That is why it’s crucial to remind your customers about your business – if not only to assist them keeping you top or mind, it quite frequently prompts sales. Here are a few low pressure, non sales approaches you can take to remind your customers of your existence!

Yearly events – New Year, Christmas, Easter, etc. – these are great opportunities to contact customers as they serve two purposes – they show you care about them and gives them a reason to contact / thank you.

Newsletters - a printed newsletter can be delivered to your clients for a surprisingly affordable price. Printed newsletters have many benefits over emailed ones – have a think about your inbox, how many email newsletters / spam do you receive on a weekly basis? A printed newsletter is something that can be flicked through while your customer is on hold, having a tea break or simply needs a few minutes to recharge .

After sales follow up – if you sent a quote off a week or more ago, and the client hasn’t decided to yet proceed – give them a little prompting. Mail out a letter to your client and include a few testimonials, a brochure, a sample if possible or an invitation to further discuss. If your client is seeking quotes from multiple sources this will help you stand out!

New product / service launch - if you are launching a new product or service for your business, make it a celebration! Consider having a launch party, invite a few VIPs and send out some invitations with a brochure. Even those who are unable to attend will appreciate the invite and will be sure to have a look over the brochure to see what the fuss is about!

Articles – resources of interest – if you have a defined target market – for example expectant mothers, small businesses etc consider sending them articles of interest. This is even more effective if it’s an article you have written yourself!

Do you have any other non pushy techniques to contact customers? Write them in the comments below and I’ll add them to our list with a link to your website!

In this post I’m going to discuss a few of the many ways that putting your logo in all the right places can not only help build relations with your clients, but also the probability that those customers will return and pass your business details on.

It helps solidify your business within your customers mind

A strong brand is a memorable brand – if your customers are frequently seeing your logo & contact details they will be strongly cemented within their mind. Couple this with a good experience dealing with your business and you have a sure fire way to help dramatically boost your word of mouth sales.

It positions you as a leader, someone serious about business

Your customers will notice the extra effort you have taken with your business stationery and this has a direct relation to how professional they see your business. In the same way that a sharp dresser grabs attention and respect, a business with a consistent look will receive similar responses.

Helps your customers feel more secure about purchasing from you

Frequently in your customers mind, making purchases can seem quite risky – especially if it’s quite a significant purchase, a once off, or one that will be with them for many years to come. Professionalism gives your customers confidence.

Assists in helping your business stand out from the competition

With all things being equal, would you prefer your customers based their purchasing decisions on which business they see as more secure, professional and reliable or something else such as price?

If professional stationery could help you snag more customers, close sales quicker, temp potential (and current) purchases away from your competitors what effect would that have on your business? Your bottom line? If those customers turned into lifetime customers, what value would THAT have?

Here are 5 ways Christmas / Seasons Greetings cards can help boost your business.

It builds loyalty

Loyal customers are return customers – if you let your customers know you care, they are more likely to return to purchase from you again.

It keeps you top of mind

Receiving a Christmas / Seasons Greetings card will help you stay top of mind with your customers – next time they need what you sell, whose name do you think will come to their mind first?

It gets people talking about your business

Most offices will prominently display any Christmas / Seasons Greetings cards they receive, if your card is up on their wall, it gives your customers a good reason to talk about your business.

It shows you care

Sending a Christmas / Seasons Greetings card to your customers lets them know you value their continued business.

It’s a nice thing to do

Sending a Christmas / Seasons Greetings card will bring a smile to your customers face!

The key to keeping customers for life, is to do a little something extra every now and then. Christmas / Seasons Greetings cards are a low cost, yet effective way to do this.

Why are they used?

QR Codes have many uses, most commonly to allow interaction with printed material. In a similar way that hyperlinks work on a webpage, QR codes offer an easy way to claim an offer, sign up to a newsletter, make a phone call, etc.

Most importantly though, QR codes can be used to track the effectiveness of a campaign – for example QR Codes can be put onto a flyer linking to a specialised landing page to track the results of the campaign. Don’t forget to take into consideration though, while QR codes are very effective tools, some people may opt not to use them. So it is still recommended to include standard contact details (such as phone, address, email etc).

