The big secret of dealing with people (or customers) is often overlooked or forgotten. It’s simply saying “thank you” consistently, personally and, above all, sincerely. These two words work marketing magic because customers want to feel important.

Saying “thank you” is an act of kindness, besides. But don’t say “thank you” for the sake of flattery. It must be sincere. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “You can never say anything but what you are.”

“Thank You” Promotes Referrals

The uncertainty of referrals can be disconcerting. Can you control them? No. Can you influence them? Absolutely.

First you must provide a valuable product or service for customers. (You’re already doing this, right?) But perhaps you can make an even bigger difference in their minds by your continued interest after you’ve delivered the product or service.

Each customer has a different level of satisfaction with your products and services. However, all customers to whom you say “thank you” are satisfied that they’re important to you. This can determine whether you’ll continue a relationship with them and get referrals.

“Thank You” as Direct Mail or E-mail

If you’ve never used direct mail and are considering it, start a thank-you correspondence program. If you’ve used direct mail or e-mail but haven’t sent thank-you letters or e-mails, start now.

The thank-you letter or e-mail to your customers is targeted (you know them, they know you), personal and effective. It’s guaranteed to receive a positive response.

Furthermore, it’s a pleasant surprise if it’s snail mail. They see your envelope. They think, this must be something for me to review, to sign, or worse a bill. Surprise! They’re appreciated; they’re important. And you’re the one telling them so.

Write a thank-you letter or e-mail at every opportunity. But don’t send one with an invoice or other correspondence. Always send it separately.

Writing the Thank-You Letter or E-mail

The thought behind a thank-you letter or e-mail may seem simple, but writing one can be tricky. Here are 9 tips for writing a winning thank-you letter or e-mail:

1. Keep it brief. A half dozen lines (or fewer) are sufficient.

2. Make it sincere. This is crucial. If you aren’t careful, it can sound awkward, even when you’re trying to be sincere.

3. Start with “thank you.” Dear Ms. Johnson (or first name, if appropriate): Thank you for …

4. Make the tone warm, but professional. Be friendly, but keep it businesslike.

5. Reinforce a positive. Jog their memory of a positive aspect of the relationship.

6. Offer your continued support. If I can help, please call …

7. End with “thank you.” Thanks again for …

8. Use an appropriate closing. Sincerely, Best regards.

9. No ulterior motive. Make it a pure “thank you,” otherwise sincerity is jeopardized.

Remember: Saying “thank you” is part of building strong customer relationships over time. Use these two magic words consistently and watch your repeat business and referrals grow.

You can never say Thank You too much

Thank You For Being A Fast Marketing Plan Member

The key you utilize the most when going through your email is the delete key.

First, you start deleting all of the email from senders you don’t recognize.

Next, you delete the email you know you’ll never read.  Finally, you read the emails that grab your attention.

So, is it the sender’s name, URL or subject line that grabs your attention?

Often, it’s that and more.  Read on to discover nine ways to get your own emails opened and read so that your recipients will be enticed to take action.

1. Be consistent with your “From Field” so your recipients see exactly from whom the email is coming.  Setup your name, company or brand name in your email management program by referring to your help guide for setup instructions.
2. Ask your recipients to white list your email address to avoid your emails being blocked or routed to their spam folders.
3. Always stuff your emails with value.  Your recipients will gladly open them because they will expect something interesting.
4. Be creative with your Subject Lines.  Create curiosity.  For example:  “They don’t want YOU to know!” creates more curiosity than “The marketing experts don’t want you to know.”
5. Test your subject lines on small segments of your lists.  One subject line will always get a higher open rate than another.  Use the best one to email to others on your list.
6. Be careful to avoid list rot.  People change email addresses, get new spam filters and lose interest because of your lack of contact or old content.
7. Email once a month at minimum.  Most marketers simply do not email often enough.
8. Surprise your email readers every so often with something completely new.  Make your emails fun so your recipients will want to open them.
9. Always ask for some action on the reader’s part.  Get your recipients to do something like clicking on a link to your website or blog.

