Investing in your company image makes sense and you must consider this part of your business presentation. It is as important as the signage on your location and your brochures or website. Neglecting your company vehicles is not smart marketing or presentation. What can you do to dress up your company vehicles?

Well it would seem that it is good advice to never have your vehicles looking dirty. Did you know that Fred Smith of Federal Express use to wash every vehicle every day and then eventually went to twice per week washing? He knew the value of his vehicles on the street and the image it presented to his customers and future clientele.

Today there are so many excellent options for vehicle signage to consider once you commit to keeping your company vehicles clean. Lets face it if you plan on putting cool graphics on your vehicle no sense in advertising the fact that your vehicle looks dirty?

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Multi-step marketing is a simple yet extremely powerful strategy when you use it to its full potential. Multi-step marketing is selling people who have contacted you and asked for information about your product or service; a great way to build your own mailing list of prospects and customers.

You are able to send multiple mailings to those same people from which you have created your own mailing list. The key to multi-step marketing is following up with the prospects using an intensive direct mail campaign. How do you develop your multi-step marketing campaign? Follow these four simple steps… click here to read the entire article.

Step One
Use some sort of direct response advertising to obtain your “leads.” Your ads should have a powerful headline directed at your target audience that causes them to read the rest of the ad and respond. The purpose of your ad is to arouse the reader’s or listener’s curiosity, getting them to call. Always offer them something for free. Your goal in step one is to generate leads.

Step Two
Your prospect reads the ad and calls – leaving her name and address or she writes to you for more information. Using voice mail almost always generates more leads because people want things quickly and easily. Thank the prospect for calling, state a couple of major benefits, and end by asking for her name and address. The message should be between one and two minutes – no more. The goal in step two is to record your leads.

Step Three
Send your direct response offer to the prospect. These prospects fall into one of three categories. We’ll call them cold, warm and hot prospects. A Cold prospect is slightly interested; she is looking and will not buy. These prospects represent a small percentage of your inquiries. A Warm prospect is very interested, but not ready to buy. They represent the majority of your inquiries. A Hot prospect is very interested and ready to buy. They also represent a small percentage of your inquiries.

Step Four
Follow up with mailings to prospects who didn’t buy. Repeat this step again and again. According to “Sales and Marketing Magazine,” 80% of all people who inquire about a product buy that product within one year, but not from the company that made the original contact. Why? Because the company didn’t follow up. It generally takes at least five contacts with a prospect who showed interest in the product or service you offer before they will buy from you. If you are successful with the initial mailing, you can expect 30 to 70 percent in leads turning into customers with follow up mailings.

You don’t have to change the entire mailing each time. Generally changing the cover letter and making minor changes to the mailing is sufficient. Remember that one of your biggest expenses is getting the prospect. By following these four steps you can watch your sales and profits sky-rocket!

Excerpted from The PMS Principles – Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business – www.pmsprinciples.com – © 2005 – Heidi Richards

About the Author:

Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 other books. She is also the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” Basic Membership is FREE. Ms. Richards can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com .

Direct Mail may seem a little intimidating if you’ve never down it before. But like anything else, its’ much easier when you break it down into smaller steps. In fact, there are just five basic steps in any mailing.

1) Plan your Mailing
2) Choose Your list
3) Create your offer
4) Write and design your mail.
5) Track your results.

1) Plan Your Mailing
To get the most from your direct mail, it’s best to begin with a basic idea about what you want to do and how you want to do it. This is simply a matter of answering a few basic questions.

What is your objective?
Saying you want to do a mailing isn’t very helpful. You must decide specifically what you want to accomplish. If you want to give your sales team a regular flow of leads, for example, your objective may be to “generate 50 sales leads a month that convert into at least 5 sales with a per lead cost of no more than $100”. Whatever your objective, it must be specific and measurable.

What are you selling?
This sounds like a no-brainer. After all, you’re familiar with your product or service right? But your prospect may not be. So take a moment to think about how to describe it to someone who has never heard of you before. What is it? What does it do? How does it work? What do people do with it? What are the important features? How is it different, new, better, or unique? You don’t necessarily have to include all this information in your mailing, bit it’s good to have the details at hand.

Who are you selling to?
Describe your ideal customer. Is it a man or woman or both? What is the business title of this person? What responsibilities does this person have? What is this person’s concerns, fears, and attitudes a bout what you’re selling? Does your ideal customer match the actual customers you have now? The more specific you can ve now, the easier it will be to select good mailing list and crate a compelling offer later on.

What are the benefits?
Does your product save time or money? Offer more convenience? Provide a certain level of prestige? Is it exclusive? Does it help people advance in their career? Avoid mistakes, risk or embarrassment? Reduce the workload? Think about your product from your prospect’s point-of-view. Like the old saying goes, “People don’t want drills, they want holes”.

What is your offer?
An offer is much more than just the price. It’s also the unit of sale, optional features, premiums, guarantee or warranty, time limit, and so on. It is important to understand that your offer is one of the most important elements of your mailing. The more enticing your offer, the more likely your mailing will be successful.

What format should you use?
IN general, your decision about format should be based on how much selling you need to do. A simple reminder mailing to customers, for example, may work fine with a postcard. But a mailing to cold prospects may require a complete direct mail package. In general, the more familiar your prospect is with you and what you’re selling, the smaller the format can be. The less familiar , the larger or more extensive it should be.

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