First a quote from Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”

Isn’t that the truth? We all want love and appreciation. Showing customer appreciation can certainly go a long way in establishing trust and building that everlasting bond we want with our customers.

More dollars are typcially spent to obtain new customers than to retain the ones the currently have. An organizations most sizable asset is its client database. Expending funds on present customers or patients is an intelligent strategy for better returns.

Develop an appreciation program for your existing customers. Reward your finest clients with a gift of gratitude. Thank them for each order they place with you. Give gift cards when they refer a new client to you. Send notes for weddings, births, birthdays and other major events. Rarely do these things occur in business nowadays. Can you recall the last time a salesperson or company did any of this for you? Putting this into your marketing strategy is bound to have a positive outcome.

Here are some suggestions for beginning your own client recognition program.

Make use of Holidays.

For Valentine’s Day, a card that says, We Love Our Customers, along with some treat.

Deliver a basket of good tidings at Christmas.

Send baskets with candy at Easter.

Don a costume and drop off special treats for Halloween.

On Memorial Day or 4th of July, give something with a USA theme.

Use the Seasons.

An ice cream treat is great for the summer months.

When the leaves begin to fall, deliver pumpkins or apple cider.

On a cold and snowy day deliver warm donuts and coffee.

Send out flowering seed packets in the spring.

Make use of your vendors and resources.

Offer discounts you work out with your vendors especially for your clients.

Offer educational forums from your vendors.

Who has mastered a skill that would be of interest to your customers?

Education is a great resource.

Send books you think might be helpful to your clients’ business or book on a subject you know your customer has an interest in.

Use Invitations.

Invite your customers to lunch.

Invite them to interesting events.

Use Events.

Throw an annual client appreciation bash. Let them invite a friend (maybe a new client for you). Here are some ideas:

Have a Cinema Party-give out popcorn, candy and beverages, show a classic film. Thank your customers with your own movie before the feature film.

Hold a Halloween costume picture day. Who doesn’t love pictures? This could be a great chance for an area photographer to get in front of your customers and give you a discount too.

Throw a party at a water park.

Hold an event at a popular local attraction. Be sure to take pictures and follow up with a thank you note and their picture in a special frame.

After all is said and done, our existing customers are all any business has. Make sure you a treating them as valuable as they are to your business.

Kathy Jiamboi has 13+ years experience in Relationship and Direct Response Marketing and is President of Creativedge Marketing and Ready2Go Client Contact, in Cleveland, Ohio. Ready2Go Client Contact, a done for you program allows her customers to simply and quickly build client relationships. She offers FREE expert marketing advice to those looking to attract more customers.

If you watch television at all or listen to the radio, you have probably heard some advertisement urging you to take advantage of a “limited time offer” by calling a toll free phone number. You are also probably told that the product is not available in stores, or that you are given the limited time opportunity to double the product you receive by calling the number given.

This is direct response advertising at its best. There are many more ways to advertise for direct response including mailing back a post card or calling a toll free number or even clicking on an Internet link or image to place your order.

Direct response advertising is generally defined a means of advertising or promoting a product or service in which you, the intended customer, are given the opportunity to respond directly to the seller. The nature of direct response advertising is very clear in the following example:

Because you are a member of several handyman and home improvement clubs, you frequently receive information about new products, books, etc. You receive a brochure promoting a big annual sale on a specific brand of power tools. The brochure encourages you to visit your local home improvement or hardware store to take advantage of the sale. This is not direct response advertising.

When you check your e-mail later in the day you find a direct response advertising message from the organizers of the meeting. This email reiterates the information you received by mail. But this e-mail also informs you that if you make a reservation within the next 30 days to attend the event, you will save $50 on your registration and materials cost and get a special price from the hosting hotel of one-half of the regular room rate. You are offered an instant link in the email, as well as a toll free phone number and a mailing address to make your reservation. This is direct response advertising.

The second example incorporates all of the definitive components of direct response advertising:

1. There is an offer (advance copy of the film).

2. Sufficient product and sale information to allow you to make a decision about responding.

3. A clear request that you take a specific action.

4. Multiple ways to take the requested action.

Direct response advertising is very popular with people in sales and marketing because it is very easy to track, analyze, quantify and fine-tune the advertising. The marketer will know exactly how many people made a purchase. If the marketer has the ability to send slightly different promotional pieces to parts of the audience, it is also possible to determine which messages or formats were most effective.

If you are a small business owner or professional and want to learn more about lead generation, view the free video, “How Article Promotion Can Drive 25,000 New Prospects to Your Web Site Each Month – For Free.”

