How to Build Your Email Marketing Contact List
by Darcie Duttweiler
To grow your business in today’s online-dominated environment you’ll need an amazing eNewsletter. Creating a monthly eNewsletter is easy with the plethora of online email marketing companies offering low-cost services. The more difficult part of effective email marketing-once you’ve crafted a catchy newsletter, of course-is building your list. Here are easy steps you can take to make sure your email marketing list is maximized for the most open clicks:
* Make it easy for readers to sign up for your email marketing campaigns. Don’t request too much information-the more you ask for, the fewer people will likely sign up. Just ask for their name and email address.
* Make sure your eNewsletter subscription form is easy to find. If it makes sense to add this to every page of your website without creating clutter, feel free to do so. You can even add a form at the end of popular articles, in addition to having one at the top of the page.
* Utilize social media. Integrate your sign-up forms with your social networks.
* Create an archive so that potential subscribers can see past eNewsletters and are able to decide if they want to sign up.
* Reward your subscribers. You can offer an opt-in bonus for those who sign up for your emails, but you can also reward those who respond in some way-such as answering poll or survey questions or providing testimonials. Appreciated subscribers will want to stick with you-and your email marketing campaigns
* State your Privacy Policy. No one will want to subscribe to your eNewsletter if they think their personal information will be published, so let them know by providing a policy page that clearly outlines you won’t share their information with others.
* Blog often. This helps to build a community with prospects and potential clients, along with complementing your email marketing strategies. You can also post comments on others’ blogs with links back to your site.
* The No. 1 way to build a larger email marketing list is through publishing useful content. No one is going to want to sign up for your eNewsletters if you don’t provide them with unique and worthwhile content. Don’t send out newsletters too often, and make sure your content is worth reading.
For information on email marketing services, including reviews of popular companies, please visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.
About the Author
Darcie Duttweiler is a copywriter at ChooseWhat.com.
Chiropractic Marketing: Is This The Most Effective Way To Get New Patients?
by Ben Cummings
This article reveals a chiropractic marketing strategy that is one of the most reliable ways to get patients. It costs almost nothing. It can jump start a stagnant practice and has been utilized to build six-figure practices from scratch. You are about to master the power of the Community Meet and Greet.
Is this the most effective way to get new patients? I am refering to the community meet and greet.
How does this chiropractic marketing strategy work?
Here is the strategy.
Firstly, you need a practice newsletter.
All professionals should look for a way to maintain communication with their patient base. Mailing a newsletter periodically is my favorite strategy. No, don’t worry about sending the full color ones that can be self-mailed. It’s obvious to everyone you didn’t write it. I’m talking about a relationship-building newsletter.
Make about 30 copies of your most recent newsletter.
You then select a geographic area within 3 miles of your practice from which to farm for patients.
Pick out a day of the week when most residents will be home. This would be on Sunday in most parts of the country. You will take your newsletters along with a stack of Gift Certficates offering a free appointment / exam / some type of enticing introductory offer, making it easy to come in and see you.
You will go out door to door to introduce yourself to the people in this targeted community.
Your goal is to hand out one newsletter per household. You will ask them one simple question:
“My name is Dr. Blank and I own the XYZ chiropractic clinic around the corner. I am trying to increase my exposure in this neighborhood. I would like your advice on what you think would be a good way for me to get my name out there?”
You ask this question to get the person involved. In answering your question, you are getting them involved and they most often sell themselves on becoming your patient. If there is one thing we know, it is that involvement inches them closer to doing business with you.
That’s it! Every person reading this can do this without fear. Yes, you have to knock on the door. Yes, you have to speak to someone. Whoever answers the door is who you will speak with.
Not everyone will be home. As a doctor you’ll find that about 1/3rd of the people you meet will talk your ear off. ‘Oh, you’re a doctor? You know my (fill in complaint) has been bothering me lately!’
After talking about their problem with you, most will ask you ‘How hard is it to get in and see you?” At which point you can hand them the Gift Certificate or schedule them on the spot.
It’s as simple as introducing yourself, giving them a newsletter, and asking them this engaging question.
What kind of results you can expect?
Our clients tell us they get about 3 scheduled appointments for every hour they do this.
This proves very cost effective since their cost to acquire each patient is virtually zero.
If you’re a motivated doctor who’s looking for a big increase in appointments, there’s no reason why you couldn’t be generating 30 or more patient appointments every month if you were to do this on Sundays for a few hours.
A couple from California produced 400 patient appointments in just 3 months using this method. And I know another doctor that generated over 100 patients in a 2 month period.
The results can be terrific!
Try to get out of your comfort zone, bring your spouse with you, and go out into an affluent neighborhood sometime this month and hand out practice newsletters face to face. One of the most successful people I’ve ever met once said to me, ‘Try to break out of your comfort zone at least once a month; you’ll find all your breakthrough’s in life will come as a result of breaking through preconceived ideas that have been boxing you in.’
That’s pretty good advice.
