How to Get a Mailing List for Your Business
Many small business owners want to use direct mail as part of their marketing mix, but they're not sure how to get a mailing list. The best mailing lists are the ones the business itself owns, called house files. These lists, usually compiled from customers who have purchased products or services from the business in the past, are great to promote sales or new products to loyal customers. But what if you want to generate new sales and acquire new customers? You must rent a mailing list.
Lists Are Rented, Not Purchased (You Don't Own the List)
Lists are rented, not purchased. Many marketers and business owners talk about buying lists, but lists are usually rented for specific uses. They may be rented for one time use, which means that only one mailing can be sent to the addresses on the list, or they can be rented for unlimited use. Unlimited use is something of a misnomer, as there may be boundaries around the usage.
For example, depending on the fine print in the contract, unlimited use may mean that you can continue using the list for as long as you want to or it may mean that you can mail to the list as many times as you want to during a discrete time period, such as within one year.
What Is a List Broker?
Companies that rent lists are called list brokers. Using the analogy of renting an apartment, a list broker is like a real estate agent. If you were searching for a one bedroom apartment with a balcony, a real estate broker would generate a list of potential apartments in your price range for you to see. List brokers perform a similar function.
After learning about your mailing and possibly reviewing a sample mail piece, they may ask you questions about the target audience. They may want to know what you intend to sell, or more about the customers you'd like to reach. These questions help brokers narrow down the choices and provide you with the best possible lists for your needs.
Types of Direct Mail Lists
There are two basic types of direct mail lists. Compiled lists are the least expensive, but tend to be the least effective. Companies compile customer data and mailing addresses from public documents, such as telephone directories, to create lists based on zip codes. Usually, little or no data on the customers on the mailing list is available beyond basic census data.
Response List vs. Compiled Lists
Response lists usually perform better than compiled lists, but they are also more expensive to rent or lease. Response lists may be based upon lists of magazine subscribers, catalog purchasers, or people who have in the past responded to a direct mail offer. Many response lists offer renters additional data points for consideration, such as the last time customers purchased something, information on what they purchased and other facts.
These can help you target the best possible recipients for your direct mail offer.
When Was the List Cleaned?
Like an apartment, a list needs to be cleaned. List hygiene includes the last time the list was updated, the last time it was checked against the post office's change of address files, and whether or not it has been checked against the file of deceased persons. Such tasks can reduce the number of nixies, or returned direct mail pieces that are returned because they are undeliverable.
If the list broker cannot perform these tasks, a mailing house or printer who handles direct mail can typically provide the services or help you find a local vendor who can.
Removing bad addresses from the list saves postage, printing and mailing costs. It also enhances good will. Nobody likes getting mail addressed to a family member who died!
How to Choose the Best List
Be choosy about where you rent your mailing lists. Old mailing lists are not only more likely to be undeliverable, but they may also be beyond the original terms of the lease agreement. Direct mail companies do track the usage of their lists by using something called a seed file or seed addresses. These are a few addresses seeded or sprinkled throughout the list of employees or subcontractors of the mailing list owner who get a copy of every direct mail piece sent to the list file.
You can't tell at a glance who those people are; their addresses look like anyone else's. They will, however, check mail they receive against approved use of the list, and if a list is used outside the scope of an agreement, expect a bill in the mail from the list company.
Direct Mail Works
Renting mailing lists is an art and a science. It's always smart if this is your first time choosing a mailing list to speak with a professional direct marketer and seek their advice. Direct mail offers a powerful, measurable method of acquiring new customers. Direct mail may be an older market method, but it remains a vital and powerful one when used correctly.
Guest Blogging Tips
If you're looking to increase traffic to your blog or website, guest blogging offers individuals with strong writing skills the opportunity to share their thoughts and gain valuable links into their websites. Readers, curious about what else you may have to say on a topic, may click the link back to your website. Guest blogging is a viable method of building backlinks that conform to Google's guidelines while introducing your unique perspective to a new audience.