A Recorded Message is a message (recorded in your voice or someone else’s) that automatically starts running when someone calls your special 1-800 number, much like your answering machine. Also known as Toll Free Recorded Message Hotlines; recorded messages have been around for years. Their longevity is testament to their effectiveness. Even with the immense popularity of the Internet you are still only accessing about 70% of people you want to attract. Everyone, on the other hand, has access to a telephone line. Having a Toll Free Recorded Message Hotline as part of your Marketing Program means you don’t have to restrict how a potential prospect might identify themselves to you.

There are many benefits to using this type of technology when you deal with a reputable vendor. They are relatively inexpensive and they can be implemented almost immediately. The only down time is time spent getting your ad placed in a publication targeting your identified niche or prospect base. Hotlines are also simple to include on all of your marketing materials. With a Hotline, your business card now becomes more powerful. The fact that an 800 type number appears in your marketing materials means that people are offered a less threatening way of accessing the information you are making available to them. Therefore there is no fear or anxiety that comes with having to deal with a live person. People are given the time to digest the information you want and make a well informed decision in a time frame of your own making.

The really good companies out there also provide a series of reports that allow you to maximize the potential of your recorded messages. You can see which ones work and which ones don’t and adjust to increase your response rate. You will also see what advertising media is working better so you focus your budget were it will do you the most good. Finally, the Recorded Messages are working for you 7 x 24 so they will outperform any other media you select.

I have come across a company that provides a full suite of marketing technology tools and processes including Toll Free Recorded Message Hotlines. That company is AMS. Their twelve years of experience in Direct Response Marketing has allowed them to develop tested and proven methods for using Recorded Messages. They start from the advertising headlines and content, go right to the recording of the messages themselves. Their experience ensures that even the beginner can quickly integrate and take advantage of the benefits of this technology. And it doesn’t stop there. AMS provides the capability for a business, no matter what size, to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human input.

The benefits to this system are significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks and consistency in marketing messages. It also means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact for apathy.

If you would like to hear more about Recorded Messages and how they can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

To learn more about Hotlines and how they can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can start using, and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven experience and technology.

You may agree that in many ways, communications has caused our planet to decrease in size. A news event anywhere in the world today can be communicated, almost instantly, to almost anyone else in the world. Newspapers, Radio, Television and the Internet have all contributed to this. Like any technology that brings benefits however, unfortunately, there are also downfalls. Our world is one that is overrun with forms of communication. Over the course of an average day we are exposed to news, commercials and advertising through all of these media. The result of this is that we have become conditioned to blocking out all but those items that we are interested in.

This has presented today’s marketers with a challenge. How do they ensure that their target audience responds to the message they are trying to convey? How do they get by the spam-like filters we have all developed to protect ourselves from information overload? This is where News-style Advertising comes in. This style has been created to get past our advertising filters. This is accomplished by presenting the marketers message in a manner more consistent with news. News-style advertising doesn’t appear to be advertising. It has no graphics or pictures. It contains no slogans or logos. There is nothing associated with it that would give the reader any reason to suspect that it is being sponsored by any company or individual. It contains a headline, followed by copy with a method for the reader to get additional information, should they wish to do so.

The reason why this type of advertising is simple and ties back into our mental spam filters. Assume we scan a newspaper or magazine and see something with a Headline that appeals to some issue or problem we are dealing with at that time. Because it is news-like in appearance it is not threatening. Our need drives us to read the article, generally short in nature. This is also appealing since it does not represent a great deal of investment on our part. The response mechanism allows us to get more information if what we have read in the article makes sense to us and represents a viable solution to our issue. It is because it is non-threatening in nature that it is able to generate the response numbers up to 500% better than other techniques.

This very effective form of advertising has actually been incorporated into a robust marketing strategy by one company. This company is Automated Marketing Solutions; or AMS. AMS provides a full package of marketing technology tools and processes that allow your company to deliver a comprehensive marketing program using tested and proven methods including News-Style Advertising. Their twelve years of experience in Direct Response Marketing ensures that even the beginner can quickly integrate and take advantage of the benefits of this technique.

