Here are some more low-cost CRM ideas and strategies for when your money is tighter than tight.
1) Sit down with your people and explain the rationale behind company decisions.
2) Streamline your companies technology to make sure it is all interconnected so there is no redundancy of keyboarding and that there is a free flow of information between departments .
3) Develop a process and a culture to use equipment to its fullest potential
4) The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) still holes so take a big gulp. Maybe it’s time to trim the lowest 20% of your performers in all areas of the company.
5) Empower people to author articles and white papers for publishing. Maybe put a section on your web site for frequently asked questions.
6) Pursue a proactive messaging outreach to all stakeholders of your company. You, owners, employees, suppliers and customers.
7) Deploy self-service applications where they do not diminish the customer’s interaction with you.
8) Utilize workforce management tools to increase your people’s efficiency. This might mean an upgrade in CRM software or a better access to what you now have.
9) Intensify training initiatives for your people. Training should not be a punishment exercise use when something goes bad but a proactive tool.
10) Move CSR out of the domain of a few and into the hands of all your front line people.
Larson note: Challenge yourself and your people to be proactive with knowledge If you reward the wrong things you will have knowledge mongers and fiefdoms built up where sales, marketing, customer relation people horde their own information as a safety tool and net. Get your team pulling together or they will pull you apart
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. We are offering 2 free ½ hour consultations a week for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
*Source: Customer Relations Management
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Week Ahead for February 16-20, 2009
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday: January housing starts, January industrial production
Thursday: Weekly initial jobless claims, January producers index, January leading economic indicators
Friday: January consumer price index
Larson note: Last week we had an unexpected surprise in the retail sales. That one cought me totally off guard. This week? I think there will start to show how we are bottoming out in this mess and that there is a upswing on the horizon. Nothing major but we should start to see something
Howard’s out of office public schedule for the week:
Monday: 6:30am Group running training Midtown (free)Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday: 6:30am Group running training at Midtown (free)
Friday:
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. We are offering 2 free ½ hour consultations per week to talk about marketing and your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
P.P.P.S, subscribe to our newsletter "Mastering Marketing Monthly" at larsonassoc1980@yahoo.com
Tuesday:
Wednesday: January housing starts, January industrial production
Thursday: Weekly initial jobless claims, January producers index, January leading economic indicators
Friday: January consumer price index
Larson note: Last week we had an unexpected surprise in the retail sales. That one cought me totally off guard. This week? I think there will start to show how we are bottoming out in this mess and that there is a upswing on the horizon. Nothing major but we should start to see something
Howard’s out of office public schedule for the week:
Monday: 6:30am Group running training Midtown (free)Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday: 6:30am Group running training at Midtown (free)
Friday:
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. We are offering 2 free ½ hour consultations per week to talk about marketing and your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
P.P.P.S, subscribe to our newsletter "Mastering Marketing Monthly" at larsonassoc1980@yahoo.com
Friday, February 13, 2009
Watch All the Super Bowl Spots
From Bud to Pepsi to Cash4Gold, They're All Here:
http://adage.com/article?article_id=134136
Did you miss one of the Super Bowl ads? Never fear, Ad Age gathered them all up and put them here http://adage.com/article?article_id=134136 for your viewing pleasure. From the Budweiser Clydesdales to the SoBe Lizards, watch them all as often as you like.
Larson note: I was not impressed with this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads. On the whole they lacked good advertising practices. They were not well made. They did not get there message across easily and they did not stand out in my mind to be remembered and talk about around the water cooler the next day. But then what know, they only want me to spend money on their products and services. Try again guys.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. We are offering 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
*Source: Advertising age
http://adage.com/article?article_id=134136
Did you miss one of the Super Bowl ads? Never fear, Ad Age gathered them all up and put them here http://adage.com/article?article_id=134136 for your viewing pleasure. From the Budweiser Clydesdales to the SoBe Lizards, watch them all as often as you like.
Larson note: I was not impressed with this year’s crop of Super Bowl ads. On the whole they lacked good advertising practices. They were not well made. They did not get there message across easily and they did not stand out in my mind to be remembered and talk about around the water cooler the next day. But then what know, they only want me to spend money on their products and services. Try again guys.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. We are offering 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
*Source: Advertising age
New Web Site Going Up
Ok its happening. Yes finally. After a few set-backs and an out of business web site designer last year, the new Larson & Associates set is officially under development and construction at:
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
This site will as all sites are a work in process.
