Direct Marketing: Overlooked, Underappreciated and Unstoppable

Written by Brian Rice


As business leaders and professionals, we all know by now thatrepparttar success of an organization is driven by one thing: whether or not people choose to buy what you've got to sell. According to a recent survey involving U.S. senior executives, marketing will berepparttar 136004 most important area of expertise forrepparttar 136005 next-generation of leaders. Every business needs customers, but more importantly every business needs to maintain those customers while constantly retaining new ones. The only successful way of doing this is by learning everything about your customers, including who they are? What do they have in common? Do they share a hobby, an age range, a life stage, or a geographic community? Can you break them down into groups? The answers to these questions hold a wealth of information for you.

Although direct marketing can be overlooked by many businesses, here are statistics provingrepparttar 136006 effectiveness of direct mail campaigns overrepparttar 136007 years.

According torepparttar 136008 DMA (Direct Marketing Association) 2005 Postal and Email Marketing Report:

* For postal mailings, 43% of direct marketers indicated that their up-front gross response has increased from 2003 to 2002. * As with postal mailings, when asked about 2004, respondents showed more optimism in their up-front email response rates, with 51% projecting an increase and 32% stable response rates. * For postal mailers,repparttar 136009 top list techniques used to improve 2003 front-end response were enhancements to internal housefile databases (50%), demographic segmentation (50%), and prior mail history analysis (46%). Most list techniques had a success rate of 80% or greater.

According torepparttar 136010 DMA 2004 E-Commerce Report: * The portion of companies having an in-house email marketing list has increased from 74% to 85% * 43% of Web and email investment is allocated towards marketing, compared to 35% in 2002

The Joy of The Perfect Home Business ­ Mail-Order

Written by Barry Lycka


Much has been written about working from your own home.

Many people seem suspicious when they think about ideas that they can "work" whilst at home -- I'm not sure why; housewives and househusbands have been doing it for years!

For some people, there seems to be some sort of strange separation ofrepparttar workplace andrepparttar 108227 homestead. By tearing down this distinction, however, you can reap some very serious benefits. Nowhere is this more obvious than in running a mail-order business from your home.

What are some of these benefits and advantages that you can gain from running a mail order business from your home?

Well, there are probably hundreds, but some ofrepparttar 108228 major ones include:

1. Savings on initial investments. Instead of having to rent office space, new phone lines, new personnel and allrepparttar 108229 rest... for a lot of new mail-order startups, all you need is an idea, a clean kitchen table, a recipe box and ambition!

2. Clear communication channels. Withrepparttar 108230 advent ofrepparttar 108231 Internet, and especially e-mail, it has become easier and easier for you to keep in contact with your customers without having to get in your car and drive all around town.

Now, you can communicate with all your contacts and prospects without having to leave your computer. And much of this can be automated with tools readily available through GetResponse (http://www.GetResponse.com/?33969) and Roibot (http://www.roibot.com/r.cgi?R504_ROIbot)

3. More time with your family. Big business has always hadrepparttar 108232 reputation for being "anti-family" -- you can choose your career or you can choose your family.

With mail-order businesses, you get to choose both. In fact, many mail-order businesses become family businesses, with kids helping mom and dad to lick stamps and stuff envelopes. My teenage daughters do this and split income with me (great for taxation purposes)

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