Do Business Well

Is email direct marketing an industry unto itself? Not at all. The principles of service-based marketing and communication are essential to the success of any online marketing initiative. And email is a mission-critical tool that plays an integral role in the e-marketing and communications mix for all online merchants. But as we’ve touched on earlier, email itself is just one of a large number of electronic communications channels that e-marketers will be using in the future. Furthermore, marketers ultimately won’t want to manage relationships with a large number of different service providers.

That may be why there have been so many industry consolidations. Netcentives acquired Post Communications in order to broaden its technology infrastructure and provide a wide range of relationship marketing services, from customer acquisition programs and customized email relationship marketing programs to loyalty programs and promotions. Continue Reading »

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A number of different providers can help you solve your email customer communications and marketing needs.

Email Marketing Service Providers

Over the past few years a new breed of company has grown up to meet the demand for complete solutions to companies‘ email marketing needs. Providers offer a wide variety of marketing services, technical capabilities, and focus. The services these companies (the three leading players are Post Communications, Message Media, and Digital Impact) provide range from customized email marketing programs and high-volume email delivery to one-off direct email campaign execution. Naturally, prices vary considerably. Most still charge based on the old direct marketing model of cost per email sent, while others have introduced new pricing models that are based on managing the customer database and optimizing the value of the client’s customer relationships. What they have in common is that they allow you to out- source all—or at least a large part—of your email marketing solution. Continue Reading »

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I owned and operated a wholesale company with approximately one thousand retailers as my customers. I was completely computerized and sent statements to my customers every month in addition to their invoices.

We offered a 3 percent cash discount for payments received within ten days of invoice date. We charged 1.5 percent per month interest on accounts that were not paid within the standard thirty- day terms. The U.S. economy had enjoyed two very prosperous years. For all of these reasons, the company was collecting its accounts in an average of thirty days.

In addition, we had only needed to write off .5 percent of our total sales because of the bankruptcies or liquidations of our customers. This was excellent, given the number and quality of our customers. Continue Reading »

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Once you get yourself past some of the barriers that seem to be an inherent part of the writing process, you can confront some of the issues particular to the business plan. The overriding point, though, is to keep yourself focused as much as possible on business issues rather than on writing issues. My experience is that the better understanding you have of the business issues, the more easily the writing comes.

While there’s no one right way to write the business plan (or any other material), here are some approaches/techniques I have found to be useful:

1. Determine the priority of issues/success factors for each area of the business. In other words, for each section of the plan—the company, marketing, product/service, sales, and financial sections—list in order of importance the challenges facing your business. Also provide your approaches/solutions for handling the challenges.

For example, for the sales segment, suppose that key issues are whether you can justify an in-house sales force, how you will train it, and how much advertising you can accomplish within the $10,000 advertising budget you have available. List each of these issues and then explain the justifications or solutions for each. This is how your analysis might look: Continue Reading »

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Managers at Ford Motor chose Siebel to provide essential software for a call center that links Ford, its dealers, and its business partners. They report that the reliable Siebel team makes sure that everyone at Ford who needs to understand and feel comfortable with the software does so. The call center’s chief says that if he were really unhappy, he could call Tom Siebel anytime, “and he’d take care of it.” Other customers are just as happy. Lodging giant Marriott International Inc. has used Siebel software for several elaborate programs and finds that Siebel people are always a step ahead of Marriott’s five-year plan. Siebel’s mantra, says a Marriott executive, is “How does what we do help your business?”

For new market leaders, such as Solectron and Siebel Systems, it is not sufficient to fill their customers‘ orders. They are committed to their customers‘ success, determined that the products or services they sell will bring the results that their customers need. There is an old marketing chestnut worth repeating: Customers don’t buy drills, they buy holes. It is results that count. If there is a better way than yours for your customer to get the results she wants, don’t wait for her to find it; show her, and find a way to provide it. Continue Reading »

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According to research company Forrester (www.forrester.com), two-thirds of e-Shopping transactions are aborted after the shopper has already placed goods in the shopping basket, and nine out of ten buyers do not make a repeat purchase. e-Retailers need to make the purchasing process reliable, easy to use and efficient, removing the reasons for abandoning purchases. Human contact needs to be available to sort out problems — at least by email, but preferably also with a phone option. A software device such as HyPhone from Byzantium allows ‘phone- through’ without dropping the Internet connection (www.byzantium.com during office hours for a live demonstration). Continue Reading »

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