AMS also provides the capability for a company to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human interaction. The benefits to this system are significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks and consistency in marketing messages. It also means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact for lack of interest or desire to do business with them. If you would like to hear more about News-style Advertising and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. Learn how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

If you would like to hear more about News-style Advertising and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions immediately

On a daily basis, we are exposed, if not bombarded by, messages and advertisements trying to compel us, and convince us to purchase. The result of all of this exposure is that we become resistant and sometimes immune to advertising messages surrounding us. When we watch the news, listen to the radio, read newspapers or magazines; no matter what form of media, we pay attention to only those things that are of interest to us in our own daily lives. We ignore, and throw out entire sections of a newspaper; we watch only certain portions of television shows, and we either peruse carefully, or throw out the Sports Page depending on our preferences. We have been forced to become selective. Given all of this conditioning the chances of peaking anyone’s advertising interest might seem small. But there are techniques available, that are effective and successful.

Here’s a question that will prove that that last statement is true. Have you ever walked past a news stand and taken a quick glance at the various racks of papers available for that day? No doubt you have and when you did this I’m willing to bet that some of those papers stood out against the rest. That was not an accident on their part. Rather, it is part of a well understood and practiced advertising method.

Over the years, successful advertisers have created many techniques to get your attention. The front page of every Playboy magazine should demonstrate that fact. It’s success has spawned too many other publications to count although many might not be able to lay claim to the I bought it just for the articles justification. The “Man goes out to Howl at the Moon, Sees Saucer and Little Green Men” type headlines we see in the National Enquirer magazine certainly grab our attention too. Each of these demonstrates effective ways of getting and holding our attention. Once this has been accomplished the chances start to increase that we may take the next step and read more.

Marketing research has demonstrated that there is a process that successful marketers follow to help get through the spam advertising filters that people carry around with them today. The first one, as I have already demonstrated, is to get the attention of your target audience with the Headline. Once that has been accomplished you need to elevate their interests and emotions. In the marketing world today there is one company that has actually developed a 5 step process and incorporated it into an extensive marketing program of tools and processes. That company is Automated Marketing Solutions or AMS. AMS provides a full suite of marketing technology tools and processes that allow any company to deliver a comprehensive marketing program using tested and proven methods including emotional type advertising. Their twelve years of experience in Direct Response Marketing ensures that even the beginner can quickly integrate and take advantage of the benefits of this technique. And it doesn’t stop there. AMS provides the capability for a company to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human interaction.

The benefits to this system are significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks and consistency in marketing messages. It also means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact for lack of interest. If you would like to learn more about Emotional Advertising and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology.

If you would like to hear more about Emotional Advertising and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions right now

When we discuss marketing we are in fact talking about relationships. We know that the favorable relationships are based on regular contact using a variety of different methods. We call our friends; send cards and flowers to our wives, and employ many other ways of demonstrating our love and affection to the people who we care about. When setting out to develop a successful Marketing Campaign we need to follow this same line of thought.

Selling today is a multi-step process. It has been demonstrated that up to 95% of the people you may touch with your advertising are not yet be in a purchasing mode, making it essential to maintain contact with anyone who responds to your marketing efforts. Build a relationship and condition them to the fact that you can be trusted and are knowledgeable about your product or service. This way when they are prepared to purchase, your company will be the one that they associate a solution to their need with.

Although the solution to our marketing challenges sounds simple when we condense it into a couple of brief paragraphs, the reality is quite different. The following scenario is an example of what I mean. Imagine you attract 20 new prospects every month through your marketing and you touch base with each prospect 3 times every month. Touching a prospect 3 times in a month is not excessive by the way. Over a period of 6 months, following this same pattern, you would have to manage 1,260 touches. If you are doing it properly you are also doing this through different media. Imagine the time constraints managing this type of activity would put on your day. The unfortunate reality is that you can’t afford not to do this when statistics demonstrate that you will close 75% more prospects when you DO stay in touch with them over the course of a year.

Recently I came across a company that has spent the last 12 years developing a systematic and fully media featured marketing program that has automated a multi-step marketing capability. That company is Automated Marketing Solutions or AMS. AMS provides a full array of marketing technology tools and systems that allow any company to deliver a comprehensive marketing program using tried and proven methods. However, the most significant aspect of their development is that the entire process can be automated. They refer to it as putting your marketing on Auto-Pilot. Here’s how it works: Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human input. It captures leads that respond to marketing and places them into the appropriate program for follow up by the LMS itself. Very little, if any, human interaction is needed. The many benefits to this system include significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks and consistency in marketing messages.

An additional benefit of using their LMS is the retention capabilities of the system. As we know, once you have sourced and converted a prospect, your next most important task is to keep them as a customer. Using AMS Lead Management System means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted their lack of contact for lack of interest. Finally, because of AMS years of experience in building multi-media marketing programs they are able to assist and educate their users on the best methods to use as they build their own campaigns.

