Think about what benefit of your product or service is and focus on that. If you are a computer maintenance company your product may be "server management and database maintenance" but you will be better off saying that you can help "increase office productivity by allowing easier access to client files". Many times your customers don’t understand your business. That is why they have to hire you. Make sure to explain to them not only what you do, but how it can help them.

When a customer gives you their email address you have one more way to get your message to them.

One of best ways to supplement Direct Mail Marketing is Direct Email Marketing. However, unlike direct mail marketing, unsolicited email marketing is illegal. You can’t just go out and buy a list of email addresses and start sending to them. There is one way to purchase lists for emailing called "opt in" lists but this method is not recommended because rate of people on list that actually "opt in" to receiving your promo is very low. This is why you should always collect customers’ email addresses as you are getting their physical addresses.

Also be sure not to slam your customers with too much email promotion. I recommend not sending more than one email per week to each client. Not only will this keep you from angering your customers, it will also keep up interest level and keep your emails from getting deleted before they are even opened.

If your company is planning on emailing specials or a Monthly Email Newsletter you will need to have this list for them to be effective. If you are not planning on contacting customers and prospects via email, you should be!

Okay, Time to Track Results.

Hopefully you have more than one way that you try to recruit new customers. So how do you know which ones are working and which aren’t? Set up a system to track results.

Let’s take for example a situation in which you decide to start a Postcard Marketing Campaign for your business. The first week you send out 3000 postcards. When they start hitting homes you get 30 calls. Did all of these leads come from postcards? Probably not. Because week before you got 8 calls and hadn’t sent out any postcards yet. So how can you tell who actually got a postcard?

The Answer: All you have to do is ask them. "So how did you hear about our company?" The hard part is making sure that any employee in your company who answers phone and may talk to a new prospect remembers to ask question every time. The fewer prospects who answer this question, less accurate your information will be when making future marketing decisions.

Now let’s assume that you have been sending out postcards for a while and you have a good number of calls coming in. If you ask question "So how did you hear about our company?" they may respond, "I got your postcard in mail." But, by now you have mailed postcards to 4 different lists, 3 times each. How do you tell which list and which mailing this customer was from?

The Answer: Put a marketing code on postcards that will tell you which specific postcard they received and when it was mailed.

Give each list a name and work date into your marketing code as well. And only thing your representatives have to ask is "Would you mind reading me marketing code above your address?" This code should give you all info that you need to know and help you keep your Marketing Results Tracking as accurate as possible.

Try not to operate off of assumptions about “how to market” if you haven’t educated yourself. And make sure you collect all data and make your future marketing decisions based on facts.