Direct Mail your money

Written by Meredith Gossland


I did a quick, very unscientific survey of 25 of my friends. I asked them to putrepparttar mail that they do not open or read in a specific trash bag. Atrepparttar 105631 end of one week they gave it to me to be weighed. Guess how muchrepparttar 105632 bag weighed? Remember, most mail is a fraction of an ounce. 63.4.....not ounces....lbs! Something is wrong with this picture! That's like 2 1/2 pounds per person per week! Holy Cow! Also this was a March survey, what if it had been done in November?

Let's get a grip on this absolute waste of paper, ink, money and time! There are some common sense points we need to look at here.

Direct mail, at 2-5%, has a totally unacceptable response rate.

CRM

Written by Meredith Gossland


The story ofrepparttar emperor's new clothes is a fairy tale about men who fooledrepparttar 105630 emperor into believing that they had made him a beautiful suit of clothes. In fact they had not made anything. The emperor went out in public wearing nothing but his underwear because he didn't want to appear stupid since they had told him onlyrepparttar 105631 wisest people could seerepparttar 105632 fine fabrics.Whenrepparttar 105633 emperor went out in public a little child yelled..."The emperor isn't wearing any clothes!" Today I am that child.

"CRM doesn't cover your mistakes or fix your problems and you have been lied to about its ability to "manage" your client relationships!" CRM is a system that is based on faulty logic. The premise that companies can manage clients is foolish!

Business 101 will tell you that clients manage businesses. They tellrepparttar 105634 company what to sell, when to sell it, how to sell it, where to sell it, and will stop buying it on a whim depending upon a long list of uncontrollable situations (they are getting older, economic circumstances, politics, trends, health issues etc etc.)

What does CRM do? It lulls CEOs, sales and marketing department heads into believing that they can hold onto clients by using data alone. CRM bogs down sales & marketing teams and creates massive amounts of additional work, keeping them connected to their computers instead of visiting clients. CRM requires cleaning just like any other database andrepparttar 105635 largerrepparttar 105636 databaserepparttar 105637 more time it takes to clean. The sharing of information within a company can, in some instances, actually slow downrepparttar 105638 process of customer service, since more people are now involved in decision making processes. The bottom line of customer service is pushed torepparttar 105639 side and direct mail marketing moves forward. Direct mail marketing has abysmal response rates and even if it was improved is a poor alternative to actually communicating with clients.

Now isrepparttar 105640 time to go put on your clothes and firerepparttar 105641 tailors!

You have spent a fortune in purchasingrepparttar 105642 software, you spent thousands of dollars on man-hours used up in training and retraining, sent memos and held staff meetings, paid tailors(I mean consultants), and still are no closer to getting customer loyalty than you were 6 months ago. As a matter of fact it may be worse because client services have suffered while you spent all this time getting CRM up and running. Cut your loses and run!

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