If you’ve been studying Marketing and Sales for more than five minutes, you’ll have heard the expression “the money is all in the list”. It happens to be true, but there are a few things worth looking at in more detail because it’s a truth many business owners either fail to understand or fail to understand fully.
If there’s one thing you should learn and take to heart when it comes to increasing profits in your business, it’s that email marketing works. If you use email marketing you’ll make more sales and make more money. It’s that simple. But (and it’s a big but) email marketing works only if you do it and do it regularly.
Here’s what I mean.
Have you ever had the experience of seeing a movie trailer and thinking “That looks great”, but when you actually go to see it you find it doesn’t amount to much? Flat characters, boring story, terrible acting, and you come away feeling bitterly disappointed. Or maybe you’ve sometime heard great things about a restaurant, perhaps by reading a review, and you went only to find the food was tasteless, the service awful and the prices much higher than the experience was worth.
There’s an old saying which goes: “You can’t have your cake and eat it”. In other words, you can’t use a resource and keep it at the same time, and it’s something business-owners are well aware of. Sell that unit of product, and it’s sold, never to be sold again. Use that money to buy new stock, and you can’t spend it on something else.
Spend money on refurbishing your office and you can’t spend the money on buying new stock. This is what economists refer to as “opportunity cost”.
Ask most business-owners what’s the most important thing in getting more customers, and you’ll get a massive range of answers. Some will say having a really good product — the best on the market if at all possible — is the best way to do it. Others will say having a really great website. Still others will say having a powerful lead-generation system in place. Most will say it’s a mixture of all the above, and more.
Direct mail is one of the most powerful ways to engage with your target market — especially your current and past customers and clients — yet it’s something few business owners are successful with.