About the Author
Read The 1.3 Million Dollar Chiropractic Marketing Case Study. Further, make sure you watch free chiropractic marketing video training’s of visual walk-throughs teaching the very best methods for getting patients. (just click on the blue links!) Good luck in your chiropractic marketing endeavors. — Ben Cummings
7 Reasons Your Company Should Podcast
by Mike Consol
If you’re still not sure what a podcast is don’t feel bad. You are one of millions of intelligent, informed people who are missing this piece of the New Media puzzle
Having excused you, now permit me to chastise you. All businesspeople should know what a podcast is, especially considering there are tens of thousands of them and their legions of listeners are growing. Podcasting can also be very beneficial to your company or you as a business professional.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, a few basics.
Podcasts are audio files, mostly composed of people talking and often including music and sound effects. They can be downloaded and listened to on a computer, or transferred to your iPod (hence the “pod”-cast name) or other MP3 player. The vast majority of podcasts are free of charge through iTunes, Podcast Alley and other outlets.
To give you some idea, I subscribe to more than a dozen podcasts that range from audio versions of TV shows such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation to Nation Public Radio interview programs Fresh Air and the Diane Rehm Show, to academic and business programming like the Harvard Business IdeaCast, McKinsey Quarterly Podcast and The Economist magazine.
It’s great stuff that will feed your head and keep you atop modern day events.
Podcasts are convenient because they can be listened to while driving, pumping iron at the gym, hiking, zipping to the office on the train, sitting on your sofa or dozing in bed at night (one of my favorite ways to enter the Land of Nod). It is this kind of flexibility that helps make podcasts so popular.
That’s one of the big advantages audio podcasts have over video – they require one rather than two senses, meaning they don’t require your undivided attention. You can listen to audio while participating in any number of activities. It’s probably not a good idea to watch a video while you’re riding a horse or trying to stay balanced on a treadmill.
All one need do is check out some of the organizations that podcast to realize its value and implications. There’s the legendary consulting firm of McKinsey & Co, accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers and academic icon Harvard Business School. These are sophisticated organizations that don’t waste time on useless activities. Why do these organizations podcast?
Here are seven good reasons.
DISPLAY EXPERTISE. When McKinsey & Co. conducted its annual global survey of business spending on Web 2.0 technologies, it not only released a written report, it produced a podcast consisting of an interview with one of the research report’s authors. Another example is a podcast titled Connecting Climate Change and Economic Recovery, featuring an interview with economist Nicholas Stern. People seek out expertise. Demonstrate it and you will win customers and respect.
DISPLAY LEADERSHIP. Harvard Business School does exactly that with its IdeaCast. The Harvard Business IdeaCast has tackled subjects bearing the following headlines:
>> Use right incentives for Gen Y, Gen X >> Winning in a turbulent economy >> Redesigning health care >> When high performers struggle >> Is executive pay broken? >> The 5 leadership essentials >> Being a good boss in a bad economy
EDUCATE. The Britain-based podcast The Naked Scientists uses British humor and interesting topics to teach people about scientific and technological breakthroughs. It’s an effective and entertaining approach. Some recent subjects were:
>> Where do lost socks go? >> The diseased brain >> High altitude adventures >> Why does water expand when it freezes? >> Catching up with cancer research >> Building bodies and mending broken hearts >> Can you run faster on the moon?
PROVIDE VALUE. Grammar Girl and her brief 10-minute podcasts have become widely popular in part from publicity she has received in magazines such as Business Week. But she has sustained that audience by giving them valuable information pertaining to the proper use of grammar. She makes it fun and easy to learn proper English skills. And who doesn’t want to sound like they didn’t fall asleep in English class?
BRAND YOUR COMPANY. If you’re British Petroleum and you’re trying to position yourself as a forward-thinking company, wouldn’t producing podcasts about clean and sustainable forms of energy help immensely to burnish your image as a company operating in future tense? Podcast about topics that core to the company’s brand.
BRAND YOURSELF. If you’re the brilliant management consultant or life coach you claim to be, prove it with a weekly or monthly podcast with a snappy title. Consider how much credence would be lent to your reputation by podcasts that offer terrific advice and success stories about your own clients? Demonstrate your ability and your podcasts become testimonials.
CONNECT WITH KEY PLAYERS. Imagine you’re a regional bank that wants to reach out to key players in your market. Rather than your standard sales letter or cold call, what if you invited your target to be featured on the bank’s CEO Spotlight podcast? Now the CEO can share his or her wisdom and is likely to be flattered by the invitation. You get a face-to-face interview out of the deal and the start of a personal relationship that could be parlayed into a client relationship. The caveat, of course, is that no one will be interested in subscribing to your podcast unless you provide interesting and educational content. So don’t make the mistake of using it strictly as a relationship building tool. That will bore or offend people and cost you listeners.
About the Author
Mike Consol is president of MikeConsol.com (MikeConsol.com), which provides business writing seminars, PowerPoint presentation skills training, Web 2.0 strategies and media training. Consol spent 17 years with American City Business Journals, the nation’s largest publisher of metropolitan business journals.