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Email:
CardsFromBarry@aol.com
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GIFTS
that your customers can send with their greeting
cards Everyone loves peanuts and AvenueSweets offers three wonderful varieties in this tasty medley:
A delectable
mix of top quality peanuts, plus almonds, brazil nuts, hazelnuts,
cashews and pecans. Since nuts contain no cholesterol and are a
good source of minerals and nutrients, AvenueSweets Premium Nut
Mix is a gift you can feel great about giving.
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Create Employee Loyalty
NEVER FORGET ANOTHER EVENT! Nothing makes people feel more appreciated than a kind word or
two contained in a personalized greeting card from you. It works
because it's unexpected, shows attention to detail, and it communicates
your message in a way that's virtually guaranteed to be well received.
And now, the process of sending a greeting card couldn't be easier,
using our automated greeting card sender. With your greeting card
business you will get a paid on every card your customers send out.
E-Mail vs. Direct Mail Marketing E-mail is cheap. You can send out letters to your e-mail list as many times as you want without spending huge amounts on postage. Since e-mail has little cost and direct-mail rates are high, it came as something of a surprise to find out business owners are planning to increase their spending on direct mail. DIRECT MAIL PROS Discussing how well an e-mail list performs versus a direct mail program, it was found out that, for getting new business (or more business), direct mail has been producing better results. I didn't understand why. Just a few years ago, many firms abandoned direct mail almost overnight in favor of e-mail and Web sites. There seemed to be a massive migration to electronic marketing because "everybody was doing it" and nobody wanted to seem to be "out of step." E-mail "blasting" could reach tens of thousands of buyers at a fraction of the cost of direct mail. It was also quick and easy to implement. But, I think, since everybody was doing it, it wasn't taken as seriously as direct mail. Constant bombardment from tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of spam sites could be almost too much for many customers to bear. E-mail started to be intrusive. Today, you have to compete with Nigerian money scams, Viagra at give-away prices, stock hypes, porn sites and mail-order drugs. You also have to compete with e-mail solicitations from big companies such as Pier One, Best Buy, Circuit City, Amazon, etc. Here are some of the reasons I was given from kitchen and bath retailers who have made the choice to go back to direct mail marketing on a regular basis.
Tangible Evidence I remember years back when I was working in retail, I had a clinic on a date that snuck up on me. We forgot to promote it until just a week before. While we were running around trying to figure out what to do, we decided to send out a thousand-piece mailer as well as get our salespeople on the phone with our past customers and try to get them in. In the midst of the confusion, half of the direct mail envelopes were sent out unstuffed by mistake. There was nothing in them. And, unbelievably, half of those people who received the empty envelope were intrigued enough to call and ask what was in them. We told the people who called about the clinic, and many of those people came and brought their friends. Compare that to e-mail. Send an e-mail to someone with no subject line or no message, and it gets deleted in a flash. Forget who it came from. It's one less thing to have to deal with. Spam filters are also grabbing a lot of the messages…even the ones that are sent to your opt-in list. So, don't throw away your customer mailing list in favor of an e-mail list. Continue to update it. Purge it once in a while. Get the name of every person who calls into your showroom on the phone, and then try for an address to keep him or her on your customer/prospect list. Don't throw out those leads from home shows and outside events. Set them up in their own category on your mailing list. Keep in contact with your past customers - maybe they might not be in the market for something else right away, but they probably will know people who liked their new kitchen or bath, and would like a new one, as well. Direct mail in an envelope that you can touch, with a letter you can feel, can work wonders. Buy a good mailing list once in a while to attract new business. Continue to use your e-mail list, but don't forget about direct mail. It still has tremendous benefits.