What can QR codes link to?

QR codes can link to a wide range of things, limited only by the capability of the device doing the scanning. Common examples are:

• Browse or bookmark a website,
• Make a phone call, send an sms or send an e-mail,
• Create a vcard, a mecard or a vcalendar event,
• Browse a location on Google or bing maps or list geographical coordinates,
• Link to an itunes app or review url, android market search, foursquare venue url or youtube url,
• Tweet on twitter, create blackberry messenger user,
• Text.

What software is available to read QR Codes?

There are far too many software applications available to be listed here. The majority of smartphones released now have QR code readers already installed and for those that don’t the software is normally free. To find software available on your device simply search “QR codes” in the relevant application store (Such as the App Store if you have an Iphone or the Android Market if you have an Android phone).

How do I create a QR code?

There are a number of software options available to create QR codes, some more reliable than others. It’s best to have a professional create and insert your QR code to ensure there are no issues.

Fortunately, as an Emroy customer we will create your QR code for free! For a free chat on how QR codes can be added to your advertising arsenal, give us a call!

A simple, effective and low cost way of increasing revenue (and profits for that matter) is to sell more to your existing customers. A good chunk of your customers will only know of the products they have ordered previously – explaining to your customers your other offerings will help to bring in more sales.

The secret of cross-selling and up-selling your customers is to recommend products and services that may actually be useful. If done correctly, this will appear more like good customer service than a sales pitch.

Timing is important

It isn’t essential, but when you are up-selling and cross-selling try to stick to times when the customer is already prepared to buy – such as when they are placing their order, when they are paying for their order and when they are inquiring about your products / services.

Approaching existing customers

If you took care of your customer on their previous order, this is quite simple. Your reputation, skills or quality have already been established. Whats more, returning customers are less likely to be price sensitive than new customers.

Your sales approach should focus more on building a stronger rapport with the client, listen to what they have to say about their previous experience with you. This will give you a great opening for similar products you can suggest, based on what they tell you. For example, “I’m so glad that new skin cream is working well with your sensitive skin, are you aware there is a body wash available of the same brand?”

Don’t assume your customers know of all your product offerings, for the most part they will only focus on the product they intended to buy.

Tip: If you ship your products, or bag them for your customer in store – slip a flyer / brochure into the box or bag with their goods for them to read at their leisure. If you offer a service, consider mailing a copy of your invoices out with a flyer / brochure attached.

Case Study: A client of ours owns and operates a car wash. They recently started requesting customers details to sign them up to a monthly newsletter and the chance of winning prizes. One month, as a marketing promotion they posted $10 gift vouchers to their existing clients. This directed marketing had almost 3x as many responses as their regular letterbox drops and as a bonus, returning customers spent more money than they regularly did.

How to cross sell effectively

Cross selling is used by successful businesses in almost any industry – it’s so popular because it works. In the supermarket, you will find toothpaste and mouth wash next to toothbrushes. To be successful in your cross sell, you need to position similar products together on your brochures / flyers, in your store and on your website.

Further to that, when your customer is placing the order take a little time to get to know them and their needs.

Tip: If you are a hairdresser and a client of yours has asked for a specific treatment to their hair, because it’s dry and brittle – take the time to offer them a shampoo  /conditioner that you sell which will further assist in rectifying the problem. This won’t appear like you are selling to your customers, but more so that you care about the wellbeing of their hair.

How to up sell effectively

Up selling is the process of suggesting and assisting your customers in ordering a more expensive product. This can be accomplished in two main ways: an understanding of your clients needs and requirements or offering rewards and incentives for higher spending.

Up selling isn’t just about increasing your bottom line and for it to work effectively, you shouldn’t focus on that at all. If you are looking to secure repeat business from your customers, you need to build and hold their trust. Only up sell if you know the products or services you are offering are going to be of benefit to them.