Phase 1: Will entail me putting down the general concept in basic pages; get the flow going, working on some of the basic text, number of pages, page names and all that good web type stuff. You know, key words, page descriptions, etc.
Phase 2: Will be (is) going on at the same time will entail interviewing web designers to make the final (ongoing) edition of the site. This same person (company) will become my official web designer of choice and will have first rights on all and any web work that my company takes in. I believe that if I trust them to make my site and people looking at my site like what they see, that is what they are buying.
Phase 3: Get new professional site up and running.
Phase 4: Will be (is) ongoing is the search engine submission of the site to get it listed. This will be done internally until a professional company is found to take over the task. I have done this so I do know what I’m doing. Again if I do outsource this function this company will become my official web submission/optimization company of choice and rather than do the submissions as an internal function this will be outsourced to this company.
Phase 5: Start phase 3 all over again.
Larson note: This will be a work in progress and I encourage you to comment and make suggestions as to what and how a web site should work, look and function. I learned long ago that I need to accept other peoples comments and take it all in, think about it and use what is useful and through the rest away. So I hope you will join me in this journey as we make the new online Larson site. It’s for you our customers and prospects. We only stand behind the site with professional advertising & marketing services.
If you noticed here, I am or will be outsourcing many of the things you might think I would do internally. Think again.
Larson & Associates is a company that does some things such as New Account Acquisition and Target Guerrilla Marketing as an internal function, but in this, we are asking companies to outsource some of their sales and marketing functions to us. We in kind, outsource some of those functions to others who can do it better to them.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
This site will as all sites are a work in process.
Phase 1: Will entail me putting down the general concept in basic pages; get the flow going, working on some of the basic text, number of pages, page names and all that good web type stuff. You know, key words, page descriptions, etc.
Phase 2: Will be (is) going on at the same time will entail interviewing web designers to make the final (ongoing) edition of the site. This same person (company) will become my official web designer of choice and will have first rights on all and any web work that my company takes in. I believe that if I trust them to make my site and people looking at my site like what they see, that is what they are buying.
Phase 3: Get new professional site up and running.
Phase 4: Will be (is) ongoing is the search engine submission of the site to get it listed. This will be done internally until a professional company is found to take over the task. I have done this so I do know what I’m doing. Again if I do outsource this function this company will become my official web submission/optimization company of choice and rather than do the submissions as an internal function this will be outsourced to this company.
Phase 5: Start phase 3 all over again.
Larson note: This will be a work in progress and I encourage you to comment and make suggestions as to what and how a web site should work, look and function. I learned long ago that I need to accept other peoples comments and take it all in, think about it and use what is useful and through the rest away. So I hope you will join me in this journey as we make the new online Larson site. It’s for you our customers and prospects. We only stand behind the site with professional advertising & marketing services.
If you noticed here, I am or will be outsourcing many of the things you might think I would do internally. Think again.
Larson & Associates is a company that does some things such as New Account Acquisition and Target Guerrilla Marketing as an internal function, but in this, we are asking companies to outsource some of their sales and marketing functions to us. We in kind, outsource some of those functions to others who can do it better to them.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Going on Twitter?
Some users of Twitter have turned the issue of followers into a bit of popularity contest. PR and marketing pros follow thousands of people to keep an ear to the market, a titled one but still there is some street talk going on and in some cases to help tout their brands over the service.
But following a lot of people can create an unnecessary distraction that will make the service useless for other than tracking comments.
When choosing to follow someone I would hope they have some kind of connection to you or your business should bring something compelling to your life. Now I will admit I’m in or on twitter for business and to make money, friendship is (sorry) secondary. If we become friends wonderful, but it is not my 1st objective
Starting with people you know. When you sign up for Twitter, you will be promoted to search for friends from your Gmail or Yahoo Mail accounts and show if you are on the service. Also you can use Twitter's search tool to look for people that might be twittering in your field. I would rather search for people in my prospect demographics profile but that’s me.
