70% More Effective Marketing?

What if your marketing could be 70% More Effective?

Call it whatever you want: Multi-channel, Cross-Platform  Omni-Marketing: your marketing strategy needs to rely on both digital and traditional platforms online and offline to reach customers across multiple channels in various ways for the way they want to be contacted. Traditional forms of marketing such as print, trade magazines, direct mail, PR, radio, television commercials, and billboards if used together with digital marketing like email, social media, websites, blogs, YouTube, Pinterest starts to create a major spike in name recognition. Not surprisingly, cross-channel integration where online and some traditional forms like direct mail are linked together with the use of tracking software or bar code technology a telephone campaign and follow-up becomes 70% more effective.

I have 6 Tips for a Better Strategy

First you need to know your target audience. Who are they? What niche is it? Where are they? What channels work best for your business model? What are the channels your target nitch uses more than others? For example, an ad campaign for bath bombs might do well with a television advertisement or direct mail coupon. Events and musical concerts will get more ROI with social, emails and YouTube.

Second focus on the customer experience. Your marketing strategy should present information clearly and directly. Multi-channel digital campaigns should cater to not just convenience but also for after-sale 2^nd sale service, dependability, and responsibility—all qualities customers place value on. Consistency across all platforms is the key to talking about this success.

Third measure your results. After or even during any multi-channel campaign, review data to see which channels are working and how they are performing and which could use more improvement. And ask yourself why and are there other channels we should have or could have used? This will help allocate resources, time, and money more efficiently for the next wave or next attack.

Forth timing is everything. Constantly update your touch points. A successful strategy is well-timed and relevant. You might want to update your web page and send out emails the day before a big event. A drip campaign strategy allows you to space out information to generate interest and thus customers. Cross-channel integration brings your marketing strategies both online and off line together in a seamless flow. Incorporate a Twitter feed, use hash tags, incorporate bar codes in your direct mail, link your Facebook business page with your emails, generate printable coupons from your website or social business pages for in-store use. The more ways you can connect your customers to your brand, the better.

Fifth learn to change your strategies and platforms as needed. Don’t get too comfortable. What works one week may not work next week, so keep up to date on the latest marketing trends. And remember to track everything you can to know what works, where it is working and how it is working.

Sixth follow-up follow-up follow-up. Everything needs to be followed up on. You need to reach out and call someone. Yes the telephone. If you don’t make the reach out and make “that call” just save your money. The prospect is not going to call you 99.9% of the time. You have got to have a follow-up. Make that call or have me make it for you and your odds of a sale go up at least 10 to 20%

So now you only have to ask yourself:

Do I have the time?

Do I have the knowledge?
Do I have the connections?

Do I have the recourses?

If not we are here for you.

Howard Larson

Larson & Associates

Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition

Making good businesses great and great businesses even better

847-991-1294

howard@larsonassociates.ws

http://www.larsonassociates.ws

http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

Larson’s ABC’s

A. Avoid negative people, places, things and habits.
B. Believe in yourself.
C. Consider all things from every angle and opinion.
D. Don’t ever ever ever give up.
E. Enjoy life now! Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is yet to come. Now is all you have.
F. Family and Friends are the hidden treasure of life.
G. Give more to others than they give to you or more than you planned to.
H. Hold on to your dreams and don’t let anyone take them away.
I. Ignore those people who try to discourage you. Listen to wise council and not the black holes of life.
J. Just do it.
K. Keep on trying. It will only get easier. No matter how many times you get knocked down just get up one more time.
L. Love yourself so that you may love others.
M. Make it happen.
N. Never lie, cheat or steal.
O. Open your eyes and see things for what they are and the possibilities of what they could become.
P. Perfect practice makes perfect.
Q. Quitters never win and winners never quit.
R. Read, study and learn about everything you can.
S. Stop procrastinating.
T. Team work. Man is social not solitary
U. Utilize everything you can to ethically win.
V. VISUALIZE it
W. Win-win in all negotiations.
X. eXcellerate your efforts for the long haul and eXceed your eXpections not just for today but for every day.
Y. You are unique of all of the creations of God. Nothing can ever replace you so take good care of yourself.
Z. Zero in on your goals. All of them, work, family, health, education and spiritual.


Larson Notes & Satire:  It’s your life and no one can live it for you.


For the answer to your sales and lead generation problems call Larson & Associates at 847-991-1294 or email me at howard@larsonassociates.ws .  One call is all it takes.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make teleprospection for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 10 hours a week. Maybe you should add teleprospecting into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Price Of A New Customer

Price Of A New Customer

Do you know yours?

If not why?  If I asked you how much a new account is worth to you. More so, what would you be willing to pay for a new account?

You might come to me and ask, what do you charge? Fair question. But I might come back and ask what is it worth. If it doesn’t work for both of us, it doesn’t work.

There is no right answer; there is only your answer.


Larson Notes & Satire:  If I walked up to you with a stack of 25 contact sheets, everyone with a 100% guaranteed new customer that I could sell to you or your competitor, how much would you give me for them? $50? $100? $500? Do you know?

Give me your number and I’ll tell you if we can make it happen. I dare you!

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

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.

Directed Landing Page Content

Say what you got to say and get out!

If you use or have ever thought about using a Landing Page for or part of a marketing campaign using less content is usually a better idea than packing it in. Yes less is more, if you want to keep them focused on an action you want them to take.