If you would like to hear more about Lead Management Systems and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

If you would like to hear more about Lead Management Systems and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today.

In marketing circles we refer to the Internet as On-Line Marketing and NO Marketing Program is complete without an Internet presence. That being said, let’s look at some of the reasons why you need to be there.

Websites are an effective way of increasing the number of leads you get each month. Why? Well, the Internet attracts a different audience than some of the more traditional marketing methods do. Although the educated consumers explore both avenues, when you are on the Internet with your own website you are appealing to a different group of people. You also take advantage of these people surfing because it is non-threatening for them.

To stop those surfers dead in their tracks your website needs to be credible, including the design of the site itself, the content, third party validation and more. It is important to work with a company that not only understands how web sites work but how they look and can provide proven and successful Direct Marketing response techniques to entice and capture individuals that know what they want, as well as the surfers.

An Internet presence also provides your Marketing Program with yet another option of staying in touch and relationship building. It gives you an excuse to send along a friendly e-mail, fax or voice broadcast letting existing clients and prospects know that there is something new at your site that they may be interested in.

The real importance of the Internet to Marketing Programs could fill volumes. But if you are interested in finding out in a crisp and informative way, just what a Website delivered through a knowledgeable marketing partner can do for you, then I would suggest you visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. Here you will find a complete article explaining why you need an Internet presence, how it works, how to integrate it with your current marketing technology, the mistakes you need to avoid and much more. You will quickly see that the Internet is nothing to be intimidated by but a Marketing Tool that will complete and enhance your overall Marketing Program.

If you are interested in discovering, in a crisp and informative manner, just what a Website delivered through a knowledgeable marketing partner can do for you then visit Automated Marketing Solutions.

We have all grown up with certain brands and images that evoke, in some cases, nostalgia. We can all imagine dreamy summer days reaching for a cold drink from our COKE Cooler – it was red and had a white bottle cap on it. Tony the Tiger was our breakfast cereal, and Hertz was guiding our parents into the drivers seat of a brand new rental car. These were big companies with big advertising budgets. We knew their names, recognized their images and we responded accordingly. But not every business is able to make it on Image Advertising.

Today an interesting phenomenon occurs with many business people whenever they are questioned about the success of their advertising. Over and over a similar response is heard. “I have no idea. Most of my business comes from referrals. If in fact most of their business is from referrals that demonstrates that once they have secured a client they treat them well. But it leaves a huge hole in their Marketing Program that must be addressed if they are to continue to grow at rates that referral business will never accommodate.

There is a definite gap between how the large companies address their market and how most of the smaller businesses must address theirs. It is important therefore to understand this delta and be able to accommodate and address it. Given the fact that not every individual contemplating self employment can benefit from a University or College degree in marketing, how can successful organizations find their way to the methods that work? If you don’t have the budget to afford to advertise like a Coke, Pepsi or Home Depot how to you attract that new prospect?

The best way is to make your advertising dollar accountable to you. By this I really mean, regardless of whatever method you choose to use, every dollar spent must have a measurable return so you can validate its success. The best way for small to medium sized businesses to accomplish this is through a technique known as Direct Response Marketing. One business has actually incorporated Direct Response Marketing as a fundamental underpinning of a marketing program that they provide. What this means as a user is that, regardless of your experience or inexperience with this form of advertising, you have a mentor extremely well versed in how it operates and how best to manage it. Automated Marketing Solutions is this company.

AMS provides a full suite of marketing technology tools and processes that allow any company to deliver a comprehensive marketing program using tested and proven methods. Their twelve years of experience in Direct Response Marketing ensures that even the beginner can quickly integrate and take advantage of the benefits of this technique. And it doesn’t stop there. AMS provides the capability for a company to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human interaction.

The benefits to this system are significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks and consistency in marketing messages. It also means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact. If you would like to hear more about Direct Response Marketing and how it can benefit your business visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

Find out how Automated Marketing Solutions can help stretch your marketing dollar.

Marketers today all understand that the primary purpose of any advertising is to get a response. It is to attract qualified prospects that can, by using other marketing methods, be converted to customers. It follows therefore that the more prospects that one can attract, the better the chances are that a customer base will grow. Small, medium and large companies all have to accomplish this same goal. How they achieve that goal is what differentiates the successful ones from the short lived ones.