Guest Blogging Tips - Finding Opportunities
There are several ways to find guest blogging opportunities. You can:
- Pitch bloggers whose blogs you enjoy reading, and who have audiences similar to the people you wish to reach. A garden blogger, for example, may read several blogs on small space gardening, vegetable gardening or flower gardening. She may wish to write a short, simple email to the blog hosts, introducing herself and offering a specific blog post idea for future use. If the blog owner is interested in proceeding further, the host will contact her.
- Use a website such as MyBlogGuest. MyBlogGuest is an online networking site where users can sign up for free and find blogs to share guests posts or advertise their blogs for content. It's an easy to use and useful website to find potential guest blogging opportunities.
- Study an online directory of guest blogging sites, such as About.com's online directory.
How to Be a Great Guest Blogger
Great guest bloggers develop a reputation for reliable, engaging and creative content - a huge benefit of guest blogging. To be a great guest blogger, someone who develops such a reputation, follow these tips:
- Treat your host's blog as if it were your own. Only submit the best content you possibly can. It should be as good or better than content you'd share on your own blog.
- Adhere to deadlines. Nothing makes a host more upset than a guest who disappears without submitting content on time or who constantly asks for deadline extensions. The blog host is doing you a favor by accepting your content; be courteous and respond promptly.
- Specify in your pitch the intended audience (beginner, intermediate, advanced). Then write for that audience.
- Keep your blog post focused on the promised topic.
- Do not pepper your post with links back to your website. One link at the end is sufficient.
- Provide a short, three-sentence bio if asked.
- Run your blog post through spelling and grammar checks. I also like to use an online plagiarism tool such as Small SEO Tools to catch any phrases too similar to what someone else wrote. My content is always original, but the fewer phrases mimicking what someone else has already written, the better.
Not all blogs accept guests posts (Acorns and Insights, the blog for this company and what you're ready now, doesn't accept guest posts.) Nevertheless, for those blogs who do, guest posting can be an amazing source of leads, exposure and site traffic.
Guest Blogging Tips and Services from the Experts
Seven Oaks Consulting can help. We provide blogging and ghost writing services for many C-level executives, marketing agencies and experts too busy to write their own blog posts. We can help you find guest blogging opportunities and write expert content that engages, informs and entertains your audience, driving leads and sales. Contact us today.
Did Google Penalize Your Website?
Have you noticed a sudden drop in your website traffic? Check your Google Webmaster account for any flags or warnings. You may have had your virtual wrists slapped by the search engine giant, otherwise known as a Google penalty.
Google is the internet search giant, commanding something like 60-80% of all search engine traffic daily, depending on which survey or study you read. That's a lot of internet searches. Search engine optimization experts (SEO) look for ways to help their web pages rise in the search engine ranks because other studies show that people searching for information online are more likely to click website results when they're among the first page of results. Few people exhibit the patience necessary to dig deeper into the search engine results, even though some great content may be hidden there. (Source: Search Engine Watch).
Google Penalties and How They Affect Your Website Visibility
What are penalties, and why should you worry about them?
Websites may be hit with one or two types of penalties:
- Manual penalties, which occur when a website doesn't meet Google's standards for quality. An example of a manual penalty is an assessment of inbound links to a website. If Google spots a number of reciprocal ("I'll link to your web page if you link to mine") or paid inbound links, it may penalize a website. Spam content may also earn a manual penalty, as will numerous broken links, missing pages, or general technical flaws on a website.
- Algorithmic penalties, which occur when Google's automated method of calculating position (algorithm) changes due to an update. Panda and Penguin updates, which impacted many websites, is an example of an algorithmic penalty.
It can be difficult to tell exactly why your site is penalize. One day, it's chugging along, finding its way among the top 10 results, and the next day - poof! It's dropped to page 10 for the same search term. Did Google tweaks it algorithm? Or did you miss something on your website?
You can't please the Google gods all the time, and chasing Google's frequent updates is futile. You can, however, flag problems on your own website that you can correct and fix them to prevent manual penalties.
Do's and Don'ts to Avoid Manual Search Engine Penalties
Much of this is common sense, but you'd be surprised at how many search engine firms still recommend some of these techniques to their unsuspecting clients. Check your website against the list of don'ts...