This keeps your prospects focused directly in the key message. This means you elimination all the extra details and needless content. If it does not pertain to the campaign don’t put it in. Not extra links to other pages, NO fancy graphics and design. Facts just the facts.


Larson Notes & Satire:  You want action. Then call for action. Keep it in plain sight, visible and understandable.

Call us we can find you new customers.


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

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.

Making Warm Leads Warmer

I have always felt there are 3 parts to the buying cycle, awareness, evaluation and decision.

Now I will not say that telesales or teleprospecting can’t make cool leads warm but now with the advent of Social Media Marketing a you don’t have to hand off a bunch of icy cold sales leads to the telemarketing staff. I know it’s getting colder outside but please now you can now refine them to be (at least) luke warm from the start and have a greater understanding of who they are actually calling. No longer does it fall or have to fall on the poor telemarketer to delve into finding out who is on the other end of the line, what they want, if they have even a remote interest,  they can (will) know. And with knowledge comes power. And power comes more clients and sales. Working with a more directed and powerful call to action can only help everyone in the world of finding my qualified leads. How powerful can it get? Give me a call at 847-991-1294

Larson Notes & Satire:  I have said for years that with the right list my job as a telemarketing gets very easy. How easy?  Very very easy. Normally I feel good if I get 1 action item every 40 minutes of work but I have see a good focused list giving an action item ever 15 minutes.

People come to us to work miracles, to pull rabbits out of hats, to make clients appear out of thin air. We are the magic men who warm things up to make life easier for the rest of you.

But if the magic doesn’t bring in enough revenue the rest doesn’t matter.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates


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.

Go Take A NAP

Go Take A NAP

Ya you heard me, go take a nap!

Seems that marketers all over the place are trying to connect with customers and prospects. Social, web, mobile, email, direct mail, phone. Go take a nap.

NAP is nothing less than Name, Address and phone number.

If you’re into social media marketing you want the 3 F words working for you (friends, family, fans), lots of them. But to take it to the next level you want to take a NAP with them.

This kind of central information is the very foundation for business growth, off line and online. Whatever kind, this is base marketing information you need so you can have a consistent attack. You have to do this this day in and day out, over and over. After that you need to keep accurate and up-to-date.


Larson Notes & Satire:  We NAP all the time. We take naps for ourselves and we take NAP’s for our customers. Name, address and phone number. This is not marketing done from the hip but thought out planning to make your customer base strong and ever building.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates


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.

The Rule of 40-40-20

So you’re asking what the heck am I talking about. In marketing there is a rule of thumb that 40% of a targeted marketing program or a direct mail project should be n the list, 40% should be in the message and 20% in the creative. It is one of those things that history has shown us is a truism.
It is like a lot of things in advertising, marketing and graphics people want to take short cuts. It happens all the time. (See yesterday’s blog) like when I want to add a mailing program with a telemarketing program. So in a mailing program when we talk 40-40-20 people ask why do I need great creative? I have 80% with the good list and a powerful offer. Well that might work in a solid telemarketing program but when ink hits the paper… it better look good.

But why make a big stink over 20%? If the best you can do is put in a “REPLY NOW” tag, if everything in the page is so important that the whole piece is in a bold type face, try again. With the right deal the right target odds are you will get “good” results but is that what you’re about, good, when you could have great?

Larson Notes & Satire:  one of the tag lines I use a lot reads: “Making good businesses great and great businesses even better” That is what we are about. Not just good enough, not making things great but making great even better.

I am a big advocate of the 40-40-20. Yes I will do a 40-40 and leave the rest project and I know I will get blamed for less than stellar results, but in the 37 years of being in business that part has not changed. Clients cut corners when we don’t tell them or give the reasons why. Even when we do, they try to cut.

So next time your thinking about a project, try Me. Blame me. After all I am from the city of big shoulders.

“We don’t sell lists, we find 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
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

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.

The Cost Of Bad Leads

Leads, can’t live without them and for some companies can’t live with them. What you ask. Can’t live with leads? Oh yes my friend that is if the leads come with a high cost.


If you are a company looking to expand you might be looking at buying leads. If you go this route you need to keep in mind several things.


If you go to the US Census you will find that every year there are about 600,000 new businesses created and there are about 600,000 businesses that fail.

In addition there has been a 33% turnover rate in jobs and employment of the more than 40 million jobs listed and that (are you sitting down) 6,000 people change jobs every hour!

Put that in the same area as the study done by “The Sales & Marketing Institute” it was bout that 70.8% of collected businesses cards had 1 or more changes within 12 months.


If you just go and buy a list, even a good list, you can almost figure that 10% of the information is incorrect.


If you were doing a straight direct mail piece at a cost of $0.75 to $1.50 of say 1000 pieces you are going to lose between at a minimum $75.00 to $150.00 of your costs up front.


So think about your looses before you start and you won’t be surprised. But then think, that is why there are companies that can keep you out of trouble in this area. You might pay the same price but you will get more and better results.


Larson Notes & Satire: Normally we don’t do a flat out direct mail program. At Larson’s we have a program that we normally put our clients though. Telemarketing-Direct Mail-Social Media Marketing. We get not only good results but results that are higher than normal. Call or email us to find out more.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Progra
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
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.