bmw x6m

Marketing: Elegant E-mail CRM. We've heard this acronym plenty of times, and, yes, there are usually a bunch of zeroes hanging out with an idea made up of three letters. But I have good news—by borrowing the C and the R, you can save almost two-thirds the next time CRM's three-letter-company calls you. How? Because it's your customer relationship, and the simplest and most effective way to manage it is right under your nose. It's e-mail. Let's stop wasting time and start learning how to use it without spending $50K. It's 2008, and there's a reason your bank and all the people you get bills from want you to sign up for e-mail statements: it's bloody expensive getting in touch with you every month. Postage rates are ridiculous these days, and so are the paper and envelopes you're printing on. You already pay to have Internet access, so stop using the postal meter, and send your correspondence via e-mail. Put links in it to your products, your services, and your Web site. With paper correspondence, your customers have to read your message and remind themselves to come back to you. By replacing all of it with e-mails and links, you have the opportunity to grab them and do business right then. Use your insights Now that you've thought of all the different ways you're going to stop using paper and start using e-mail, it's important to not get ahead of yourself. You have already struck gold, and you don't need software or a consultant to tell you where it is. You have a business that has customers. By modifying a few office procedures, you can begin collecting their e-mail addresses. If you already have these, all you need to do is devote 100% of your focus on them. You have the best insight into what your customers like, dislike, and want. Focus all of your e-mail messages on this. Many businesses make the mistake of investing money to try to get as many new e-mail addresses as possible, mainly from people they haven't done business with or even tried to market to. They install expensive software and hire costly people to aggregate data, or they pay large sums of money to organize their current e-mail addresses. Good for them; better for us. Since you are facing your base and focusing 100% on the people you are already doing business with, you are much better off than your competitors. You have a customer who feels you are attentive, present, and ready to act. Meanwhile, your competitors have an empty wallet, a bunch of e-mail addresses, and tons of messages going to spam folders. They do not have the most powerful tool—your customer's word of mouth. Don't let someone charge you to tell you otherwise. Follow the rules Your new e-mails must follow rules. Let's keep things simple: • Always send a test e-mail to yourself and an AOL e-mail address. • Only e-mail people who want to receive your e-mails. • Make your company name the sender. • Keep your e-mail subject-lines to nine words or less. • The less text in your e-mail, the better. • If you are sending an account statement, place a link to view it on your Web site so you can get them in the door and market other facets of your company. • At the top of the e-mail, ask them to please add you to their address book to prevent your e-mail from getting caught in their bulk folder. • Keep your e-mail layout within the same color and design scheme as your Web site. • Always send a text version. • Do not e-mail your customer twice in one day. • Don't hire anyone who tries to charge you for telling you these rules. Never forget that your primary goal is to get recipients to contact you or get on your Web site. And your secondary goal is to get recipients to contact you or get on your Web site. Sign your dog up for all of your competitors' e-mail lists. If possible, try to sign up for all of the e-mails they send out. Ask yourself the following questions: • How often do they send e-mails? • What kinds of links do they have? • Where do the links take me? • Is there a common theme that is shared between e-mails? • How can I do what I think they are doing successfully, better? • Do their e-mails offer incentives? • Should I compete against this company, or will it go bankrupt as a result of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown? You know your competition better than any market research firm, so you do not need to hire one. It takes you only seconds a day to read your competitor's e-mails. Store them in an archive in your inbox. Read them, find their weak points, and get ready to make your move. Don't overpay If you are a small or mid-sized business, many niche companies will store your subscribers, send your e-mails, and give you detailed statistics on what your recipients do when they receive your message for prices starting at $9.95 a month. If you are a large enterprise, you can save tens of thousands of dollars by not purchasing the modules that go with your CRM or ERP platform. There are plenty of custom application developers who will do it for you for a fraction of the price. It doesn't cost thousands of dollars when you send e-mails. It shouldn't cost thousands when your company sends them, either. Your business is your neck of the woods. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Too many companies become bogged down with arbitrary overhead expenses, chasing pipe dreams painted by people who pretend to know what's best for them. It's not in the software they try to sell you, and it's not in the white paper they sent you about another business; it's in your head. Keep your bow pointed into the waves, and get 'er done. Garland Binns is CEO of Media Rake, Inc. and has more than 11 years experience designing and implementing custom CRM and ERP solutions that generate new revenue, save money, and make three-letter companies mad.
Previous     Next
See also
google mail login gmail
tiger woods girlfriend
carmax finance
sympathy myspace comments
craigslist san diego county
home mortgage calculator how much can i afford
spybot search and destroy cnet
auto insurance comparison
chase.com freedom account
travel sites for cruises
laser quest fullerton
meebo.com video
new las vegas hotels
netflix sur freebox révolution
food poisoning symptoms
expedia extranet hotel login
lexmark printers all-in-one
mortgage rates wells fargo
wamu chase card log on
amazon.com stocking stuffers
houston hobby hotels tripadvisor
cheap car insurance for women
facebook*4
domain name lookup owner
gmail.com google gmail inbox
capitalone investing fees
overstock shoes women
credit cards for bad credit instant approval
youtube convertisseur gratuit
elvis presley youtube songs