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The race to be the biggest, baddest, boldest email marketing service is a grueling one. There are a handful of providers that do a lot of things right and would make a very good fit for most small business marketers.
So, the decision on using one over another usually lies in a detail or two. Is the interface simple, do I like the template, how do they report tracking, etc. Vertical Response, a San Francisco based service, has what I think is a pretty compelling competitive advantage. Vertical Response takes that position that email marketing is direct marketing and also offers traditional postcard marketing services as part of an integrated package.
Customers simply upload their artwork for a postcard and create a campaign based on their list and Vertical Response will send out a high quality postcard mailing via 1st class postal mail.
Small business marketers can greatly enhance their chances of building trust with prospects if they can deliver education based messages via email, snail mail and the telephone. The more integrated and, for the matter, the easier it is to do this, the more likely it is that you can adopt a systematic approach to marketing.
Try this out for a while. Create a list of 500 of your hottest prospects. Write a simple report that gives out some valuable tips related to your industry and then send an email, postcard and phone message inviting these prospects to simply come and get this free information. Do this 100 leads at a time (hint: Jigsaw) or 500 at a time, do this for six months and your business will take off.
Comments
This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at Nov 10, 07 | 6:33 am and is filed under Direct Mail, email marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
John,
This sounds like a spammer approach to me.
“…Do this 100 leads at a time (hint: Jigsaw) or 500 at a time, do this for six months and your business will take off.”
I know I love it when someone buys my information and emails, direct mails, AND calls me! Especially when I have no idea who they are and never requested any information.
A permission marketing approach will take longer, but will be more effective in the long run.
Alex, This could of course be just what a spammer would do, but done right it’s also just what someone trying to gain permission could do.
Sometimes you have to be a bit more proactive in gaining permission, especially when first starting out. What if someone cold called you to tell you about a very valuable free report that was just made available? That’s the only reason for the call. It’s not my preferred method, but sometimes you have to kickstart a market.
You definitely want to avoid spamming. But if you have an opt-in list or a prior relationship then emailing is the great way to go. We have a consistently positive return. Following up with other communication methods is a great way to close the loop.
I found a great service that takes Verticleresponse a step further: Boomerang email marketing services offers email marketing, fax marketing, online surveys, and direct mail printing. Talk about your one-stop shop! We’ve been using them for email mainly, but have also done 2 fax campaigns. We’ll be testing out their survey tool shortly.
They offer both self-service and full-service products. We use the self-service which has some pretty neat extras, but if you want some hand holding or don’t have the resource they’ll do it all for you.