DON'T...
- Include extraneous or irrelevant content on your website. If your website is about bird watching, including random articles about your favorite sports car may get the site flagged as spam content. Website content should focus around a central topic.
- Scraping content is a huge no-no. If you're doing it, stop it right now.
- Ditto for cloaking or other tricks.
- Buy links
DO...
- Include your website on Google's webmaster tools, and check it for flags or helpful tips
- Include rich, interesting, engaging and original content on your website.
- Update your website with content as frequently as you can.
- Fix broken links and 404 errors.
- Check for malware or malicious links in your website.
Common sense, right?
If you were inviting guests to your home, you'd take care to clean your house. You'd scrub the bathrooms and vacuum the carpet. You'd buy festive decorations and serve your best food and drink. You'd welcome guests your home.
Your website is your virtual 'home' and should be just as welcoming to online guests. Freshen up the links, update the content, and check it for problems. Hopefully, you'll fix any potential Google penalties, and welcome more 'guests' to your website to acquire, retain and create loyal customers.
Jeanne Grunert is the president of Seven Oaks Consulting, a marketing and writing services firm in Prospect, Virginia. She offers creative, engaging content marketing, expert writing services, and marketing consulting to businesses. She is the author of Pricing Your Services: 21 Tips for More Profit. Follow her on Twitter @jeannegrunert.
© 2014 by Grunert Family Holdings, Inc. DBA Seven Oaks Consulting. All rights reserved.
How to Create Memorable Content for Your Blog or Website
Learning how to create memorable content for your blog or website is a matter of figuring out what will stand out from the crowd. And what stands out whenever you write something is passion - passion for your subject matter, passion for your audience, passion to solve a problem your customers have.
Passion means more than slapping several exclamation points on the end of a sentence or telling folks how wonderful something is. Passion, like art, is contagious. Passion seeps through the written word and oozes from every letter, every comma, every sentence.
We disbelieve people who tell us, "I'm passionate about great customer service."
We believe them when they actually SHOW us what that looks like.
If you want to write great content for your website, articles, blog posts or social media shares, find the person in your company who is most passionate about what you do. Find the person with a passion for writing. If you can't find that person in-house, then find someone like me, someone who writes daily, who plays with words for the sheer joy of it, and who has an inquisitive sense that enables her to learn new industries and delve deeply into the nuances of your product.
Whatever you do, do it with passion. Your passion for business is what helps your online content stand out from the crowd.
5 Tips to Create a Customer Focused Website
Why This Website Wows, and 5 Tips to Make Yours Wow, Too
Five years ago, I tried to make jam for the first time. I'd received a bag full of persimmons from a neighbor and had no idea what to do with the fruit. So I opened my cookbook up and followed the recipe to make jam. Unfortunately, if you know persimmons, you know that one under ripe persimmon can spoil the entire batch of jam. I must have had several unripe persimmons, because the jam not only curdled, it tasted like fiery gasoline mixed with lemon juice. Yum, yum. I threw out the entire batch, jars and all, and swore I'd never make jam again.
Until July 4th, that is, when the wild blackberry bushes flanking my driveway yielded not one, but two quarts of luscious blackberries. I felt brave. But my cookbook didn't have a good recipe for blackberry jam! What to do? Search online for one, of course.
And what website did I stumble upon? The Ball Canning and Recipe website.
And this, my friends, is a website that WOWS - and I'll tell you exactly why, and not just because I made an awesome batch of tasty jam.
Why the Ball Canning Website Work
Here's the website: Ball Canning.
These are my top 5 reasons why this website works to acquire, retain and create loyal customers for the Ball Canning Company.
- It's super EASY to navigate. Many times I enter a website and find myself poking around odd corners of the site looking for what I need. I end up on virtual dead ends and digital alleys. With this site, everything I needed as a home cook was just one or two clicks away....easy!
- It made canning SIMPLE. I'm new at canning. This was the first time I've ever tried to make jam with blackberries. Pectin? What the heck is pectin and why do I need it? Why are there several kinds on the shelf at the grocery store and which one do I need? The Ball website seemed to anticipate my neophyte questions and answer them easily and quickly.
