About Jodi Kaplan

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The Three Step Elevator Pitch

Step One:

Name the kinds of people you help. This is your ideal customer. It can be schools, small businesses, oil companies, busy moms.. whoever it is that you work with.

Step Two:

Identify a problem they have. Take the example of busy moms. If you offer time management and organization services, say something about how moms have to manage kids, the house, often a job, a husband, manage household expenses, carpooling, activities, etc. and often find themselves trying to go in five directions at once.

Step Three:

Describe how you solve the problem. You offer time management systems that let moms do twice as much in half the time – so they have time left to relax!

What you want is a statement that clearly identifies your target, the problem, and the solution.

For example, on 4/16/08, Kim asked for a review of her elevator pitch on Marketing Pros Exchange. She said, “I’m the president of an event marketing company that specializes in developing innovative events for businesses that want events with a big impact. We custom design each of our events to our client’s specifications, while also providing you with creative marketing ideas and a fresh perspective on emerging trends that can make your event uniquely memorable.”

Listening to that doesn’t help me make a decision whether to hire Kim. I don’t really know what kinds of companies she works with, the problems they have, or how she solves those problems.

She’s not qualifying herself in any way or saying anything which builds trust.

When she asked the question, I suggested she try something like, “I’m the Corporate Event Wizard. I take all the stress out of organizing, scheduling, and planning your corporate events. All you have to do is call, then relax, and be a guest at your own party!”

This states what she does, defines the problems that she solves, and offers a solution.

Need more help?

Try the pitch wizard at http://www.15secondpitch.com.

Photo: billaday

Are You Well-Rounded? Or Sharply Pointed?

Someone told me recently that when he went to the local supermarket, he found the store selling TVs, fans, and refurbished Dell laptops.

What happened to food??  And, who will support those laptops if they break or the software crashes?

Don’t try to spread yourself too thin by being all things to all people.  Instead, focus sharply on one or two things that you’re really passionate about. Decide on your ideal customer, and your ideal market.

Be able to describe what you do in just a few words. It can be as simple as “I paint schools” – what you do, where you do it, who you do it for. The more you add, the more it confuses your audience.

Even better, do something that stands out and offers a benefit: “I paint schools using non-toxic paint, so children stay safe.”

title of this post (i) by Joel Canfield, the Commonsense Entrepreneur

Photo credit percita

Why You Should Clean Your Email List

clean email list
This little guy has the right idea. Lists (and floors) should be cleaned regularly. If not, the floor will get dirty and look bad. The list will get dirty too.

A dirty list doesn’t show the dirt the way a floor does, but it will affect the quality of your marketing and how much money you make.

List hygiene isn’t glamorous, but a clean list means more money, a better return on your investment, and the ability to better target your audience’s needs.

Size doesn’t matter as much as quality

Why is quality important?

A dirty list means more bounces. That can get you in trouble with your email provider.  It can also mean that you get too many people unsubscribing from your list (which also makes you look bad). And those things can lead to being labeled a spammer.

A dirty list can also cost you money. Most email providers charge by your list size.  A bigger list is great if it’s clean, updated, and responsive. It’s less than ideal if you’re spending money to reach old, outdated email addresses.

Update your list regularly

If this seems daunting, it’s easier to do it in small steps. My grandmother had the world’s cleanest house. Her secret? She did a little each day, rather than all at once.

Check the names on your file on a scheduled basis.  Remind them why they signed up, what kind of information or emails they’ll get from you (particularly if you haven’t emailed them in a while.   Give them the option to confirm they want to stay on your list or to unsubscribe. Offer a small gift or report in return for a response.

Remove people who are inactive

Check your list for names that are still valid, but inactive.  If someone hasn’t opened your email in six months or more, send a friendly reminder.  If they still ignore you, remove them from your list.

Get better engagement

A smaller, more active list is better than a large, indifferent one.  You’ll get a much better idea of the topics your readers are interested in and can better target your messages.

Photo: hardeep and garminder

Can publishers build a tribe?

A few days ago, I responded to a book blog post and said that “consumers don’t care which publisher produces the books they buy.” I may have to eat my words.

Yesterday’s special issue of Shelf Awareness (a book industry newsletter) spotlighted HarperStuio (a new division of HarperCollins). Faced with a whole brave new world of reading options, declining book sales, and the Internet, HarperStudio decided to do something different.

Instead of paying big advances, they’re offering to share more of the profits with their authors. And, they want to offer book buyers the opportunity to also purchase audio and e-book versions of the same title for only a few dollars more. Instead of seeing ebooks as a threat, they’re offering them as a complement to traditional reading, seeing a consumer reading a printed book at home, the e-book while traveling or commuting, and listening to the audio version while driving. So, if the original book was $29.95, the audio and e-books might be an additional $2.

This would certainly make me want to be part of the HarperStudio tribe – and look specifically for that company’s books.

They’re coming up with creative ways to build a following. They’re encouraging authors to start blogging after the book is acquired, showing them how to Twitter, and getting them to use social networking tools such as myspace, facebook, and stumbleupon. Authors are given flip cameras to create video stories about their books. Fans can watch the videos, send them to friends, and “stumble” the links.

How can you build your tribe?

What Response Rate Will Your Direct Mailing Get?

direct marketing response rate

photo by marfis75

You want to start a direct mailing campaign, but you’re not certain what your response rate will be or how much money you can expect to earn. Every campaign for every company is different, but here are seven ways to estimate what your response rate will be.

1. Whether you’re trying to generate leads or actual sales.

The response rate for a mailing with a free guide or consultation will be higher than one asking for a sale because there’s less of a commitment.

2. The relationship between the appeal of your offer and the investment required.

A chance to win a free Ferrari will get a high response rate because it has a high appeal, and a low commitment.

On the other hand, a mailing offering a prospectus to buy vacation homes in Vermont will have a lower response rate because purchasing a home requires an investment of many thousands of dollars.

3. Generally, response rates go up as prices go down and vice versa.

For instance, if you sell $5 ink cartridges, you may need a 2% or 3% response rate to make money on your mailings. On the other hand, if you sell Ferraris and a letter mailed to 2,000 people nets you three sales (a response rate of only .15%), you’ll be very happy.

The important thing to keep in mind is how many sales you need to make a profit on your mailing.

4. Whether the names are current buyers or prospects.

The response from people who have already bought something from you can be double that of those who haven’t.

5. If your list is your own house list or a rented list.

The house list will perform better than an outside one, because your own customers already have a relationship with you.

6. How well the names on the list match your target audience.

The more closely the names you select match your ideal buyer (business size, industry, job title, etc.), the more likely it is that they will respond to your offer.

It is better to reach 5,000 of the right people than 50,000 of the wrong people.

Again, in-house lists will perform better than one you buy or rent from someone else. Even when mailing to your own list, it’s important to make the right selection of people from that list. Choosing the wrong people can be disastrous. Someone at Ebiza (an online catalog company) mistakenly send a big holiday mailing to customers who were “least likely to buy again.” The results were so bad the company went out of business!

7. The “creative”.

This includes the words you use, the design, the colors, the paper, the size of the mailing, whether it’s a postcard or a letter, and how many components it has.


BONUS

A new report from Mailer Mailer on email marketing campaign results shows that the email open rate across all industries averages 15.25, and clickthroughs were 2.16%. Get the free Mailer Mailer report here.