If you’re not totally convinced that these tips can pay off, let these email marketing stats marinate a bit:

• 35% of email users open messages because of the subject line content (Juniper Research, 2007)
• 17% of Americans create a new email address every six months  (Juniper Research, 2007)
• Those who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than non-readers of email (Forrester Research, 2008)

Email marketing can really pay off by focusing on the right elements.  By

always

delivering valuable information to your readers, you’ll rarely have to worry if you’ll get a favorable response.

Ask 20 marketers how to write a marketing plan, and you’ll get 20 different answers. Some have more strategy than tactics, some get tactical immediately without a strategic foundation.

But the biggest problem most marketing plans have is that they’re cleint-centric. They’re written from your point of view, based on what you want from the market, and they fail to reflect or take into account your customer’s perspective.

The same is true for the sales process most companies use today. It’s easy to define the process you want your sales team to go through in working leads into opportunities and, eventually, closed business. A more valuable exercise may be to map the buying process. How do your customers buy, what stages do they go through, what triggers or accelerators drive them closer to making a decision?

So for your marketing plan, take that same customer-centric approach and apply it to five questions.

1. What/who are your targets?
2. What do they care about? What outcome are they seeking?
3. Where do you find them?
4. What or who influences them?
5. How do they want to engage and (eventually) buy?

These five questions are the foundation of your plan. The answers should give you a blueprint for what to do, where to do it, what to say, and how to match your marketing and messaging to the way your customer already thinks and operates.

You MUST transfer the information in your plan to a marketing calendar. You can use your PDA, a big whiteboard on the wall, a paper desktop monthly calendar, Outlook or anything else that works for you. Just make sure it’s in a prominent place where you can see it every day – this will lessen the chances of missing something, feeling overwhelmed, procrastination and falling behind on your plan.

The point is you need to have some place where you can schedule all of your marketing activities.

With a marketing calendar you will be able to:

- know exactly when you need to begin doing a specific marketing tactic

- clearly see the steps you need to take to implement a specific strategy

- identify gaps in your marketing schedule throughout the year

- schedule easily for any seasonal ups and downs in your industry/business

- work around holidays, vacations, out-of-town workshops you’re attending, etc.

- identify and incorporate any national holidays into your marketing communications and content

You’re going to have 3 general types of marketing activities that you will put on your calendar:

1. regularly occurring activities

There are going to be marketing tasks that you do on a regular basis – such as: write your ezine, submit articles to online directories, hold bi-monthly teleseminars, send out monthly assignments to your membership group, do blog posts, add articles to your website, record your podcasts, and so on.

2. one-off activities

Many marketing tasks usually occur only once during a calendar year. Some examples are: design new business card, launch a new product or service (you may do this several times a year, but it’s a different product or service), set up an affiliate program, create a referral program, conduct an annual 3-day workshop, write and publish a book, do a joint venture with someone, etc.

3. marketing administrative tasks

There are many administrative activities associated with marketing that you also need to schedule into your calendar. Many people mistakenly think of these as unimportant but they’re crucial to the success of your marketing.

Some examples are: check your “numbers” (visits to your website, sign-ups to your ezine, attendees to your teleseminars), take a look at your website copy and marketing materials to ensure they’re still relevant, fresh, targeted and valuable to your audience, set up your tracking mechanisms for each marketing tactic, stay current (read and research) on your industry/competition/possible Joint Venture partners/workshops/resources, review upcoming quarter of your marketing calendar (is everything on track, anything need to be changed? added?), and so on.

As you can see, there are many important tasks that need to be scheduled into your marketing calendar. Don’t let all the work you’ve done with your marketing plan go to waste because you haven’t put it on your calendar!