You don't need to know these people personally, that can grow in time, but they should relate to your interests or objectives somehow. You also might want to look for experts in your industry who might publish links to things they're reading with short comments on it so you can get their ideas on things.
Not long after you join, people will begin following you. Before you follow back, make sure you're going to get something substantive out of their tweets. I am always scratching my head on who to follow and who to STOP following.
I would urge you to somehow start to follow at least 100 people right away. Then you should be looking at quality people, but it's important get into the Twitter foray and see how information moves in and around you.
With Twitter, information flows to you, and from you On Twitter, after you select followers, the information just comes. The idea is getting in the flow of things and playing around with it a bit.
Larson note: There is one good reason to follow lots and lots of people provided they also follow you. CLICKS! Plan and simple, clicks. If you have a blog or site you want people to see, view or read, if you post it on twitter your link will get a 4% Click though, basically for free, see below for the study from Mike Seidle is the CEO of ProBlogService
Twitter Clickthrough Rates
Update 1-28-09: Compare Twitter’s average 4% CTR to the .03%-.11% CTR on FaceBook. It’s becoming increasingly clear that ads don’t get it done on social networks.
I’ve been running an experiment with four twitter profiles to find out what a good click through rate (CTR) is on Twitter. What I found out was kind of shocking and amazing: Twitter seems to have a 4% clickthrough rate. No wonder the affiliate marketers, spammers and get rich quick crowd are flocking to it. 4% CTR is outstanding in any internet advertising program:
Indymike –- 4.17 % average clickthrough rate, >800 followers
Profile “N” — 4.05 % clickthrough rate, >300 followers
Profile “M” – 4.2 % clickthrough rate, >200 followers
Profile “L” — 3.8 % clickthrough rate, > 50 followers
So figure out why you are a twit, your ideas and reasons for being there and then make it happen. Twitter like all SM sites are for active participation, even is as al lurker, not passive.
Extra extra, just learned a new bird dog trick for twitter, Wait till I start using it for myself and customers!
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
*Source: Mike Seidle, C.G. Lynch
But following a lot of people can create an unnecessary distraction that will make the service useless for other than tracking comments.
When choosing to follow someone I would hope they have some kind of connection to you or your business should bring something compelling to your life. Now I will admit I’m in or on twitter for business and to make money, friendship is (sorry) secondary. If we become friends wonderful, but it is not my 1st objective
Starting with people you know. When you sign up for Twitter, you will be promoted to search for friends from your Gmail or Yahoo Mail accounts and show if you are on the service. Also you can use Twitter's search tool to look for people that might be twittering in your field. I would rather search for people in my prospect demographics profile but that’s me.
You don't need to know these people personally, that can grow in time, but they should relate to your interests or objectives somehow. You also might want to look for experts in your industry who might publish links to things they're reading with short comments on it so you can get their ideas on things.
Not long after you join, people will begin following you. Before you follow back, make sure you're going to get something substantive out of their tweets. I am always scratching my head on who to follow and who to STOP following.
I would urge you to somehow start to follow at least 100 people right away. Then you should be looking at quality people, but it's important get into the Twitter foray and see how information moves in and around you.
With Twitter, information flows to you, and from you On Twitter, after you select followers, the information just comes. The idea is getting in the flow of things and playing around with it a bit.
Larson note: There is one good reason to follow lots and lots of people provided they also follow you. CLICKS! Plan and simple, clicks. If you have a blog or site you want people to see, view or read, if you post it on twitter your link will get a 4% Click though, basically for free, see below for the study from Mike Seidle is the CEO of ProBlogService
Twitter Clickthrough Rates
Update 1-28-09: Compare Twitter’s average 4% CTR to the .03%-.11% CTR on FaceBook. It’s becoming increasingly clear that ads don’t get it done on social networks.
I’ve been running an experiment with four twitter profiles to find out what a good click through rate (CTR) is on Twitter. What I found out was kind of shocking and amazing: Twitter seems to have a 4% clickthrough rate. No wonder the affiliate marketers, spammers and get rich quick crowd are flocking to it. 4% CTR is outstanding in any internet advertising program:
Indymike –- 4.17 % average clickthrough rate, >800 followers
Profile “N” — 4.05 % clickthrough rate, >300 followers
Profile “M” – 4.2 % clickthrough rate, >200 followers
Profile “L” — 3.8 % clickthrough rate, > 50 followers
So figure out why you are a twit, your ideas and reasons for being there and then make it happen. Twitter like all SM sites are for active participation, even is as al lurker, not passive.
