The offline files

If you really want to succeed - take your online business….offline!

“What? Take your business offline” I hear some of you asking. Are you mad? Well, no. Bear with me here. You see, we hear a lot these days about online marketing, email marketing, newsletters, blogs, web 2.0 (social networking) etc. as a way creating new business.

Well, these things hold true – to an extent. But did you know that there is a far more ‘effective’ way of generating new business? For example, are you aware that there is no easier market to talk too than the customer list you already have right now?

These are the easiest people in the world to do more business with – and the most cost effective to target. But there is more to it than that – lots more. Let’s say you run a Specialist Teas shop. You are good with customers.

You treat them right and they refer friends to your business. You even send out a monthly newsletter that contains the ‘Tea of the Month’ article. Things are ticking along nicely. Or are they? That newsletter you send out. What responses do you get from it?

Are you talking ‘shop’ in each issue or trying to temp the recipient into another purchase? What is your primary objective in your company newsletter? If it is to generate more sales but it’s not working as well as you’d hope, don’t be down hearted.

There is a simple solution. Take your customers offline. Let me explain. Suppose you want to target your newsletter list with an incredible offer/bargain/deal or whatever. What you do is simply write to them the ‘old fashioned’ way – via post.

Have your ‘offer’ delivered to them so it drops on their doormat. Why? Because tests have shown that talking to your customers by traditional mail can increase responses by over 300%!!!

But here’s the ‘cake-icing’. You still send out an email (or newsletter) alerting you customers to look out for something you posted to them today. It contains a very special offer that they are not going to want to miss. They can’t miss the letter – it is in a big red envelope and marked urgent.

See what we did there? We whet the appetite of the recipient before they even get the offer in the post! I guarantee if you talk to your customer list in this way, the response rate to your offers will go through the roof. Try it!

The offline files