Jody Gabourie, The Small Business Marketing Coach, teaches small business owners and entrepreneurs how to take action with their marketing in order to get more results and more profits. To learn all about her unique “done-for-you” ebooks called Ready Made Marketing Plans

A marketing strategy is your marketing “what” while marketing plan is your marketing “how”. So obviously from that alone, we can infer that these terms should not be interchanged in use. One definitely differs from the other.

Furthermore, marketing strategy is defined as a method of focusing an organization’s efforts and resources on a course of action leading to increased sales and leadership in target market niche. For short, this is where you specify your marketing objectives (the “what”).

On the other hand, marketing plan is defined as the document that gives the details on necessary actions to achieve marketing objectives (the “how”). The clearer your marketing strategy is, the better marketing plans you can come up with.

No business is too small to come up with a marketing strategy. Small and big business owners alike are concerned with their sales and marketing.

One then wonders, “How could these be of use to somebody like me? And how do I start with these?” Presently, numerous free software and programs are offered to assist one in coming up with marketing strategies and plans, so you need not fret on how to draft one. It is more crucial that in starting, you have the necessary details not only of your company but of anything and everything that involves your company or the world where your company revolves.

When it comes to coming up with a marketing strategy, three things you need to know: the market, your competition, and your position. Your general business goals will set the tone of your strategy which will include a description of your products or services, demographics of your target market, as well as your relationship with your competition.

The resources of your company maybe clear to you but you also need to know more beyond that. Know your market, its wants and preferences; know why your target market will choose you over others. You also need to know your competition and the products or services they are currently offering, as well as how much of a threat they are.

Check on the availability of cost effective channels of distribution as well dependable supply chain. Your marketing strategy must also contain elements like your price strategy, promotion, market positioning. All these factors play major roles in drafting your marketing strategy.

On the other hand, marketing plan is the application of your marketing strategy. It’s you eloquently communicating to your market your unique selling proposition, getting the people to buy your products or services. Thus, greater details come into play.

For instance, it’s not just about the market but it is your target market niche, your distribution, and penetration of that target market. It’s you rising above the competition and uniquely offering something that competitively differs from the rest. It’s about coming up with the right price to keep customers’ attraction without sacrificing your bottom-line.

It’s about getting the message across through various advertising media, promotional activities, etc.

If you are in a business and seriously want to see it grow, marketing strategy and marketing plan are the next steps to take. These are just points to clear up any questions you might have on these two as well as to help you jump-start in your marketing endeavors for better operations, and subsequently greater profits.

Jeff Jackson is the President of Merchant Money. You can find more information regarding cash for your business at http://www.gomerchantmoney.com. We also establish merchant accounts please visit our site www.gomerchantaccountprocessing.com for details.

Dmoz is a human edited directory that has been running since 1998. It was created as a cooperative environment that would allow volunteer editors to keep up with the internet explosion. Way back, Yahoo used to be a directory – not a search engine – and Dmoz was an (eventually bigger) alternative to this. The only difference of course is that we are now well into the Google era of information at your fingertips. Dmoz on the other hand, is pretty much where it started.

Dmoz’s full title is the Open Directory Project. Dmoz is an acronym for Directory Mozilla. The acronym reflects loose association with ex-owner’s Netscape’s Mozilla project, an Open Source browser initiative. Originally called ‘Gnuhoo’ by founder Rich Skrenta, it was renamed the Open Directory Project in October 1998 when it was bought by Netscape. It was then acquired by AOL shortly thereafter, and Dmoz was one of the assets included in the acquisition.

Unlike a search engine, for websites to be listed in the Dmoz directory, they have to be submitted first. They are then reviewed by individuals (known as Editors) who are assigned to various categories within the Dmoz directory.

Is a Dmoz Link Worth It?

It’s fair to say that Dmoz isn’t what it used to be. You may notice whenever you search for something online these days that a Wikipedia entry is often on the first page. This used to be the case for Dmoz, meaning it was a good referrer of traffic to websites. The key words there are that it ‘used to be’. Dmoz’s category pages do not rank well at all anymore, so traffic referral is next to nothing.