If you are looking for simple ways to cross sell and up sell to your existing clients, we’d love to help! Feel free to give us a call on 02 8544 8347 or email contact@emroy.com.au to bounce some ideas around

Author:

Printed newsletters improve communication channels with clients, share good news stories, share expertise through tips and also assist in building a database of potential customers.

Not only is it a great way to share your stories, it can also be a powerful marketing tool providing useful information to the reader while indirectly promoting your services.

Make it regular

The first step is to ask yourself – are you committed to sending it out regularly? There is no point in sending out a newsletter whenever you get around to it.

Make it relevant

The content obviously needs to be appealing to your readership. Have a think about what type of information they may find interesting. Rarely use the opportunity to sell to your readers.

It is about creating a sense of community and sharing your expertise with them. Keep your articles short and to the point and keep your sentences and paragraphs easy to read. Use plain language and always check for spelling and typos before printing / distribution.

Make it easy to read

The layout needs to be easy to read. Many people just scan newsletters to find the stories that interest them. Stats shows that 51 seconds is all we usually spend scanning an newsletter and most people won’t read past the first three items on your list.

Limit your colours and watch for bad contrast. Simple is often best, with one banner heading. Avoid flashy, distracting graphics, and use high resolution relevant images. Use lots of white space to draw the eye to the text.

Importantly, include a table of contents at the top of the newsletter so readers can decide what to read.

Add contact details

You want readers of the newsletter to contact you! Make sure you add all of your contact details including phone, address, email, social media (if you use them.)

Catriona Pollard is a contributor at Small Business Forum and also director of CP Communications which provides specialist media, traditional and online PR strategies that achieve positive media coverage, increased brand awareness and improved sales results. For more information about Catriona, visit her online at www.cpcommunications.com.au.

Author:

As I’m sure you can imagine, we come across a number of business cards each day – we see the quirky, the different, the standard and the unique. In an effort to try and out do their competitors, we find a lot of businesses thinking of different ways they can be creative to grab attention with their business cards. For the most part, this creativity is fantastic and we love being a part of it – however, there is a time and a place for creativity and most of the time, it’s not with your job title.

In our strive for creativity, we need to remember the fundamentals of what a business card is about – providing your prospective customers / existing customers with a brief snapshot of what you do and how to contact you.

The simple rule? Be as creative as you like but just ensure that people understand what you are and what your role in the business is.

“Vision Clearance Executive” sounds quirky and interesting, but how many people will realise that means “window cleaner”?

Author:

Despite the widespread embrace of many forms of technology based advertising (such as email newsletters, blogs, social media) etc, print marketing is still an incredibly effective solution being used by many businesses to great effect.

The main question I get asked when working on printed campaigns with my customers is: How do I track ROI? Quite easily, here’s how!

Use a custom phone number for your campaign

Most big telco’s in Australia will have available custom 1300 numbers, which can be easily redirected to your main office phone. Further to that many also allow you to access reports on the number of incoming calls to that specific number. If you use this custom number for your print marketing, you will be easily able to track what’s working and what’s not.

Create a custom landing page

If you will be adding your web address to your printed material it is normally recommended to use a landing page. Not only will this help increase the conversion rate from your print marketing but using free tools like Google Analytics, you can see how many people are accessing this page (and thus coming from your printed material). For more information on integrating online and offline campaigns, click here.

Ask your customers!

Regardless of what rapport you have built with your potential customers, they won’t mind being asked how they found you. Make note of where they came from and tally it up over select periods to find whats working and whats not.

Don’t just stick to one method - there isn’t one way that works best to track sales / inquiries from any kind of marketing campaign. For instance, despite the fact a custom URL is listed, some visitors may still just type your company name into Google. Therefore a combination approach will yield the more accurate results.

We’ve worked on plenty of offline marketing campaigns before and follow up with our customers to find what works best and what doesn’t. If you want someone to bounce ideas off or to simply run something by – feel free to get in contact here.

Guest Author: Chris Bates of Frontbox Interactive

“There are many different ways you can source new customers, some more successful than others. But the secret of successful marketing is to have your campaigns working effectively together. To help illustrate this point, Chris Bates has generously offered to write a post on a simple, yet effective way to integrate your offline and online campaigns for better results.” – Jake Thomas @ Emroy Print

For this example, we’re going to use a fictional business called “Bob’s Lawn-mowing” who is currently focusing his marketing on two fronts – an offline letterbox drop and an online blog / newsletter.