2) Personalize it! Never limit yourself to the message that came in the card. Always add your own personal touch or flair. 3) Never use address labels for the recipient, or metered postage. Use a stamp and handwrite or type the envelope. 4) When complimenting someone in your card, be specific with them about what it is you like about them. Don't just say you're a good person, be more specific (example: "I like having you as a friend because you take a sincere interest in the things that matter to me!"). 5) Make sending cards a habit instead of an occasional afterthought. You'll find your relationships will grow as you express yourself to the people that matter to you. 6) Don't wait for special occasions to send a card. Holidays and birthdays are great, but an unexpected card for no particular reason can have a great impact too! 7) Don't print it, stuff and send it yourself. Let us do that for you! Sending greeting cards to friends, lovers and family is a tradition that goes back over 200 years. While the first greeting card actually dates back to the early 1400's, greeting cards became popular in the mid 1800's when the cost of color printing dropped, and cards could be delivered for just a penny. Sir Henry Cole is credited with coming up with the idea for the first mass produced greeting card, which turned out to be a Christmas card he had created by his good friend, John Calcott Horsely. That year, Cole was late sending his usual holiday greetings letters to all his friends and relatives for Christmas. He contacted Horsely to ask if he was able to hand colour and engrave a thousand cards for him with a seasonal message which could then be sent to everyone. Horsely accommodated him, and thus began the tradition of sending holiday greeting cards. And so the first modern Christmas card was born. It depicted a young boy with a red scarf and the greeting 'Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year'. Sir Henry was delighted with the result. He even sold the left over cards in Old Bond Street for a shilling each! With the help of the penny post, which had been introduced in England a few years earlier, the practice couldn't help but catch on and grow. By the 1860's, Americans were importing most of their greeting cards from Germany, but in 1906 a gentlemen from Cleveland by the name of Jacob Sapirstein started his own greeting card business. With a $50 loan acquired at a local bank, Sapirstein began selling penny postcards greeting cards at local drug stores, and quickly became a success. After his death in 1918 his son and wife continued the business and grew it to enormous success. As the concept of greeting cards grew, people found many occasions to send them, including holidays, birthdays, or just to say hello. The greeting card then became a fixture in American culture, and has continued to grow ever since. In the 1980's the greeting card market was growing by 10% per year. Small publishing houses were establishing themselves and specialist card shops, also selling giftwrap and associated gifts were springing up on nearly every high street and shopping mall. By the 1900's the Post Office was having to handle an extra 11.5 million letters in Christmas week alone. Today, the greeting card business grosses over $7.5 Billion dollars per year, with literally millions of cards sent annually. All of that adds to the wonderful feelings we hold for our friends and family members and we reach out to let them know how we feel about them! Why focus on relationship marketing? Customer relationships are the lifeblood of every good company. Relationships between a company and their customers, distributors, employees, referral sources, are vital to continued, sustained growth, and stability. Loyal relationships with these valued individuals make for a strong bottom line. So, why do so few companies focus of customer relationship marketing? That's a great question, and probably the most frequent answer is lack of understanding of the potential profits in keeping existing customers happy versus constantly acquiring new ones. When you consider that two-thirds of customers switch from one company to another because of a perceived attitude of indifference from the former company, it makes sense to focus as much attention on customer retention as you do on customer acquisition. Don't be a victim of indifference. Develop a good relationship marketing program that takes into consideration both customer relationship marketing, and customer acquisition through relationship marketing. With well-planned relationship marketing efforts, like a greeting card campaign using our system, you can impact retention -- and that will impact the bottom line. According to customer relationship management experts, companies can increase revenue by 50% if they retain only 5% more of their customers. Don't you want your share of that revenue? Our system is the way to put the process of keeping those dollars on autopilot. Solidify loyal relationships with your most valuable customers. Business owners tend to be driven, both financially and philosophically, to make cold calls, pursue new contacts, and acquire new customers. But often, little thought is given to nurturing relationships with the customers they already have. Given that acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing one, this can be a costly approach. Customers who are continuously courted, interacted with, and reminded of your company's presence are less likely to go racing off when competitors come calling. Making those customers feel recognized, known and appreciated can go a long way toward locking up their loyalty. And, it's also a great way to get them referring others. Restore broken relationships and win back business. Regardless of how effective your customer retention efforts are, some relationships will inevitably break down. For various reasons, certain customers will suspend their relationship with you and your business. But those relationships aren't lost. You can win back these once-valuable customers. Often times, repairing a broken relationship is more efficient than trying to build one from scratch. But many companies make the mistake of attempting to re-acquire lost customers in the same way that they acquire new ones. But failing to use what you know about those past customers -- and what they know about you -- to your advantage can cost you time and money. Our automated greeting card system lets you minimize the potential for losing a client or customer, and also streamlines the process of acquiring new ones, all at a cost that cannot be matched in any other customer acquisition or retention system. So, if you have not formulated a marketing plan that includes a focus on relationship marketing with an automated tool like ours, you owe it to yourself and to your business to try it out today. How
to Start a Home Greeting Card Business
"A SINGLE THOUGHT CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING" CLICK, WE PRINT AND SEND, Its That Simple! |
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GREETING CARD HOME BUSINESS | HOME BASED GREETING CARD BUSINESS HOME BASED BUSINESS GREETING CARDS How to Start a home greeting card business - Selling Greeting Cards as a home business |
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© 2008 GREETING CARD HOME BUSINESS Anaheim Hills, CA 92808, Suite 100 Phone: 877-400-8695 Email: CardsFromBarry@aol.com ...................................................................................... |
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