It’s not all bad though, Google has its own directory which is in fact just a re-branded version of Dmoz. This shows us that it is still recognised as an authoritative website and that is demonstrated by the high Page Rank of some of its pages. In fact many websites use Dmoz’s data which means if you get in Dmoz, you may inherit far more backlinks than you expected.

One of the reasons why it is still considered authoritative is that you can’t pay to get in as with many other directories. Providing a reciprocal link isn’t an option either, so the theory is that Dmoz is more or less incorruptible. The fact is though, with many thousands of websites being submitted every week, there are simply too many for the Editors to handle. This means websites aren’t reviewed often and so Dmoz’s content is out of date, especially compared to modern search engines.

So, perhaps Dmoz is not the be-all-and-end-all it once was, but lets not get too negative. It takes minutes to submit, so there is no harm in trying!

How to Submit to Dmoz

Before you submit your website, make sure you give it a thorough health check. Have you checked it for broken links, bad spelling and missing graphics? These are all things your website can be rejected for so don’t shoot yourself in the foot!

In order to submit, you must visit the category you wish to submit to and click on ‘Suggest Url.’ It’s important to follow the guidelines, if you miss one element you will be rejected. For the full steps to submitting, visit:

http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

Ensure you don’t spam your submission with keywords or be ‘creative’ with the title. You may get away with this in other directories, but not with Dmoz. If you’re reading this article, you should already be aware of the basics of Search Engine Optimization, so the description you give Dmoz should be related to your website as well as the keywords for which you want to rank.

For help in writing the best entry, the easiest thing to do is to simply take a look at entries already within the category you are aiming for. If they’re in, they’ve obviously done something right! This is also a good time to ensure the category is the right one for your website. Take a look at the websites within the category and make sure they are similar to yours. If not, it’s best to find a more suitable category.

How Long Does It Take to be Accepted?

Dmoz is well known as an authoritative directory website. Needless to say then, it is very popular and thousands of websites have been submitted. Despite having a large number of editors, the fact that each entry is reviewed by humans means the process is longer and the backlog builds up. Considering Dmoz has been running since 1999, that backlog has grown year on year. With this in mind, waiting a year for entry is not unreasonable.

After submitting your website to Dmoz it is worthwhile looking at your web analytics program and searching for the telltale sign of your website being reviewed. The address to check in your logs for is ‘editors.dmoz.org‘.

Is There Any Way of Speeding the Process Up?

Not really. The biggest mistake to make is to get impatient and presume you’ve been forgotten about, and then re-submitting. You could easily be rejected for this. Likewise, even though deep links and multiple categories are not banned from Dmoz, it’s probably best to avoid the potential downfall of doing this.

However, there is one way to get into Dmoz quickly (relatively speaking). Naturally, people are drawn by the high Page Rank of a main category. Thing is, these are the sort of categories that take literally years to get into. It can be as little as a few weeks to get into a lesser Page Ranked sub-category. It’s very simple, fewer people submit their website so the backlog of submissions is much shorter.

As an example of this, our last submitted reviewed website by Dmoz was first submitted 4 months beforehand.

I Think Dmoz Rejected My Website, Why?

In many instances, websites aren’t really rejected, they’re just taking a while to be reviewed. Some of the busier categories will mean you have to wait months before having your website reviewed. This is why it is important that when submitting to Dmoz, you take care in writing the best entry for getting in, not the best entry for your search engine optimization campaign!

Another common occurrence is that your website may be in a different category to what you actually submitted to. It’s not uncommon to see a website moved to a more local category, if you have a .co.uk. domain for example. Make sure you use the Dmoz search tool before presuming you didn’t get in.

If you are sure you have been rejected and it isn’t down to a) a bad description or b) your website being littered with broken links, then you can contact the editor of the category. Simply visit the category you submitted to and scroll to the bottom to the editors’ names. Sometimes you will see a ‘volunteer to be an editor’ link, in which case you need to go up a level to see the editor for the parent category instead.