- The tone in the text was just right...neither too advanced to confuse me nor so simple that I felt talked down to. Instead, the copywriter made me feel like he or she was taking me under the wing and guiding me through the steps of the recipe...like I had a trusted friend in the kitchen!
- The site had handy calculators that meant I didn't have to think - the site did all the thinking for me. Plus it was fun to play around with the buttons and dream about making strawberry jam next.
- Speaking of fun, Ball makes canning your own food seem like a blast. The pictures on the website made me want to run out and buy new Ball jars - colorful ones. The entire site encouraged me to try new things and delight in my thrifty, creative canning projects.
What is the secret that makes this entire website work so well? The Ball corporation knows and understands its target audience - people like me who are new to canning.
My neighbors are country women; they grew up learning how to can food. They know intuitively how to make all sorts of tasty, delightful things. They don't need this website. They like the recipes, but the pectin converter? The explanations? That's for the likes of me, a former Manhattan executive who never learned to cook who now loves to explore home cooking and crafts.
The secret to a great website is to always keep the end user in mind. The target customer, your marketing manager might say. The entire website, from start to finish, should be about the visitor - not about you, not about your products.
Ball's site could focus on its nifty caning jars, it's useful jar lifters, or its canning products. All well and good. But that gets boring, fast.
Instead, they focus on ME and my PROBLEMS - my problems were:
- I'm new to canning and making jam.
- I'm confused about this thing called pectin.
- I only have 2 quarts of berries and the typical recipe calls for more; how do I adapt it?
- How do I convert the amounts to my smaller quantity?
- I need an easy recipe to feel successful!
YOUR KEY TAKE-AWAYS
As a business owner, you may be doing a lot of your own website work or blogging yourself. To make your website work FOR you, not against you, use these tips and tricks:
- Write up a simple visitor profile to help you imagine your typical customers. WHY does he or she come to your website?
- Now, what content can you add to HELP him or her SOLVE PROBLEMS?
- What benefits do your services offer?
- Can you provide examples, such as testimonials, of helping people who have had similar problems?
- How can you convey this through pictures (images) as well as through text?
Ball Canning does it right. Their website was a pleasure to use. I hope yours is, too.
Oh, and the jam? Delicious. Simply delicious. (Recipe is on my blog, here - Wild Blackberry Jam)
PR Tips: Never Whine in Public
When I read a headline like this, I gag.
"Chelsea Clinton: I tried to care about money." (NY Daily News)
Oh dear me, you poor baby! With millions and millions of dollars, an investment banker husband, wealthy parents and a cushy job from said parents...you TRIED to care about money?
Now, I doubt I'll ever be in the position to be asked the same question as the former president's daughter. And I'm not knocking being wealthy - far from it. I don't mind if you're rich. More power to you and enjoy what you have.
Just don't pretend that you aren't rich when you are.
Don't make it seem like money isn't important when the whole world knows you've got plenty of it, and the readers of the paper are struggling to pay the rent, put their kids through college and fill their gas tanks to drive to work each week.
The public hates hearing rich, privileged people whine about their wealth and opportunities. It's like when the BP oil spill happened in the Gulf and the CEO complained about how he just wanted to get his life back. The people along the gulf coast were outraged, and with good reason. The CEO wanted his life back? How about the people who fished or shrimped for a living, who ran hotels or resorts or charter boats or restaurants that relied on tourism, now suspended because of an oil slick that threatened not just their comfort in the next few weeks but their entire lives? That's another good example of what NOT to say in public.
Here's what we can learn from the former BP CEO and from Chelsea Clinton. While you and I might not be interviewed during a crisis like an oil spill or asked why we joined our parents' foundation, we may have to navigate PR waters some day, and it's a good thing to learn as much as you can before you're in a situation that gets out of hand.
- Pause and think before you answer a reporter's questions: If you're doing a live interview on television or radio, remain focused and don't worry about pausing before answering. You don't have to be glib or quick with your answers. It is better to be slow and thoughtful than to put a foot in your mouth. The same goes for telephone interviews with reporters. Take it easy and think before you speak.
