too, so you should start collecting the e-mail addresses of your prospects and customers today. A sure-fire way to persuade a prospect to share an e-mail address with you is to offer a low-cost premium, such as a free report involving the product or service you are selling.

The key to making electronic newsletters work is to write in a personal voice, as though you were talking to your prospect or customer face to face. Also, provide interesting and useful content so that your reader looks forward to receiving your newsletter. Be consistent. Send your newsletter regularly.

E-mail Autoresponders

An autoresponder service sends multiple e-mail messages that you create on a scheduled basis that you define. For instance, what if you offered a free, six-part e-mail course on your Web site explaining how a septic system works and promoting regular maintenance? After your Web site visitor signs up to receive your e-mail course by sharing their e-mail address with you, your autoresponder service will automatically send them one e-mail containing your course content every other day over the next 12 days.

Every other day, your prospect will automatically receive a useful tip or technique for efficient use of their onsite system. Included in each day’s tip could be an offer to visit your Web site to take advantage of a special offer.

Self-Produced Audio/Video CDs

When prospects decide to buy, they often know very little about your service and are crying out for knowledge and advice so that they can make the right decision. The first small business owner who takes the time to educate a prospect is usually the one who gets the sale.

The problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort to educate prospects on a face-to-face basis (or over the telephone). Using educational audio and video products you can create a relationship of trust and admiration without having to physically be there to do the work. If you don’t believe how effective this can be, you don’t have to look any further than the success of late-night infomercials. Millions of products are sold via 30-minute television videos every day. If they can do it, why can’t you?

Creating a 30-minute audio CD is as simple as writing a 10-page script, buying a microphone, downloading free audio editing software and investing in a CD burner from the local computer store. Read your script into the microphone, save your audio file and burn it to a CD. Viola, you have your own audio CD program. Developing your own video program is a bit more complex, but with editing programs, broadcast quality video production can be done on your kitchen table.

Telephone Hotlines

How would you like to capture the name and address of all your lead sources and know exactly where they came from? Capturing this information would allow you to do follow-up marketing with prospects and compute the exact return-on-investment of each of your marketing and advertising campaigns. Telephone hotlines allow you to do just that … and more.

A telephone hotline is simply a recorded telephone message that can ask for and record a prospect’s contact information that can later be transcribed. Play back a pre-recorded educational or sales message, or allow the caller to be directly transferred to a live person after listening to a message. Most telephone hotlines use toll-free telephone numbers that are rented to your business on a monthly basis. You’ll also receive multiple extension numbers with “message boxes” that can play different messages depending on the marketing campaign.

Imagine offering an interesting information product in your advertising by asking the prospect to simply call your toll-free number and a specific extension number to request the information. The prospect calls up the advertised number and then requests the report by leaving their name and address. Their name and address gets transcribed that night, entered into a spreadsheet, and then sent to you in the morning ready for you to follow up on.

Internet-Based Pay-Per-Click Advertising

More people are going to the Internet to search for information before they call up any small business. It’s critical to be the first business that your prospect finds in their search. Pay-per-click advertising allows you to do that in a low risk way. Pay-per-click advertising programs, such as Overture and Google AdWords, allow you to bid for search engine placement. If you’ve ever searched for something in Google and saw those text ads on the right side of the screen, you’ve seen Google AdWords. With Google AdWords or Overture you create your own ads, choose keywords to match your ads to your audience and pay only when someone clicks on them.

Voice Broadcasting

Voice broadcasting allows you to send personalized reminders, invitations or verbal coupons to existing customers. The message is sent out via a broadcaster directly to your customer’s voice mail machine for only pennies per delivered message.

Imagine the impact of sending out a voice message before a direct mail campaign, letting customers know they will be receiving a great offer from you. I’ve seen response rates from direct mail campaigns literally triple and quintuple using this little-known tool.

Simply record your message; upload it to the voice broadcasting service along with your customer’s phone numbers, and tell the service the date and time you want the message delivered.

Conclusion

If you’re not using a few of these technology tools, you’re missing out on potential sales. The tools are relatively simple to implement, come at little cost and can provide a big impact on your bottom line.