When you click on an editor’s name, you will have an option to email them. You can also see their activity on Dmoz under their ‘Bookmarks.’ This will help you find the best editor to contact (if there is more than one). It goes without saying when contacting them, be polite and professional!

There are myths and exaggerated stories about ‘corrupt’ editors who only accept websites after receiving a fee, but a minority of editors may be managing categories that are related to their professional background. Unfortunately, that may mean some direct competitors of theirs might get rejected, no matter what the rules are.

This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

1. Start every day with two cold calls.
2. Read newspapers, business journals and trade publications for new business openings and for personnel appointment and promotion announcements made by companies. Send your business literature to appropriate individuals and firms.
3. Give your sales literature to your lawyer, accountant, printer, banker, temp agency, office supply salesperson, and advertising agency.
4. Put your fax number on order forms for easy submission.
5. Set up a fax-on-demand or email system to easily distribute responses to company or product inquiries.
6. Follow up on your direct mailings, email messages and broadcast faxes with a friendly telephone call.
7. Try using the broadcast fax or email delivery methods instead of direct mail. Broadcast fax and email allows you to send the same message to many locations at once. Make certain that these messages are sent to potential or actual clients and that they provide an option to opt out from future messages. Otherwise, they may be considered spam, which is a negative message about your business.
8. Using broadcast fax or email messages to notify your customers of product service updates.
9. Extend your hours of operation.
10. Reduce response/turnaround time. Make reordering easy with reminders. Provide pre-addressed envelopes.
11. Display product and service samples at your office.
12. Let clients know about products and services you provide that they aren’t currently buying.
13. Call and/or send mail to former clients to try to reactivate them.
14. Take sales orders over the Internet.

Try one per week, see what works best for you and keep doing what’s working. Always testing to constant improvement.

With time, people just made them seem interchangeable. But in reality, a business plan is so different from a marketing plan. So you need to really understand each one of them in order for you to be successful in your business.

Marketing Plan

Are you spending enough time marketing your online business?

Yes, there’s lots to do, but if you break your internet marketing program up into small manageable tasks that you can accomplish on a regular basis, it becomes much easier.

Take a look at this example of an effective daily Internet Marketing Plan.

Monday
Ah, the traditional start of the work week. Usually the busiest day on any working person’s calendar, by Sunday evening, Monday morning can loom like a great beast waiting to devour all of your time. Not when you work for yourself – at least, not if you do things the right way!

As far as marketing goes, you might want to limit what you do to reach other people who are just as busy as you are. Instead, do some behind-the-scenes work.

Take a look at your website statistics. Weekends tend to be popular days for consumers to buy online and you might find some interesting data to help narrow your marketing efforts. Did you experience a high bounce rate? Was a particular item you sell more popular than others? Did you see an increase in traffic due to a holiday or event? What’s being said on the social media sites you frequent and could you capitalise on one of those topics related to your own business?

Take a half hour to update all your social networking sites with a fresh micro-blog post.

Tuesday
This is a good day for venturing forth and posting and blog commenting. Go back to your social networking sites and see if anyone has left a comment on your posts. Scan through the posts made by your network of friends and find at least three or four to comment on.

Find a new site to add your profile. Spend an hour or so updating your information, adding a photo, and looking for friends. Remember that you will need to add this new site to your list of social networking profiles you maintain. If you don’t currently keep a spreadsheet with your user name and password, this is a good time to start.

Wednesday
Write an article with a link to your website. Rewrite several versions of the same piece and then submit them to article directories. If you are not already a member at several sites, sign up to become a regular contributor.

Use the same topic of your article to write a blog post. Spend a few minutes submitting it to social bookmarking sites. While you are there, find interesting content from others that you can Digg, Stumble, re-Tweet, or leave a comment on.

Thursday
Do some link building. Revisit one of your older blog posts and use the free version of Fast Blog Finder to find other blogs where you can leave a comment and a link back to your site. While you’re visiting, ask the owner if you can write a guest post for a future date.

