Sales Tips and Marketing Strategies

E-mail and SMS marketing are becoming more and more mainstream.

Social media is rapidly escalating in popularity as a marketing tool.

Printing and postage costs keep increasing.

You are probably wondering why even bother with Direct Mail. It’s antiquated and ineffective.

The USPS even has stats to support that opinion. In their annual Household Diary Study, they published that US households received 85 billion pieces of direct mail advertising in 2009, which was 15 % less than in 2007 and 2008.

So is there a future for direct mail? It appears there is!

According to the 2010 DMA Statistical Fact Book, 79% of households either read or skim junk direct mail advertising sent to their home. Within that 79% – only 38% are skimmers, with readers encompassing a whopping 62%!

That same publication also predicted that spending on direct mail marketing is expected to increase by more than $1 billion in 2010.

Why, if it’s so outdated? Continue reading ‘The Future of Direct Mail’ »

It is common practice that when a new business owner enters a premise he should pay goodwill. It is believed that the new owner will enjoy a certain amount of business based on the previous owner relation with customers. The same applies when it comes to business branding.

When determining the goodwill of a brand, you need to look at the endorsement it receives from the market. The best brands seek to keep in touch with modern social trends of its target market. Brand goodwill also involves the manner the brand handles positive and negative issues brought about by external forces.

When it comes to long term strategy, a business brand should come up with creative ways of ensuring that its position in the market is strengthened. For example, affiliate programs are affected by the opinions of its associates. Therefore, it is vital that the affiliates understand your brand well enough hence influence the decision making of its customers.

A goodwill branding strategy should strive to continually receive favorable recommendation from the media and customers. In addition, customers should be convinced of the value of the business or product. By doing this, it will help cushion the business in times of economic crisis.

Sponsoring is a perfect strategy of ensuring the goodwill of a product or business. It would be preferable to do this on important events of the calendar so as to have more effect. Also, these sponsoring activities need to be in line with the promises of the brand.

Branding is an important marketing tool since it brings a feeling of ownership and thus customers would definitely love to be associated with successful brand name.