People respond to products and services with added features and extra benefits don't you? In fact, many have used this principle alone to create a whole new industry or product line.

If you can find ways to add something to your product or service, you could attract a whole new market. By adding something, you could also strengthen loyalty of your established customers.

Here are 5 Keys To Creating A Niche Using The Principle Of Addition:

1. Just taking time to ask this simple question will work wonders for your business, and give you another special niche. The key question to ask is "if they liked ______, would they like MORE of it?"

2. People are always pleased with more of what benefits them. Right? What you need to find out is what do your customers want more of? And how much are they willing to pay for it?

3. For next week notice products and services that have been successful for at least 10 years. You'll find principle of addition being used. New products are being added to their lines, new features, new ingredients, new benefits, even new locations are being added. Your eyes will be opened.

4. It's harder for a customer to get tired or bored with a business, product or, service that appear to always be growing in benefits. You tend to think, "What will they come up with next?" So, wake up in morning thinking what can I add to my business, service, or product to make it better today?

5. And finally, as a reminder when applying principle of addition, always start slow and test your new ideas with your customers. They'll tell you if your idea is good or bad, if you will just observe and seek customer feedback.

Yes, a simple additional service, benefit, or feature could give you niche your competitors could find hard to beat.

8) Relationship Builder

Through frequency, personalization, and targeting, your marketing communications can be transformed from a traditional broadcast approach into a system that helps you build relationships with your subscribers.

Studies have shown that qualified prospects require 3-7 contacts from a company before they will respond with a purchase. The main driver of this need on part of prospect that they want to feel a level of trust in their relationship with company.

business to business email marketing allows you to develop a personal presence with your subscribers and low cost per contact makes it easy to contact subscribers frequently (within reason).

9) High Response Rates

There are many variables that contribute to response rates, but most direct marketing experts agree that email generally pulls a higher response than other direct marketing choices.

One of key reasons is that if you read a compelling offer in an email you can respond immediately by following a hyperlink to an order page or to get more information.

Responding to a direct mail piece requires one to pick up phone and dial a number, a much more active response requirement.

10) Develops a Maturing Asset

The larger and more mature your list is, more valuable it becomes. Your client database continues to be enriched with additional information about your subscribers and subscribers continue to develop a deeper and deeper relationship with company.

Over a period of years, your opt-in database is likely to become your most valued marketing asset.

Ok, so there are a lot of compelling benefits...but what does one do to overcome barriers I outlined at beginning of this article?

The most important thing to do is to start doing something now, even smallest steps will lead to big successes in long run, just put some element of an business to business email marketing strategy into play within next few weeks.

I've also listed some tips for overcoming barriers below.

We must frequently rely on IT and/or our Web team to provide enabling infrastructure and we are low on their priority list.

This one is easy. The best and fastest solution is to outsource. You can task a marketing communications agency with helping you set up a program, or you can subscribe to one of hosted email solutions and do it yourself. I list some places to start investigating self-service solutions under point next point.

We do not have direct access to our mailing and tracking tools and have to rely on outside resources to put our strategies into play.

This is why I prefer a do-it-yourself solution, at least in beginning. Being able to touch and modify your campaigns directly is not only a great way to learn, it will save you a ton of money and help you ensure that your business to business email marketing strategy is truly a low-cost solution.

Here are a two popular tools you can look into...

1AutomationWiz:

This is tool I use to publish this ezine and to automate all of email follow-up on my site. I chose it because it provides subscriber acquisition and database management tools I need, allows me to send text or HTML emails, doesn't restrict number of emails I can send in any given month, and (most importantly) provides unlimited sequential autoresponders. The autoresponder feature is a must-have if you want to truly automate your program.

To learn more about 1AutomationWiz visit http://www.1AutomationWiz.com

Mailer Mailer

This is an excellent tool as well. Mailer Mailer provides a lot more HTML support than 1AutomationWiz (including complete, fill-in-the- blank templates). If your goal is to create good looking HTML messages, Mailer Mailer makes it really easy.

Another thing that this tool has that 1AutomationWiz does not is ability to track opens (how many times your message was read). What it is lacking is unlimited sequential autoresponders.

To learn more about Mailer Mailer click visit http://www.mailermailer.com

We do not know exactly how to implement an effective business to business email marketing strategy.

There are a lot of resources on Web to help get you started, but this is definitely an area of need. As I look around, I find that there aren't any great, step-by-step guides for setting up an business to business email marketing strategy within a business. In fact, I see such a need that I've started writing a book about it. I'll keep you posted about progress, but if you have immediate questions, please email me and I'll try to include answers in Subscriber Q&A in next issue.

We fear being branded as a spammer at slightest indiscretion.

Spam is an epidemic, but this concern is overblown when it comes to emailing your customers. If you send an unsolicited email to a customer with legitimate information that they are likely to want, you will not be accused of spamming. Be reasonable, provide an easy way to opt-out, and check your ethics, and you won't have a problem. The best rule of thumb is to give first...then ask. Provide excellent, useful information, and then make an offer.

Of course, if you are mailing (as you should be) to people who have opted-in to your mailing list (thorough a Web form or some other means) then you are in safe water.

Good luck in building your business to business email marketing program!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Doug Hudiburg is founder and key contributor to Business-Marketing-Advisor.com a central source for marketing insight and resources for businesses of all sizes.

http://www.business-marketing-advisor.com

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