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All Aboard!! Don't miss the train to your marketing sucess! Visit Marketing Grand Central for intermittent doses of Marketing and VA news! |
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Valley Virtual Assistants PO Box 20655 540.904.2505 |
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Marketing Made SimpleVolume. I, Issue 4 -- November 2005 In this issue:
Listen to Off the Cuff... I'm always amazed at how people market to me. Halloween is a little under a month behind us and there are Christmas things out everywhere. I'm not ready for Christmas; but I'm being forced in that direction. Ideally, I like to have my Christmas cards ready by Thanksgiving; however, it doesn't always happen that way. I've already gotten a Christmas card in the mail! Yes, you heard me right. VistaPrint sent me a Christmas card that I received on November 8th. Inside was a coupon for me to order my holiday cards early and save 50% on my purchase. On the same day, there was a box in my mailbox that, when opened, revealed a stack of blank Christmas cards. The package was from Maker's Mark, a bourbon manufacturer. You might wonder why I'm on their mailing list. Awhile back they were giving away a sleeve of golf balls just for signing up as an “ambassador.” It's no secret that I don't drink much; however, a sleeve of golf balls is a sleeve of golf balls. Tim can never have too many! Now let me tell you about these cards. They are attractive Christmas cards, 25 of them, that are ready for me to send out to my yearly holiday list. They are simple, yet elegant. They are black with a bottle of Maker's Mark in a bow on the front. It says “Happy Holidays.” On the inside it simply says “Enjoy the spirit of the holidays.” They've not only sent me the cards, but also the envelopes, matching return address labels and seals for the backs of the envelopes. Everything I need to send out cards. Think about what they've done. I'm going to find a use for them, make no doubt about that. They may not go to my family or clients, but I will find a way to use them. They're too pretty to waste. By sending them out, what am I doing for Maker's Mark? I am advertising for them. The cost of those cards (when purchased in the amount that I believe they have) is relatively inexpensive. Essentially, they've multiplied their reach. If they sent those cards to just 100 people, the potential reach for them is actually 2500 people. Pretty amazing concept isn't it? But I'm willing to bet it will go even farther than that. First off, I love the concept so much that I keep telling people about Maker's Mark and I haven't even done anything with the cards yet. I just got them. Secondly, if you were to receive a card like that wouldn't you show it off to someone else? I'm willing to bet that most of us would. So let's just take me getting those cards. They marketed to just me. I in turn sent out 25 cards, I've told over one hundred people about it through my newsletter group, this will definitely be posted on my blog, reaching at least 100 visitors a day, and based upon the Maker's Mark blog, it may end up on Blog Mavens as well. We're talking at least 250 people that I've told about them and all they did was send me, one person, a batch of cards. Now, all the people I've told about them might not be into Bourbon, or drinking at all for that matter. But their name is more prominent than it was before I got those cards in the mail. (To be honest, I never heard of them before I signed up for those golf balls.) I realize that most of us can't afford to send cards to all of our clients and customers to spread the word; however, think of ways that you can capitalize on their idea and customize it's concept to your business. If you would like to be added to my holiday card list, please send an email to heather@valleyva.net. Until next time... Happy Marketing! Heather
Quotes "If you're attacking your market from multiple positions and your competition isn't, you have all the advantage and it will show up in your increased success and income."
"No matter what your product is, you are ultimately in the education business. Your customers need to be constantly educated about the many advantages of doing business with you, trained to use your products more effectively, and taught how to make never-ending improvement in their lives." "This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back." "It is all about marketing; that is where the real craft comes in. The best actors do not necessarily become the biggest stars. And vice versa."
The Importance of Goal Setting I've spent a lot of time the past few weeks setting goals and coming up with a plan on how to get there. I've been in tears over this whole process at times, not because I'm not happy with the goals that I've set, but I struggled with putting it all on paper. Since I've set my goals, I've been more focused and have thoroughly enjoyed marking them off as I achieve them. While I didn't meet all the goals I set for October, I came darn near close. What it means is that I need to go back and rethink what I did and how I can improve upon them. Tonight as I prepared my angel and my ninja for a night out on the town, I listened to the two of them discuss the evening.