- Always keep it positive. Chelsea Clinton, when asked why she joined her parents' foundation, should have focused on her positive motivations. "I don't care about money" sounds snobby, greedy and just plain silly to most Americans. Instead, she should have emphasized what she DID care about - namely, the same causes that her parents espouse and support through the foundation. It's amusing to consider that she wanted to distance herself from her parents' ideals but couldn't, and that was a good starting place to build rapport with her audience. But she went off message by emphasizing money over ideals.
- Stay on message! Public relations experts talk about remaining 'on message' during communications opportunities. Every person, company, cause or brand has a message behind it. Know what drives your business and your mindset, and what the overall, overarching message you want to convey to the public is, and always bring your points around to that message.
You can't control the media, but you CAN control your response to it. Emphasize the positive, stay on message and pause, think and breathe before responding. You'll be glad you did when the interviews turn out favorable!
3 Tips to Get More Traffic to Your Website
Wouldn’t it be great if you get customers to flock to your website like this? While there’s no magic formula, there are specific steps that you as a small business owner can take to boost your website traffic. Here are my top 3 tips for improving your site’s search engine position, visibility and traffic. If you need help implementing any of them, contact me at Seven Oaks Consulting for a consultation.
Tip #1: Update your website frequently with juicy, interesting content and share-able graphics.
Search engines love fresh website content, and the more frequently a site is updated, the better. That’s one of the many reasons why website owners love Wordpress-hosted sites; the built-in blogging capacity offers easy site updates.
It’s not enough to simply swap out a picture or change a headline and call it a day. What are you saying on your website, both through your text and images? Are you using information to enhance your expertise, your brand position, your approachability?
Content offers entry points for visitors into your website. If you don’t have a content marketing plan, create one or talk to us about creating one for you. Content continues to be an integral part of online marketing and a great way to attract new site visitors once it is shared.
Tip #2: Share Content on Social Media
Share appropriate, brand-supporting links; build networks by commenting and interacting with your followers. Make sure you have social media icons prominently displayed on your website so that site visitors can find you and follow you on their choice of media platforms. Building a robust social media presence helps you generate links into your site when you share those links widely across social media.
Tip #3: Interact Beyond Your Usual Online Platforms
Broaden your outreach efforts. Consciously make an effort to visit new blogs. Bloglovin’ is a great place to find blogs of interest. You can type in the name of a blog you like, and the site helps you find similar ones. I also find fascinating new blogs through Pinterest. Many pinners share images from their blogs, and the link appears below the image when you click through to the original pin. It’s worth trying, especially if your business website is one that lends itself to images or blogger outreach.
Building website traffic takes time and effort. If your traffic is stagnant, it’s time to look beyond your current internet marketing efforts. [pullquote align="left|center|right" textalign="left|center|right" width="30%"]Getting customers to flock to your site is a combination of creating a great website with frequently updated content, sharing that content, and introducing yourself to a wider circle of acquaintances.[/pullquote] Try these three tips today and spend time this summer boosting your visibility online.
How to Be a Great Guest Blogger
Guest blogging is a great way to increase your audience reach online. Guest blogging is, as the name implies, sharing your content on someone else's blog as a guest. Some blogs welcome guests, while others don't permit them. This blog does not offer guest blogging opportunities, but I do welcome opportunities to write for other business and marketing blogs. So please contact me using the contact form if you'd like to have me write a guest post for your blog.
Like being a guest in someone's home, there are certain rules of etiquette when guest blogging. Just as you wouldn't peek into your host's medicine cabinet (you wouldn't, right?) or take a tour through their underwear drawer as you detour into the bedroom on your way to the bathroom (tell me you won't do this...please), so too as a guest blogger you won't cross the line into advertising copy.
When you're guest blogging, the emphasis should be on:
- Sharing knowledge freely from your particular niche or area of expertise;
- Offering more than recycled content - offering readers something new, unique and engaging;
- Keeping the focus on the blog's readers, not on your business;
- Supporting the blog owner's work or business by sharing links to your post freely with YOUR social networks.
