I spend a lot of time helping our clients set up web-based lead generation mechanisms, but there is a very important offline strategy which I would recommend to any business:
A monthly newsletter.
Keep in mind here that I am not talking about the kind of nonsense which commonly passes as a newsletter, but rather something which prospective and current clients will eagerly look forward to receiving and reading every month.
ESPECIALLY if you're in an "information-centric" industry with a high average transaction value, newsletters can add huge value to clients AND stack up well economically for you.
A simple 3 to 5 pages of content, some relevant material reprinted from other sources and you have a formula which will actually attract and retain the interest of prospects.
Publishing a newsletter does take time and money, but the return on your investment will make this a very worthwhile endeavor. One of my print newsletters which I sent to a client resulted in a $72,000 contract! You could argue that I would have gotten this contract anyway; even so, I'd rather get that big contract now instead of down the road - wouldn't you?
Once you've put together the newsletter, printing postage costs are not very high; a few dollars per issue at most.
Again, depending on your industry, you can even make the whole process cashflow positive by selling subscriptions to non-clients for, say, $37 per month on a good-till-cancelled basis. As long as you can create enough value to make the subscription price pales in comparison, it's a goer. 1,000 subscribers @ $37 per month equals a $444,000 annual revenue stream. Sure, getting 1,000 people to sign up to your newsletter isn't easy - you have to be great at what you do and great at marketing what you do.
But even if you only had enough subscribers to pay for the cost of the mailing, wouldn't that be worth the value of keeping in touch with customers on a regular basis?
No, this will come off as heretical from a 'internet guy' like me, but sometimes email is not the tool you need. While it's perfectly good for keeping contact with prospects, once you have a paying clientele, a print newsletter is a good way to go - and an economically viable one.
Your customers can hold print newsletters in their hands, mark them up and annotate them, circulate them around the office with Post-It notes attached, and most importantly, NOT delete them from their overstuffed email inboxes (although the wastepaper basket is always within easy reach, so you have to be good.)
You can test the effectiveness of a print newsletter for your business by determining on a particular number of issues you're willing to commit to (maybe 6). If it doesn't pan out, no harm has really been done; plus you'll have some great autoresponder material already written for future use.
If you don't have the time to co-ordinate this, speak to a copywriting or marketing agency who can handle the whole strategy for you. (I'm even considering offering this as a packaged service to clients, but I'm not actively marketing this at the moment).
Give it a try - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results.
A monthly newsletter.
Keep in mind here that I am not talking about the kind of nonsense which commonly passes as a newsletter, but rather something which prospective and current clients will eagerly look forward to receiving and reading every month.
ESPECIALLY if you're in an "information-centric" industry with a high average transaction value, newsletters can add huge value to clients AND stack up well economically for you.
A simple 3 to 5 pages of content, some relevant material reprinted from other sources and you have a formula which will actually attract and retain the interest of prospects.
Publishing a newsletter does take time and money, but the return on your investment will make this a very worthwhile endeavor. One of my print newsletters which I sent to a client resulted in a $72,000 contract! You could argue that I would have gotten this contract anyway; even so, I'd rather get that big contract now instead of down the road - wouldn't you?
Once you've put together the newsletter, printing postage costs are not very high; a few dollars per issue at most.
Again, depending on your industry, you can even make the whole process cashflow positive by selling subscriptions to non-clients for, say, $37 per month on a good-till-cancelled basis. As long as you can create enough value to make the subscription price pales in comparison, it's a goer. 1,000 subscribers @ $37 per month equals a $444,000 annual revenue stream. Sure, getting 1,000 people to sign up to your newsletter isn't easy - you have to be great at what you do and great at marketing what you do.
But even if you only had enough subscribers to pay for the cost of the mailing, wouldn't that be worth the value of keeping in touch with customers on a regular basis?
No, this will come off as heretical from a 'internet guy' like me, but sometimes email is not the tool you need. While it's perfectly good for keeping contact with prospects, once you have a paying clientele, a print newsletter is a good way to go - and an economically viable one.
Your customers can hold print newsletters in their hands, mark them up and annotate them, circulate them around the office with Post-It notes attached, and most importantly, NOT delete them from their overstuffed email inboxes (although the wastepaper basket is always within easy reach, so you have to be good.)
You can test the effectiveness of a print newsletter for your business by determining on a particular number of issues you're willing to commit to (maybe 6). If it doesn't pan out, no harm has really been done; plus you'll have some great autoresponder material already written for future use.
If you don't have the time to co-ordinate this, speak to a copywriting or marketing agency who can handle the whole strategy for you. (I'm even considering offering this as a packaged service to clients, but I'm not actively marketing this at the moment).
Give it a try - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results.
About the Author:
Author: David B. Ascot offers expertise on sales lead generation methods that will assist your company to benefit from successful online lead generation.
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