Extra extra, just learned a new bird dog trick for twitter, Wait till I start using it for myself and customers!
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
*Source: Mike Seidle, C.G. Lynch
Blogging For Your Business
If you follow my blog, thank you.
But why do I do it? I do it for a few reasons.
1) It keeps me sharp, I read and review mountains of stuff every day, some is good and some is not worth the time or effort (to me) to do anything with. My pile of stuff of unfinished articles and information is a paper salesman’s dream.
2) It is an advertising tool. Yes I do get business off of the blogs I put out. I use a soft sell and give hard and fast facts and ideas so that if someone wants to go off and do it themselves fine. Go for it. This is not brain surgery even if I have been in the advertising/marketing industry for over 30 years. There are rules to follow, because they work but you can do this.
3) I use what I write. Doing this forces me to try things out. Experiment, Play. I know I don’t have all the answers. I know I don’t know all the tools that are out there so I need to keep looking searching, trying experimenting and then the rules keep changing on me so why not go out and have some fun in this crazy world of promotion.
Now if you want to venture into the world of blogging in any way shape or form keep reading and think before you write:
1) Blogging is somewhat of a fad! That doesn’t mean there isn’t any long-term value or that it will disappear soon or ever. There is a large growth of the blogosphere and I seem a lot of people who will stop soon. Blogging does have long term value and blogging will be a useful and valuable tool for a long time to come. But keep it in its place and perspective
2) You can’t just go out and blog on whatever you think is cool and exciting and expect to build a large long term audience. You need to keep focused. You need to keep nitched into the area you know and can keep writing about. If you are already famous, you might be an exception. If you’ve got millions of raving fans, yes, you can blog on whatever you want and they’ll read it. However you’ll never build millions of raving fans this way. So you will need to pick a focus for your blog and stick to it in order to succeed.
3) Don’t give up your day job to blog. Less than 1% of bloggers will do blogging fulltime and professionally, and those that do will spent time on blog related activities you might not consider “real blogging,” like dealing with advertising, joint ventures, creating info products, etc., you know, business stuff. Blogging can be a business, whether you blog fulltime for yourself, as a paid staff writer for a blog network, or even if you just make a few extra bucks from your own blog. Don’t count on blogging paying the bills. It’s just not going to happen.
Larson note: I like what I do and blogging lets me enjoy it even more. I tell my people that if they are not offered a new job by someone once a month they are not doing a good enough job. Even I get offers, and own the place.
The only other point I would put in is that if you cannot bog at least 3 times a week you will never gather a following. Maybe my 5 to 15 times a week is excess, but then this is My Blog.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
But why do I do it? I do it for a few reasons.
1) It keeps me sharp, I read and review mountains of stuff every day, some is good and some is not worth the time or effort (to me) to do anything with. My pile of stuff of unfinished articles and information is a paper salesman’s dream.
2) It is an advertising tool. Yes I do get business off of the blogs I put out. I use a soft sell and give hard and fast facts and ideas so that if someone wants to go off and do it themselves fine. Go for it. This is not brain surgery even if I have been in the advertising/marketing industry for over 30 years. There are rules to follow, because they work but you can do this.
3) I use what I write. Doing this forces me to try things out. Experiment, Play. I know I don’t have all the answers. I know I don’t know all the tools that are out there so I need to keep looking searching, trying experimenting and then the rules keep changing on me so why not go out and have some fun in this crazy world of promotion.
Now if you want to venture into the world of blogging in any way shape or form keep reading and think before you write:
1) Blogging is somewhat of a fad! That doesn’t mean there isn’t any long-term value or that it will disappear soon or ever. There is a large growth of the blogosphere and I seem a lot of people who will stop soon. Blogging does have long term value and blogging will be a useful and valuable tool for a long time to come. But keep it in its place and perspective
2) You can’t just go out and blog on whatever you think is cool and exciting and expect to build a large long term audience. You need to keep focused. You need to keep nitched into the area you know and can keep writing about. If you are already famous, you might be an exception. If you’ve got millions of raving fans, yes, you can blog on whatever you want and they’ll read it. However you’ll never build millions of raving fans this way. So you will need to pick a focus for your blog and stick to it in order to succeed.