Visit a forum where you are a member. Glance through the threads and find one where you can contribute intelligently to the conversation.

Friday
Take a look at your pay-per-click advertising campaign or your affiliate marketing statistics. Take note of any data that indicates concern. If you need to make changes, now is the time to do it before you get a rush of weekend traffic to your site.

Post again on your social networking sites and blog. Give your network a reason to remember you when they have time to do some shopping.

Saturday
You don’t need to work all day, but this might be a good day to start working on new online video content for your site. Entreat friends or family members to help you produce it, provide music, or function as actors.

Sunday
You should have at least one day per week when you don’t do any internet marketing work. Take a break, you deserve it. Start fresh again on Monday.

While this particular Internet Marketing Plan may or may not be right for you, as you can see, a few minutes a day could make a big difference in your site’s search engine optimisation and that there are enough things to do on a daily basis to keep you growing your business and your profits.

Sticking to a solid Internet Marketing Plan could have lasting effects and before you know it, you could need to spend just a fraction of this amount of time to keep the profits flowing in.

Have a most outstanding day.

Sean Rasmussen
Aussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 – 2009

E-mail marketing efforts are not the same as a traditional marketing effort. DON’T try to use traditional direct mail copy in your email marketing efforts. Even if your direct mail effort was successful.

Keep in mind that the Internet is a different kind of “place.” The marketing copy that pulled a high response and was profitable when mailed might not even get read when it is put in an email.

Your print headline must become a subject line in an email, and you only have three to twelve words to hook your prospect into opening your message. Write a short, emotion driven subject “headline.”

The persuasiveness of the “subject line” determines whether or not your email will get read. Tricky or deceiving headlines that use items that are not related to your message rarely work. Internet users are smart, and their index finger is always aimed at the DELETE key. They resent being tricked. It’s a tough way to start a relationship.

Make your e-mail message personal and compelling. People on the Internet want to be talked to one-on-one, just like the readers of your off-line marketing messages. Use a common conversational tone, and avoid “English Professor” language.

“It is the responsibility of the sender to make sure the receiver understands the message.”
-Joseph Batten

Get to your point quickly, keeping your message short and simple. Put your offer in the top of your email message. Don’t drone on and on for several paragraphs or pages. Most people on the Internet want to read information quickly, so keep it clear and concise. Paragraphs should be no more than 4 – 6 sentences long. Keep the total length under 300 words.

Each email you send should give your prospects a strong offer, and an incentive to act NOW. I’ll say it again: provide a reason to buy or act NOW.

People on the Internet are always in a hurry, and once they close your message they may not ever come back to it again.

You absolutely have to give them a compelling reason to visit your site or buy NOW (limited-time offer, free trial, free shipping, contest, discount, etc.). At a bare minimum, you want them to ask to be sent more educational information, because then you can contact them again and lead them to a sales decision.

What all of this means is that you must always include a call to action. You must tell people what you want them to do and how you want them to do it.

Don’t leave them wondering what to do next. Direct them to what you want them to do. Otherwise they may just surf around and forget about what you’re trying to get them to accomplish. If you don’t give them a strong compelling reason to come back, they may leave your Web site and never come back to buy your products/services.

“Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.”
-Isaac Newton

Use the information on your Web site to close the sale. Your e-mail marketing efforts should be designed only to drive people to your Web site. Don’t try to close the sale in the email. You want people to have more questions. Those questions require answers, and the answers will come with interaction at your Web site. Interaction on your site will promote stronger relationships, and will hopefully lead to future sales.

Your e-mail marketing effort should help build business relationships. Customers are probably not worth having if they are interested in only one visit to your Web site.

Having the objective of a long-term relationship in mind, you can design your “initial contact” emails, and your Web site content in a way that will lead to ongoing sales and profits in the future. Listen to your customers. Treat them like you’d like to be treated, and they will return and buy your products/services.

What can you do to get your e-mail messages opened?