Bob’s first mistake with his flyer - which is beyond the scope of this blog post, is that Bob doesn’t give me a reason to care about him. He introduces himself, gives me a list of things he can do, and puts his phone number on there. Thanks Bob! Here, meet my bin. But what could Bob do to get a better response?

Bob needs to add more value to his flyer -There are plenty of ways this could be done, so let’s just mention a couple:

- Offer a free service for first time customers
- Offer a seasonal or time-sensitive discount/offer
- Swap the flyer for something they can keep (e.g. a magnet)
- Target a specific niche (those who DO care about their garden vs those who DON’T)

Any of those would be a start to improving the response Bob gets from his direct mail. Let’s assume Bob’s niche is home owners who DO care about their garden, and he decides to offer them a free sample of his services. For his next letterbox drop, Bob decides to try something a bit different…

Bob’s got a website - and through that website he offers a fortnightly newsletter where he offers great tips and advice on garden care. Deciding that he wants more people receiving his newsletter, he designs an offer that anybody who subscribes can get one free service worth $25.

Bob creates a landing page on his website - which clearly says to signup via the form on that page to redeem a free service AND receive fortnightly tips and advice. He then designs a flyer that targets his niche, offering them the free service and directing them to his landing page. (A landing page is a customised page that can be created to be a dedicated extension of a campaign, and is normally not accessible unless people have the specific URL – eg: www.example.com/newyear)

When Bob’s flyer goes out, he keenly watches his subscriptions skyrocket. Why is this?

Well first, Bob’s flyer got read more – it had an attractive, well-designed, targeted offer that caught peoples eye. Secondly, the flyer clearly told them where and how to get their free service AND offered them a way to get regular tips and advice on their gardens. People went ONLINE to redeem their free service and signed up to the newsletter

Mission successful.

Bob integrated his offline marketing into his online presence. Resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of people he reaches every fortnight. Bob now goes on to build relationships with these people, and regularly markets himself to them.

All in all, successful marketing is about appearing to your customers multiple times, from multiple different sources. By thinking laterally about your marketing, and integrating your offline channels with your online presence; you can dramatically increase the lifetime ROI of your marketing spend.

Professional copywriting really does make a difference to your marketing and while Belinda might be a little biased (as a copywriter), effective text is still of paramount importance! – Jake Thomas @ Emroy Print

Whether it’s a once-off promotion or a campaign running over several months you should start by defining:

Your Objective – what it is that you want to achieve
Your Target Market – who you are aiming your message at
Your Budget – how much you have to spend

And then you get to put pen to paper and create something magic. It’s at this stage that professional copywriting can make the difference between marketing, and great marketing. Great marketing fills your inbox with strong leads, and rings your phone off the hook. And that’s really what we’re all after!

So what difference does a copywriter really make?

A copywriter crafts the words you use to promote your business. But the act itself isn’t quite that simple because it’s not just a matter of explaining what your business does. Great copywriting makes your target market go STOP, with a hook that reels them in to find out more.

A copywriter’s skill lies in creating a persuasive story that’s interesting, engaging and something your audience can relate to. Everything from a social media update to a multi-media campaign can tune people in or out with the words that are used.

A copywriter takes care to write with rhythm and balance so that your audience doesn’t have to think about the words; the message floats straight up to their brain. A copywriter is a bit like the Pied Piper in that way, bringing your audience on a journey that ends in action.

And that’s one of the most important elements of your marketing – action. After getting their attention and igniting their interest, a copywriter will motivate your audience to act.

If you write your own marketing, do you be focus on all these elements as well as your product or service?

Belinda owns Copywrite Matters and helps business create marketing with pep and passion – to really connect with their target market. The right words will help you get more clicks, calls and sales. It’s that simple. For more information about effective copywriting, visit Belinda at the Copywrite Matters website