3) Don’t give up your day job to blog. Less than 1% of bloggers will do blogging fulltime and professionally, and those that do will spent time on blog related activities you might not consider “real blogging,” like dealing with advertising, joint ventures, creating info products, etc., you know, business stuff. Blogging can be a business, whether you blog fulltime for yourself, as a paid staff writer for a blog network, or even if you just make a few extra bucks from your own blog. Don’t count on blogging paying the bills. It’s just not going to happen.
Larson note: I like what I do and blogging lets me enjoy it even more. I tell my people that if they are not offered a new job by someone once a month they are not doing a good enough job. Even I get offers, and own the place.
The only other point I would put in is that if you cannot bog at least 3 times a week you will never gather a following. Maybe my 5 to 15 times a week is excess, but then this is My Blog.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 30 minutes today.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
When the Bottom Line is the Top Priority
Here are some low-cost or no-cost CRM strategies for when money is tight—plus counterintuitive approaches to spending your way out of the recession.
Closely monitor the returns on each of your channels to ensure they're worth the investment.
Integrate your marketing channels to avoid redundancy and create a comprehensive view of the customer.
Create an internal and/or external blog or discussion board where customers and employees can communicate with upper-level management to create transparency and solicit input.
Try out some virtual events over physical ones.
Tap into social networks for advice from your peers and maybe customers.
Analytics. Analytics. Analytics. (Google Analytics is free!)
Get out of your office. Go into the community and talk to your consumers.
Improve the usability of your customer-facing channels—especially your Web site.
Cost-per-acquisition networks (e.g., TrialPay) only charge when you make a sale.
Nurture your leads. Keep in contact, so when they are ready, you’re not starting from scratch.
Larson note: Keep it simple. Keep it cost effective and make use it is paying you back what it is suppose to, or drop it. Unless your name is Santa Clause you are not in business to lose money. So keep your focus tight and monitor all marketing expenditures in both time and money as to how they play out in your overall ROI.
I word of caution here is to look past the simple dollars and cents. You might be doing something that has a significant effect somewhere else in your over all marketing indicatives and is a catalyst for that channel. So don’t cut your nose off to save a penny. Marketing is an art, a rhythm of gut feelings that have certain rules that we follow, yet know when to deviate away from them. As a mentor of mine once told me, know the rules so you know when it makes sense to break them.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 3o minutes today.
*Source: CRM magazine
Closely monitor the returns on each of your channels to ensure they're worth the investment.
Integrate your marketing channels to avoid redundancy and create a comprehensive view of the customer.
Create an internal and/or external blog or discussion board where customers and employees can communicate with upper-level management to create transparency and solicit input.
Try out some virtual events over physical ones.
Tap into social networks for advice from your peers and maybe customers.
Analytics. Analytics. Analytics. (Google Analytics is free!)
Get out of your office. Go into the community and talk to your consumers.
Improve the usability of your customer-facing channels—especially your Web site.
Cost-per-acquisition networks (e.g., TrialPay) only charge when you make a sale.
Nurture your leads. Keep in contact, so when they are ready, you’re not starting from scratch.
Larson note: Keep it simple. Keep it cost effective and make use it is paying you back what it is suppose to, or drop it. Unless your name is Santa Clause you are not in business to lose money. So keep your focus tight and monitor all marketing expenditures in both time and money as to how they play out in your overall ROI.
I word of caution here is to look past the simple dollars and cents. You might be doing something that has a significant effect somewhere else in your over all marketing indicatives and is a catalyst for that channel. So don’t cut your nose off to save a penny. Marketing is an art, a rhythm of gut feelings that have certain rules that we follow, yet know when to deviate away from them. As a mentor of mine once told me, know the rules so you know when it makes sense to break them.
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
larsonassoc1975@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/larsonassoc1979/1
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://businesswarfare.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
P.P.S. Twice a week we offer 2 free ½ hour consultations for marketing your business. Call or email to get your spot to pick my brain for 3o minutes today.
*Source: CRM magazine
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