Business SMART:

Word of Mouse Marketing
 

By: Dennis A. Conforto
Chairman & CEO of A-Z Media Group, Inc.

Word of mouth marketing in the 21st century is really about word of mouse marketing and how to market to prospects and customers easily and effectively.

Today, there is an excellent chance that your customers are getting a majority of their information from the internet. Despite the fact that there was a dot com boom and bust, the internet is ever growing and expanding with no end in sight. So, whether it’s from a website or simply through an email from a friend with a recommendation, the web-savvy consumer is a key target market.

Through the use of email marketing you can not only reach your target scrapbook audience, but now you can do it in an easy and cost effective way. Studies show that email marketing brings in $15.50 per dollar spent. This is about 17% more than direct-mail campaigns. In short, email marketing works. In fact, it is the most cost effective marketing tool a retailer could employ today.

Acquiring customers and keeping them can be effectively done by creating and sending out a monthly email newsletter. In fact, for a scrapbook retailer it is the most effective way to acquire and retain customers on your email lists.

Scrapbooking.com Magazine has created a special alliance program for its readers with one of the world’s largest email providers, IntelliContact.

IntelliContact 4.0 – http://www.intellicontact.com/a.pl/14371 – is a great web-based solution for all of your email marketing and newsletter needs. The software will not only help you create and manage your subscriber lists, it will help you create and send effective and powerful email newsletters that will capture new prospects and keep your current customers informed.

Sending relevant and powerful email communications to persons who have requested to receive them is the single most effective way of cultivating the type of relationship needed to turn your prospects into customers and your customers into lifetime advocates. You can customize your messages to certain customers and highlight features of your products and services that are of special interest to scrapbookers.

For as little as $9.95 per month, you can send email newsletters to up to 500 prospects and customers. And, because of our special relationship with IntelliContact, you can even try the program free for 15 days.

With over half their 5000 customers being small independent retailers, IntelliContact understands small independent retail businesses, Their customer service reps are trained to assist you in developing a list, creating newsletters that are effective and tracking the messages you send.

One of the cornerstones of any effective email campaign is the development of a solid prospect/customer list. There are several ways to go about this. Here are few suggestions:

1. Ask your current scrapbooking customers if they would like to receive periodic communications from your company and remind them that you will not market their name or email address to any third party.

2. Offer an incentive to join your email list, such as 10% off of their purchase or an entry into a monthly prize drawing.

3. Encourage your customers to pass the email onto their friends via word of mouse. These friends can then sign up for your email newsletters.

One of the great features of IntelliContact 4.0 is the ability to create, send and track email surveys. This does not require creating a newsletter, just a few relevant questions about the areas that the prospects/customers might be interested. IntelliContact gives you the ability to create the surveys with ease – in fact the software practically creates it for you! Then, when you get the results of the survey, you can determine who from the list is truly interested in receiving more information in the form of a monthly newsletter.

It is important to be consistent with your sending frequency. Depending on your type of business and your subscriber interest level, the right volume for you could be weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Once you find the frequency that is right for your organization (and this could vary with the different newsletters you publish), stick with it. Rather than blasting out a promotion whenever sales are lagging, it is recommended you have an emailing schedule for each newsletter and sticking to it, whether it be every Saturday, every other Wednesday, or on the 15th of each month.

If you stick with sending relevant, high quality scrapbooking content-rich emails on a consistent basis to persons who have requested to receive your emails, you will increase your prospect to customer conversion rates and customer lifetime value at a fraction of the of the cost of traditional methods. You will also be taking advantage of the best type of marketing possible—free marketing through authentic customer word-of-mouth or word of mouse advertising.

The last question, “Is it worth it for me to take the time to develop a good list and create email newsletters?” The answer is yes. Recent studies have demonstrated that email marketing works where other traditional methods fail. Forty eight percent (48%) of all online purchases were made as a direct result of an email received. Sixty percent (60%) of all national marketing and media directors are increasing their email marketing budgets while decreasing their overall marketing expenditures because email marketing provides much higher returns on investment. Email lists are not just for building an online business, but for building real retail store traffic for products and classes. Start building your list today and watch you business and profits grow. That is what being business SMART is all about.