One challenge that small to medium sized companies do have; that large companies generally do not have to contend with, is image. The large companies like Coke, IBM, Microsoft and others all have brand and name recognition. They have the credentials that make them a trusted name. Anything they have to say, we usually trust, will be worth reading, and therefore we respond accordingly. This is not the case with the small to medium companies. Fortunately there are tested and proven mechanisms that can be used to get their message in front of the people that they want it read by.

Throughout the course of our lives we have all been conditioned to respond to certain things. We respond to smiles with smiles. We respond to anger with anger. The word FREE has always been, and will continue to be an attention getting trigger. Although it is not always easy to get those interested in your product or service to contact you and leave you their contact information, it must still be the objective of all of your marketing and advertising. One of the most effective methods of achieving this objective is to offer a Free Report in your advertising material. This method works because it can be done in a non-threatening way that allows people to get access to what they want most; information that will help them deal with an issue they need to address. The Free Report requires that the prospect leave their contact information, which allows you to stay in touch, and at the same time, use other marketing tools to convert them to a customer. The report means they don’t have to deal personally with an individual whose job it is to convince them to purchase, which is something that appeals to them.

There is a company today that not only has incorporated this form of marketing into their products and services but they also train companies on how to build their own special Free Reports. That company is Automated Marketing Solutions; or AMS. AMS provides a full array of marketing technology tools and processes that allow any company to deliver a comprehensive marketing program. They use many tested and proven methods including Free Reports. Their twelve years of experience in Direct Response Marketing ensures that even the beginner can quickly integrate and take advantage of the benefits of this technique. AMS also provides the capability for a company to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to manage and control that program without any further human input. The benefits to this system are significant time savings and consistency in marketing messages, in what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks. It also means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact for lack of interest.

If you would like to hear more about Free Reports and how it can help grow your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. Learn at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

If you would like to hear more about Free Reports and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. You will be surprised at how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

In today’s world, businesses are faced with many decisions when it comes to marketing and advertising. How do you get started? What media to use in your marketing campaigns. These are just a couple of the immediate challenges. The reality is that all of the options available will work to one degree or another. The key to your success, regardless of the medium you select, is to present yourself in a manner that appeals to your prospect. When this is understood, you can be successful regardless of your selection.

Very often people follow the generally accepted trends and styles. This happens with the clothes we wear (anyone remember Beatle Mania?), the beer we drink (what age are you) and the way we advertise in publications such as the Yellow Pages. Look in the Yellow Pages and you will see page after page of similar looking business card layouts and wording. What happens is we start to mentally purge the look-a-likes and carry on until we see something that is different.

Some of the most interesting, and different, ads that I have seen appear as a public service announcement. They have headlines like: Warning! Don’t Even Think of Using a Travel Agent Before Calling FREE Traveler Awareness Hotline! Copy below this ad would offer free advice on how to book the best rate for your next trip. I was scanning the travel section because I was obviously interested in taking a trip and this advertisement, because it was different, caught my eye. To make it really successful it also had an 800 number at the bottom to call for a Free Report. There was no ad sponsor so the whole presentation was non-threatening. I was given a safe way to get information I wanted without having to speak directly to a Travel Agent whose job it is to sell me.

The same method can be used regardless of the medium you select for your advertising. Be it Yellow Pages, Business Cards and Val-Pak Coupons. The key is to use the criteria that make it different, interesting and non-threatening. As much as the principles are basic – there definitely is an art to this type of marketing.

I have learned of a company, that over the last 12 years, has developed automated systems that allow business people to incorporate any type of marketing and/or advertising into an overall Marketing Strategy. That company is Automated Marketing Solutions or AMS. They differentiate themselves by not only providing solutions, but by educating their clients on the proper techniques to use including how to create the right message by the form of media being used. It doesn’t stop there. AMS provides the capability for a company to place their ENTIRE Marketing Program on Auto-pilot. Once a business marketing program (including voice messages, e-mails, faxes and other broadcast and mail out collateral) is compiled and sequenced, their Lead Management System or LMS provides the unique ability to control and manage the program without any further human interaction.

The benefits to this system include significant time savings on what would otherwise be labor intensive tasks. It also provides consistency in marketing messages. It also means that businesses never need worry about losing customers who misinterpreted your lack of contact for lack of interest. To learn more about Direct Response Marketing and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today. See how quickly and economically you can implement and start benefiting from AMS tested and proven technology and experience.

If you would like to hear more about Emotional Marketing and how it can benefit your business, visit Automated Marketing Solutions today.