It also helps to be prepared for common requests from blog hosts once they have agreed to have you as a guest on their blog. The most common requests are:
- A good headshot or photograph of yourself
- A bio of you (keep it short, 3 sentences, max)
- Links to your website and social media profiles
I have a speaker package on my computer that includes all of this information and more. It also includes sample questions, in case the blog host prefers a Q and A format rather than a straight post.
How do you obtain guest blog posts on other people's blogs? There are directories available, or you can search in your area of specialty or niche for blogs on similar topics and write a short, personal email to the blog host asking first if they accept guest posts. Include a brief mention of why you'd like to be a guest on the blog, including the intended topic. This isn't the time to go into a length spiel; keep it short and to the point. Your initial contact with the blogger should be to the point and focused. You're just trying to ascertain whether or not they accept guest posts, and if so, if they are open to your idea.
The benefits of guest blogging are enormous. Not only will you share your insights with a completely new audience, but you'll also gain valuable inbound links to your website, potential social media followers and additional publishing credits to your name. Your host will get a day off and an interesting, engaging post to enliven his blog and educate and entertain his readers. It's a win-win for you both!
This post was written by Jeanne Grunert, a marketing writer and president of Seven Oaks Consulting. Visit our website, sign up for our newsletter, and get a free copy of The Little Book of Big Marketing Secrets.
Three Ways to Generate Content When You're Stuck
Everyone gets stuck on occasion. I'm not talking stuck, like Winnie the Pooh in his tree or like a kid getting his head stuck in a stair banister. I'm talking creatively stuck, as in, "Oh no...I've got write four blog posts this month and I don't know what the heck to write about..."
Feeling stuck like that is no fun, especially when you're a business person with a pile of tasks waiting for you. It's easy to push aside content marketing and get back to things you feel like you can actually do right now, like pay the bills and check your Facebook account for the 100th time today (guilty as charged).
But if you keep avoiding the blank page, or in this case the blank screen, you'll be left without content and without the opportunity to share your expertise with the world. And what fun is that? None in my book!
I've pulled together three of my top tips for generating content when you feel absolutely stuck, like you're staring at a blank wall or that the creative well has completely dried up. Feel free to grab any of these tips and try them today if you're facing that situation.
- Compile your own "top 10", "top 5" or whatever list. Go back and look over what you've already created. Chances are good you've got several posts you can group together into a 'best of' sequence of posts. Write a one paragraph summary and introduction (surely you can do THAT), and then use bullet points to link to the original posts you wrote. Voila. Instant blog post!
- Create a meme, quotable quote, or Pinterest-worthy share. Use only your own original photos to ensure you're in the copyright clear. Find a quotable quote. Use a free service like Pixlr.com or PicMonkey.com, add the quote, and share. Instant content!
- Review a product, service or website in your industry or niche. I like this one because you can talk about something or someone else without feeling pressured to sell, sell, sell. Plus, you're sharing the love, by helping someone else sell without any pay off on your own. It's a feel-good way to get yourself writing again. I'd stick with only positive reviews, but that's just me. Negative may get you more press, but positive gets you more karma points.
The next time you're feeling stuck, think of this:
So take action!
Written by Jeanne Grunert, Seven Oaks Consulting. Jeanne is an award-winning writer, blogger and marketing consultant helping companies acquire, retain and create loyal customers. She is available for freelance work.
The New PR: Blogger Outreach
Traditional PR (public relations) still has a place in most businesses' marketing plans. It's a smart move to add blogger outreach to your mix in addition to traditional press releases and media outlets.
Contacting bloggers and courting them as blogger-reporters requires a different mindset and approach from the traditional PR approach. Bloggers, for example, have smaller followings than newspapers or websites, but those followers tend to be fiercely loyal, eager readers who engage more frequently with bloggers. Blogs tend to focus more tightly on a specific niche topic, too.
There are other differences which will change how you approach blogger-outreach as compared to media outreach. Blogdash offers a new free paper on the topic. You can download it after following their instructions. Visit Blogdash.