I could just see the wheels turning in their heads as they tried to figure out what the best plan was for them to gain the most candy. We ended up going over to the next neighborhood where my friend lives. I did influence them slightly simply because there are no hills in her neighborhood and at least I would have someone to talk to. Half way through our tour, the kids stopped and came up to me asking me to hold their candy. As soon as I took their bags (which were very heavy) they whipped out Wal-Mart bags and took off. I hear the ninja yell to the angel, "Now they will think that it's late and we haven't gotten much candy. They'll feel sorry for us and give us more." How's that for marketing? And a plan. After 2 and a half hours of going door to door (except in the one part where you had to go 4 or 5 doors apart to get the big candy bars) we headed back to our house and ran into Nick. Nick had one bag of candy. Between the ninja and the angel, they had 4. I heard Nick make a comment to my ninja about the amount of candy he had and the ninja simply replied, "we had a better plan." :) When was the last time you evaluated your goals and your plans to reach them? I put it off for so long and only did it this time because my coach made me do it. I struggled, I fought it, and now I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner. The right planning will bring you more treats than tricks and make you a very happy ninja or angel.
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Disclaimer
Valley Virtual Assistants welcomes articles and suggestions from our readers. If you have information that you feel will be a benefit to our readers, drop us an email . We cannot guarantee that all submissions will be accepted for print. Valley Virtual Assistants will notify you via email if and when your article will appear.
All written information included in Marketing Made Simple is the opinion of the individual author. Readers agree to hold Valley Virtual Assistants harmless for its content. Most article writers are not attorneys or accountants and the content should not be construed as legal and/or accounting advice. If an article is written by an attorney or a CPA it will be clearly stated in the byline of the article, however please consult your legal counsel and/or CPA firm before utilizing the information contained herein.
We appreciate you taking the time to read Marketing Made Simple. If at any time you wish to unsubscribe please go to Valley Virtual Assistants and follow the unsubscribe instructions.
Subcribe to Marketing Made Simple and receive 10 Inexpensive Marketing Tactics delievered to your inbox absolutely FREE! Marketing Made Simple is Valley Virtual Assistant's monthly newsletter packed with simple marketing tools to enhance your business!
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Advertising and Marketing on the Internet -- The Rules of the Road There are certain FTC guidelines that you need to follow when marketing and advertising your business on the internet. Joenga has put together this GREAT 19 page eBook on those guidelines and how to keep you out of hot water!
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We want to hear from you! Do you have a marketing article that you'd like to share? Are you struggling with aspects of your marketing plan and just want some advice? To submit your article, email me and make sure you include a bio with a link back to your site. (After all, this is free and simple marketing!) |
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What's New at Valley Virtual Assistants?On November 7th we held our first teleseminar and had a GREAT turnout! The feedback we received was amazing...if you didn't sign up for the seminar but still want to listen, the audio can be purchased for $5. It's not too late to pick up your copy of Making Dollars Out of Cents! If you're ready to dive into your marketing but just don't have the budget, this is the book for you!
You can get your copy here. Don't forget to sign up for the affiliate program so you can earn money too!
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Marketing Q&AWe asked you for your questions and we got 'em! Vanessa Coltrinari of VYA Virtual Assistance asks: What would you say is the main difference between marketing an online business against an offline one? And the main similarity? Vanessa: Marketing is marketing no matter what kind of business you're running. The first thing you need to determine is where your target market is. You can be an offline business whose target market is online. You can be an online business whose target market is offline. I am a virtual assistant. I only market online, even though Virtual Assistance really isn't an "online" business per se, or at least I don't consider it to be. I don't have to be online to do it. I could just as easily have a website up and only work with local clients. My eBook on the other hand is a true online business. It's very hard for me to peddle an eBook offline. My target market includes people who are hip to the 'net, ones who like eBooks. Therefore, with the exception of the press release, all marketing I do for that is online. So what do you do if your target market is both on and offline? You market to both. Use your direct mail, sales letters, and networking offline, and write your articles, optimize your website, and join relevant networking groups online to cover your online marketing. Hope this clears things up a bit Vanessa! Heather If you have a question about marketing, you can email me and I'll take the time to get you an answer. All questions and answered will be featured in an upcoming issue. |
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Marketing HumorHeadlines & Copy of Questionable ReputeFrom a Philadelphia department store: From a New York hotel: On an electric-company truck: An ad in Hartford, Connecticut: From a placemat in a Massachusetts restaurant: Headline of an ad selling leather handgun holsters: For Springs Cotton Mills: For a monument firm: Disclaimer at the end of a London, Ontario newspaper ad announcing job openings for firefighters: (courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin |
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